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 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 due to the fact that most staff seem to work a pretty set 35-40 hours in all cases.
ii) We have in fact hired a PA to manage our life operations, but I found the benefits to be pretty minimal (also via hour tracking). Sadly the between the coordination time between us managing the PA and the work they were able to accomplish without our physical presence, our total time saved was pretty limited. This was in large part due to bureaucracy type issues like banks needing to talk to the account holder that I would expect to be true for most PA’s. We do use a bunch of technological systems which mimic a lot of their work (calendly, online groceries, etc)
iii) My job (even though we are based out of India) is pretty minimal in terms of flights, so maybe I am just lucky that I always have enough work-reading to cover the time in them. Maybe this is an issue for folks that fly a lot more or have less reading intensive work tasks? I also am lucky small enough (6 feet) to work on a laptop in even an economy class seat.
iiii) I do spend a decent amount on business class laptops that are updated before they break, but not sure that technological progress is fast enough to see huge differences in this in a single year unless someone is doing pretty computer intensive tasks like video editing.
Regarding any of these or other ideas I would be really interested in seeing any empirical data on them improving work hours as I have found this historically pretty hard to find and hard to create in my personal data. Even data on overall time trades off 1:1 vs 1:3 etc or data on really huge amounts of well time tracked hours worked by people using systems like these would be super handy.
Joey, am I right in thinking your don't count work expenses in your estimate?
Your circumstances seem quite unusual for a couple of reason.
It seems you work in your home, and so don't commute to work. Most people don't get to move their office to suit their preferences. In general, if your office is in a city, you either pay to commute to it, or you'd pay more rent if you move closer, both of which are more expensive than your set up. (You could cycle, but you'd expect to you pay more to live within cycling distance).
I'd also be curious to know how you spen... (read more)