I live in Canada and its quite upsetting to see salaries just a skip over the border that are 120K USD for remote positions but they won't even entertain hiring a Canadian, meaning in Canada the remoting range is 55-70 CAD USD. Going above 70K is possible but in my experience those jobs can only be acquired through personal networking in the GTA which is self-defeating because it keeps you tethered to the GTA.
Imagine if I could live somewhere like Thunder Bay and make a 120K remote. The only possibility has been freelancing and I was successful for a while remoting though running your own company came with downsides which led to my eventual decision to work back full time for a company.
Hiring someone across a national border adds a lot of complexity and cost to the employment process. A few companies I have worked for which did have foreign employees ended up with an umbrella company paradigm, with individual corporations in each country to help ease the complications and reduce the costs.
You have different tax withholding procedures, differences in labor law and what sort of employment contracts are allowed, differences in mandated benefits (e.g. parental leave).
This is an issue even if you want to hire in more than one US state.
The question is whether all that adds up to "a lot", which is a value judgment.
One way to "hacking" the location issue is to move to SV, get hired in a big company, then convince them over the years to set up a presence in your home country which you will gladly spearhead with no increased salary demands. Worked for my friend from an African country
Imagine if I could live somewhere like Thunder Bay and make a 120K remote. The only possibility has been freelancing and I was successful for a while remoting though running your own company came with downsides which led to my eventual decision to work back full time for a company.