I was planning to donate the couple bucks I had left over from the year to the charity called “San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance”, I was doing a background check on CharityNavigator and they gave the charity full ratings so it seemed good.
Then I stumbled upon the salary section. What the fuck? I earn <20k a year and was planning to contribute to someone’s million dollar salary? WHAT.
It's not an absolute, it's just an incentive. Talent is also an intangible, it cannot really be measured. Nor does high pay in some way guarantee you will get a talented or qualified person for your position, it just gives you better odds. It's bait, basically, but you cannot guarantee your bait will work to attract what you want.
I'm not sure of any evidence, I'm not an economist. I'm discussing the theory of how capitalist systems are intended to function. How well they succeed at this is very messy and muddled at best.
Lastly, I actually disagree that our hypothetical construction person makes less because they are less talented. It's that their skill is in lower demand. They could be extremely talented, but there are simply more of them available, so less needs to be offered to attract them.
