Topic: Can Bitcoin help to balance salaries across the world? - page 4. (Read 881 times)

A single currency and a universal minimum wage will make sense if the world is governed by a single government. Countries suffer from different levels of inflation, and the prices of goods and services are different. If I am paid the same salary as a worker in the US, I will be living like a king in my country while the workers in the US might still be struggling to survive. This is because the cost of living in my country is lower than in the US. Except for nations that have the same economic conditions, a uniform payment system will still lead to inequality.

I think the forum is a unique case where it does not ask for your location data, therefore the standard of efficiency depends on the quality of the posts and there were big differences between accounts that get +$300 weekly and accounts that get less than $100 weekly.
Unifying salaries will not be good because it kills creativity and even in countries that give low salaries there are benefits besides the salary such as free housing or longer vacations or other differences.

Of course this is actually part of the problem: as long as there is more supply (of workers) than demand, then the price tends to "level down" to the cheapest offer. And then a worker from a "cheap salary country" would try to become the cheapest offer if they still get more than for a typical "offline" job in their country.

But I believe a "balancing" or "levelling" could occur as a very slow and gradual process. If the mentioned worker sees, in a global currency, what people from "richer" countries get for exactly the same work, then he may adjust his standards a bit to the upside. Of course this already happens with the USD as "de facto global currency", but with Bitcoin it would become even clearer. This is why I highlighted the "sense of value" in the earlier post.

Let's say (assuming we stay stable at current prices around $56-63k) a person from *typical poor country* is about to offer a programming job for 0.0003BTC / hour (about $15-20 in dollars) and sees that his US/European colleagues charge no less than 0.0008. Some would then be tempted to go up to 0.0004 or even 0.0005. Or they work on their language skills to not appear like "the typical cheap programmer from overseas" and then is able to even go to 0.0005 or 0.0006.

This is true unfortunately, at least in most jobs. But in a typical online freelancing platform setting, where I imagine Bitcoin first to thrive and earlier than in "offline" jobs, often you will appear as a "black box" to recruiters, with only an username (and a portfolio of your work) for example. On these platforms, the "levelling up" process for people from poorer countries I described above in the answer to Darker45 could take place gradually.
 

Currency is just a currency regardless it's USD, Bitcoin etc it can't balance salaries across the world.

The recruiters are always discriminate their workers, they will hire and pay based on your ethnic, races, countries, and even your religions.

You know, company always try to reduce their expense as much as they can, so if they know you live in third world country where the minimum salary is $100/month, even you have high quality skill that worth $100K/month in first world country, they will try to offer at least $100/month instead of $100K/month.

If this could balance inequality, I’m not sure given that, people around the world leaves under different economic conditions and as such, you can’t expect that people from nations with low economy can’t have the hope of a fiat salary or even try to measure up with people from mayors where the conditions of living is very fair.

If this could help in a study, well yes.

If you ask if this would be done or implemented, I’m not so sure. The fiat is an identity and symbolic currency and as such, countries around the world will always want to pay its servants in public offices in fiat.

Like you said, this case is already present in certain sectors, but I don't think this would be fully implemented unless global prices of goods and services are also more or less uniform and are denominated in Bitcoin. Otherwise, what would prevail as the ultimate factor in salaries are the local standards of living.

Bitcoin helps level the playing field, yeah, but businesses and companies aren't unaware of the situation all over the world. And rather than help level the field further, they're actually making the situation worse. A company doesn't hire locals if that means a higher salary all the while there are abundant and exactly the same skills available overseas that are much cheaper.

Or, as far as actual experience is concerned, they may start giving equal salaries regardless of the locations of their employees but they eventually adjust them according to local standards if that means saving a considerable amount of operational expenses thereby increasing the revenue.

That's true of course. There are already platforms taking away the "hard work" in the salary payment mechanisms, like Bitwage. Of course for a fee (paid by the recipient of the salary). The OP also assumes an evolution towards a more stable price.

Volatility is already lowering but not enough for a widespread salary payment. We should stay for at least a year under 1.5%, maximum 2% (30 day average volatility) for that, and currently we're just above 3% (in 2023 the record low was recorded with 0,77%). Above all these panic dumps like in early August, but also FOMO phases like in early 2024 from time to time increase the value still a bit. Guessing from the chart, I estimate in the next crypto winter or early bull (maybe 2025 or 26) these conditions could become true.


Source: Bitcoin Volatility Index


Exactly that. In some countries, the USD already has this function (for example, in South America), and in others the Euro (Eastern Europe). But Bitcoin has the potential to really unify this "sense of value".

Yes, there are of course some more differences impacting in salaries than just the education level.

For example, a programmer in a country like India may pay less for housing (rent/buying a house) than one in the US, and that lowers the minimum value they're going to accept for their work. However, rent prices at least in the bigger cities are also "globalizing" gradually, and this could become even more pronounced if Bitcoin becomes a truly global currency (imagine real estate websites showing the prices in BTC). This has of course also potentially negative consequence as it could lead to housing bubbles but in general this would be limited mostly to very attractive areas.

One thing we have to notice at all time is that Bitcoin was designed as the alternative currency to the fiat currency in world. And once bitcoin is used as the global economy which can be use to pay salaries and buying things in all the countries then the era of fiat has come to an end.

You make sense, but maybe it will happen if only it is possible that everyone will like bitcoin and agree to start using it.
A singular currency can really affect the way people pay for job done because it will give everyone the same sense of value of money. I think one of the very major things affecting the different amount of salaries paid to different individuals doing the same kind of job in different countries is based on the economic level in that country the lifestyle and cost of living.  

I like and support the idea, but that might bring some sort of extra work if it's to be used in salary payment, and some times it could also cost a company to pay more or less depending on the current Bitcoin price as of the time of paying the worker who has earned from the company, unless the payment will be calculated in Bitcoin equivalent based on the current price in order to moderate and maintain a fixed value payment.

Bitcoin is the first truly global currency. It can be used by anyone having access to the Internet, in any country.

Imagine now a world where salaries are paid in Bitcoin. This would enable us to compare salaries all over the world. And at least regarding work done online, like programming, graphic design and other typical freelance and digital work, it could help to establish a "global" salary level and thus help to balance inequality. [1]

There are freelance sectors where this already is the case, like our signature campaigns here, but also the Value4Value economy on Nostr, but it's still niches. Of course for this to work on a bigger scale than now, Bitcoin price would have to become more stable.

Also you could counter this argument that on freelance platforms the USD is used as a kind of substitute global currency, and international freelancers are competing there without country limits. However, there are several countries where the access to the USD is restricted, or where the conversion to a convenient rate is difficult. Thus a truly global currency like Bitcoin still could help to make salaries more "comparable".

What do you think?

---

[1] You could of course argue that the inequality has also to do with differences regarding the education level. But even regarding "digital" work, there are still salary differences which can't be explained by this - i.e. where a work of similar quality is more expensive in some countries than in others.