in california, a guy working at walmart or mcdonalds gets paid $9 an hour (minimum wage of that state)
in Arkansas, a guy working at walmart or mcdonalds gets paid $6.25 an hour (minimum wage of that state)
that means right now, this second.. it take 57 hours of labour to buy one bitcoin from arkansas
that means right now, this second.. it take 40 hours of labour to buy one bitcoin from california
You fail to take taxes into account as well as the overall labor market of both states.
CA generally has a much higher tax burden so just because their minimum wage is higher does not mean that a worker has more after-tax income. Plus there are several federal transfer payment programs that fade away as income increases, making someone's effective tax rate >100% once the net effect of these transfer payments are taken into account.
Plus very few people earn minimum wage so this is a bad comparison (even for workers who work at MCD or WMT)
1. people on minimum wage are not on that much of a tax rate no matter what state/country they are in.
2. the difference between $6.25 and $9 is over 40% difference in income.. again tax differences wont offset the spread
3. if you think that not many people work for minimum wage, check out the news, in regards to mcD wage protests (which gave me the idea)
4. example: californias state website shows someone under $28k/year pays only
$300 in income tax
more importantly
5. if EVERYONE was on the same value minimally world wide that ensured no matter where you lived your income was above "living costs" then there would be equality. $15 is the highest 'living cost' minimal thus i think it fair to set that as a fair market value for a bitcoin employee.
and for those that think start ups should move to arkansas to pay people at $6.25 or move to africa for $2 a day.. then that act alone proves that greed of companies will always outweigh any attempt to improve world equality. unless businesses treat the sweat of one mans labour the same no matter what zip code they are under, inequality will continue
Different locations have different state burdens (the mandatory "services" that you must accept and pay for). These affect cost of living, not just through taxes but also through pricing, building regulations (making building expensive) and all sorts of regulatory intrusions.
It isn't so much a dichotomy between greed vs equality as government market distortions (which minimum wages are also an example of). It is however fostering freedom to pay people in areas (like Arkansas and Africa) without these burdens, so do your start up there if you like.
Increasing Minimum wage in the USA is pretty much baked in to the economic pie for other reasons (the Fed needs to create inflation, which is the hidden taxation). So don't be fooled...the USA will get higher minimum wages, but it has NOTHING to do with creating equality. It is instead about how to enrich the central banking and government tax base.