Purchasing Power

If we were all paid a minimum of $500,000 an hour, and paying rent or a mortgage each month is no less than 40 million a month, then the high numerical value of the wage does not offset the very low purchasing power for a necessity like shelter.  Much like it often is in present America, the proportion of money one would have to spend on shelter on this hourly, 40 hour workweek compensation scale would be very high.  Even though these amounts of money are very large and would strike many people as beneficial, they are only as beneficial as their purchasing power allows for.

To clarify, because economic systems are inherently social constructs (not logical truths about economic systems, which are intrinsic to reality as logical necessities), it could have been the case that all national and local economies were intentionally structured this way, for there is no numeric value of currency or compensation--such as 50 dollars or 200 pesos--that is not arbitrary.  It is only within the context of a particular arbitrary monetary systems that a given level of compensation could be fair.  A baseline factor for fairness is how livable compensation is, and this is in turn ultimately determined by how much an amount of money can buy, especially when it comes to necessities.

Higher wages/salaries are certainly helpful.  Whatever the cost of items or services, more pay will of course make buying them easier.  Nevertheless, the extent to which a specific degree of compensation can buy the likes of shelter, water, food, clothing, and more is the larger issue.  In contrast to the earlier example, $5 an hour would be spectacular if housing was only $50 a month.  For both and other cases, it is, again, the purchasing power that reflects the real value of any amount of any currency.

Looking for jobs with higher compensation and pressing for raises on the basis of individual merit or the cost of living are still the only things typical consumers have within their control.  They cannot just will the cost of a meal, a car, electricity, furniture, or entertainment to decrease, but they can do their best, if they have the energy and desire, to try to secure higher payment for the work they already are involved with or to switch jobs altogether.  More income changes nothing about the cost of living, although it does mean one has more money to spend on necessities and non-necessities alike.

Purchasing power is indeed beyond the control of ordinary spenders.  Inflation, including the kind caused by corporate greed, dilutes it.  Prices of all sorts of things could change momentarily and with no advance notice.  For this reason, pursuing the highest compensation one can obtain (without doing anything immoral or otherwise irrational) is ideal.  It is still vital that even earning large numerical values is not necessarily the same as having a large purchasing capacity.