A lot of people in the EA movement have a large say over their salary, whether it be earning to give where you can donate down to a certain amount or working for a nonprofit where you take a lower salary. EAs are a unique group in that many of them are taking a salary they feel is ethical instead of the average amount the market would pay for someone of their skill set. So what amount is ethical?
One model I really like the idea of, and Katherine and I have decided to use for now, is taking a look at the world average GDP per capita(1,2). This comes out to about 10k USD per person or about 20k USD for a couple, although estimates vary and there are other plausible models (e.g. this number does not take into account PPP adjustments). This approximate world average has a very strong intuitive appeal to us, because it’s what somebody would get paid if there was complete equality. It fits well with utilitarianism and the veil of ignorance arguments. It also nicely goes up over time (as world poverty is going down and inflation happens) and is currently achievable for a couple with no children in many first world cities (I personally live in Vancouver but have also lived off similar/less wages in Oxford). I personally do not feel this model impairs my work productivity (I pay for many time saving luxuries such as having a dishwasher, premade vegan meals and getting my groceries delivered) nor is it is a strong self sacrifice (I live in a safe part of town at a decent level).
For people interested my monthly budget breaks down roughly like this (per person USD)
Rent $220, Utilities $37, Phone bill $19, Internet $25, Food $170, Transportation $50, Other spending $150, Saving $100, Taxes $35.
There are some things that are specific to my life that is not replicable. For example having no healthcare costs due to living in Canada, sharing a room with my wife, and having no student debt. There are some sacrifices for sure. I do not own a car (although I do have a car-coop membership); I do not eat out often (maybe once a month); I don’t do expensive activities (like rock climbing), the basement suite we are renting is old and things occasionally break down; I live with a roommate as well as my wife; and I do not travel often.
But I really feel far from deprived, especially after seeing poverty first hand in India. I never feel hunger or live without heat. I never live paycheck to paycheck and always have thousands of hours of entertainment at my fingertips. I end up living like a lot of people lived in college. I’m posting this because I think a lot of other people can do this too if they try and want to show that it’s possible.
I agree with all of this in principle so we're now down to an empirical question.
Holden is the most extreme single case I can think of, for the purposes of demonstration. There are a handful of other managers who generate bottlenecks who I think might generate an expected $1,000+ worth of donations with an hour of extra work. But yes they're not the typical case.
I doubt Holden could find ways to spend $1m usefully to save time. But $200k? Probably.
Options include:
In SF this stuff could easily run in to the hundreds of thousands, and I'd be psyched to see Holden spending that kind of money so he can work every hour God gives without any other stressors in his life.
I suspect that many EAs doing direct work are committing the reverse moral error of undervaluing their time in order to seem i) humble, ii) morally dedicated by being conspicuously frugal. They would be more moral people if they spent more on themselves. I didn't used to think this, but seeing how time-effective direct work can be I have changed my mind.
In my experience during the middle of the workday I think it translates close to 1:1. Hence I get UberX if I'm moving between work tasks. During random evenings, or weekends it's more like 3:1 (i.e. a third of the time I save goes towards extra work). So I often use Uber Pool if I'm just relaxing. But YMMV.
I don't want to tell Joey he has opportunities he thinks he doesn't. His circumstances are a bit unusual - my impression is that people working in professional positions in the centre of expensive cities (e.g. high up positions in government) can easily spend up to $100k on sensible things to free up their time, and even more importantly, their attention. And I admire them for figuring out how to do it so they can fully apply themselves to their comparative advantage.
I like getting down to the empirics :) Some thoughts/empirical data on some of the suggestions. Specific to me as it’s hard for me to speak for Holden, but I would be somewhat surprised if my situation/work loads were way different than other folks working in EA orgs.
i) Indeed at CSH our Canada office is small enough to fit in a single home which we do to save money and travel time. Our India location does have an office, but I have found its location to have near 0 effect on staff work hours (this is tracked so we have decent data on it). This might be... (read more)