Difster asks, “do you think that an employer should pay you based on what you need to live?”

One person answers that if an employer can’t pay her what she needs to live, then the employer shouldn’t offer the job at all. But if that is enough for what somebody else needs to live, why should that person be deprived of that job?

Another person answers, “Do you suppose an employer’s self-pay (whether salary, dividends, capital gains, whatever) is based at all on what s/he needs to live? If the market were fair, the answers to both would be the same.” But the employer can’t pay themselves *anything* without income coming in from their customers (and typically, a new business being built from scratch means an employer works without pay, using savings from previous employment from another employer). This person seems to think that the market is not “fair” unless everyone is paid the same amount of money, whatever the minimum is required for what is needed to live–but what are they counting as “needs”? People don’t *need* to have children, pets, cars, or organic produce, but those all affect the costs of living.