Say you work 100% remote, 8 hours a day. That's 2080 work hours a year, out of 8760 hours.
That means you need to be connected to internet, have electricity, etc. 23.74% of the time - let's round that up to 24%
Say a worker pays $600 / year for internet, $2400 for electricity / year, and - dunno - $1500 for your cellphone / year.
So that's $4500 / year, and your employer must cover approximately $1080 of that. If the company has 1000 employees, that's a million in extra costs.
Doesn't really sound like it is going to break the bank, especially not if your employer is also able to cut previous office-related costs.
Also, employers would probably start to offer a bit lower salaries to the workers that don't live in very high cost of living areas...if you pay 1000 employers on average $100k / year, that's a minimum $100m in annual salary expenses. If employees are willing to take a $99k salary for guaranteed 100% remote work, with the above expenses covered, then those costs are offset for the employer...
My company is largely remote at this point and is moving away from CA for cost/tax reasons. For some portion of companies this is just one more reason to move headquarters.
That being said, I live in a pretty population dense area and my largest cost by far is dedicated home office space. It would be nice for my company to pay for that but it would have also been nice for them to pay for gas for my commute when I had one.
I think CA is likely overplaying their hand. They are not the place of choice for many remote employees (because of taxes) and are trying hard to not be the place of choice for remote companies.
> That being said, I live in a pretty population dense area and my largest cost by far is dedicated home office space. It would be nice for my company to pay for that but it would have also been nice for them to pay for gas for my commute when I had one.
This is probably the best equivalent comparison I've seen in the thread. Paying commute costs vs paying home office costs.
i'm unsure if i've mentioned this ever, but i had a company give me a large bonus (to my salary) when i requested remote work, with a contractual rider stating that my salary would go up an additional $15,000 if i moved within 20 minutes of the office within 1 year. The bonus was to entice me to come to the office more often - that is, to offset my pain and suffering, wear and tear, fuel costs, etc.
Where I live, dedicated home office space is about 1/4 the cost of commercial rent, in terms of $/sqft. It would be stupid for companies to not pay for it in lieu of commercial real estate.
As a Californian who has lived here for a quarter century and has never threatened to leave, I’m glad the state doesn’t cater to startups who can’t afford an extra 5% for home office expenses for their remote workers. They have zero loyalty to the state and if all employees are remote there’s little benefit keeping the corp in CA. Everyone has to register to do business here and the FTB will get the bulk of its cut anyway.
Good riddance. We need the space more than we need the tax revenue. (no offense intended, the housing situation is just dire and I’ll use any excuse to convince people to move out cause so few actually people want to)
confused. If all of this is about remote workers, how are they taking up "the space" here? aren't most of them in the lower COL areas freeing up the space while the company pays the CA taxes?
My rant is directed at the entrepreneurs and companies who scoff at paying their fair share to employees and the state while demanding all the benefits of living and operating in the great state of California. Getting these politically powerful NIMBYs out of the state would do a disproportionate amount of good.
The reality is that California is so economically powerful that any corporation that leaves is almost certainly going to have to register as a foreign business and pay the franchise tax on all revenue earned in California anyway (the minimum cutoff is $500k or 25% of total revenue, whichever is lowest). The employees who stay in California are still going to pay income tax which makes up the bulk of state revenues. Everyone is still going to be paying sales tax on goods purchased from California vendors, the largest source after income tax.
Corporate taxes contribute less than 15% of California's budget so it's a reverse catch 22: either they're so small that the threats to leave are empty (DO IT!), or they're so big that they can't afford not to pay California taxes regardless of where they are. Like I said, either way the FTB will get the bulk of its cut.
And destroy the property values of all the people that worked their whole lives to own a home there. You're being myopic or selfish, neither is fair to your neighbors.
You can't afford a home for a multitude of reasons I'm sure, least of which is your neighbor insisting you shouldn't.
If you want an affordable home move somewhere affordable. You can't legislate affordable housing for yourself without introducing problems for everyone else. Someone just living in a home they bought is not actively preventing you from affording one, at least, they're the last people you should blame (even after yourself).
I think it's as simple as "if no one is living in your home in a permanentmannee you get taxed hard". Landlord shouldn't be able to sit on a vacant apartment unless they can show that literally no one applied for a room. A billionaire shouldn't be able to treat a house like a stock.
But again, I don't know what any of this has to do with small startups suffering from the main topic. Paying some 4k more per employee isn't a singular gatekeeper, it's a deal breaker for those who already are on thr fence.
Property values should not be an investment or retirement fund, it is selfish to think so. Literally, by definition, if you think the value of YOUR home and SOME of your neighbors should increase to price others out, that is selfish.
I don't disagree at all. I like the idea of homes being depreciating assets. America just doesn't subscribe to that and so paying a massive up front cost, there is some expectation no one is going to actively try to destroy your property value.
Because that is myopic or selfish. You didn't or couldn't buy a house when it was smart, now you want to screw over people who bought homes recently because prices are unaffordable. That is either selfish because you don't care about their property values (when they probably much like you had to work hard for it), or myopic because you didn't even consider it.
What exactly are you even proposing? You want the government to mandate cheaper land, construction material, and builder wages? To lower taxes on all of the above? People who think there is some simple solution "duh just build more houses!" are extremely myopic. Again it's not my problem, I'm not against building more houses and I also get NIMBY because "affordable" or government subsidized housing has a direct correlation to crime rates, lowering property values, and lowering the quality of schools.
Property prices are better off destroyed though. It doesn't take away the home from people who overpaid for it, making homes accessible is better for society outside of some myopic nonsense where someone's net value drops, the actual homeowner can just keep using their home as before.
> And destroy the property values of all the people that worked their whole lives to own a home there.
California stands alone as one of the top 5 or 6 biggest economies in the world. The 2008 GFC was a blip in our housing market even when the economy turned upside down. My city experienced less than 18 months of flat real estate prices before growing out of control again.
If an actual economic crisis caused by housing loans doesn't destroy California's housing market, forcing companies to pay their fair share certainly won't.
So if I invent an awesome new car, it's selfish because it's destroying the value of your beater? If I invent a new GPU that costs 1/10 the price of existing ones, it's selfish because your computer is now worthless on the secondary market?
Homes are to LIVE in, I consider them consumables just like cars, just on the order of ~a lifetime instead of ~10 years. I don't give a flying f about neighbors' house or car values, I just care that I have a comfortable roof to live under and that I can afford it.
I know boomers treat houses as investment assets. I don't. They're shitty return and high-maintainence as an investment. But I'd like to have my own so I can modify the hell out of it to my liking.
So basically you want to own a home with all the benefits that come with it but you don't think you should pay the market rate like everyone else because you deserve not to. And boomers are to blame for it. Gotcha.
My commute costs going into the office everyday for a year are far more than $1000/year. I estimate it’s about $4k/year and that’s with taking public transit & biking. Those commute costs aren’t covered by my employer. I’d gladly trade a $4K decrease in commute costs for a $1k increase in internet and electricity. Also internet is fixed so regardless if I’m remote or in office I’m still paying the same bill.
Office costs are easily 10x that. Meanwhile, should employers also reimburse employees for commuting costs? Why not? Those costs probably exceed the wfh costs to the employees.
Does CA require the reimbursement of commuting costs? If not, is it not fair to view this new requirement as a backdoor way to increase return-to-office pressure?
I've said over and over again that I would easily take a 50% salary cut to stay remote if it were the only option. I don't want to "get one over" on anyone, work multiple jobs, or slack off. I just want a square deal that does not dictate my physical location in life.
I don’t understand why people shouldn’t be allowed to enter into any sort of employment contract that they wish. As long as both parties are well informed then they should be free to agree on what expenses will be covered and what won’t
On principle, yes. The superbowl halftime show is a good example. As an observer, sometimes its hard to tell if the artist in the halftime show is being paid by the NFL to entertain the fans or if they are paying the NFL (effectively accepting a negative wage) for the chance to promote their personal brand. If they can accept a negative wage when they want why can't I be free to negotiate the same for myself?
Yes, it is immoral. You are taking away someone’s freedom to willingly enter into a contract. Plenty of successful societies do not have a minimum wage.
Do those same societies have strong social safety nets or otherwise public, low cost means of education and healthcare. Because if so, that's a really huge difference.
"Libertarian doesn't understand how democracy works"
It doesn't matter if both parties are informed, the balance of power is what matters. It doesn't matter how well informed you are if your other option is starvation.
Everyone, and I mean everyone I've ever met that makes this argument is coming from a position of power themselves. They some rare ability in a labor constrained market and want to generalized their situation to everyone without realizing the massive abuses that already occurred that mandated these rules in the first place.
And how much does a business save by having to buy/rent, insure, secure, power, internet, water, clean, and climate control a large building for all of it's employees vs reimbursing them for working from home?
I would guess even lower than those estimates. Companies only pay a fraction of the gas mileage used on a car for work purposes: I expect they wouldn’t be on the hook for even the full percentage of electricity and data for work devices used from home. This could be a nice offset but I would be surprised if companies start picking up the tab for a full 8 hours of electricity for a home, let alone 8 hours of usage of a single computer. Additionally if it requires tracking and reimbursement the way miles do it will be a burden not all employees will bear.
Yes, although it is pretty good. My gas currently costs only 14 cents per mile so the other 51.5 cents needs to cover the cost for insurance and maintenance and the purchase price which can mean that you could come out ahead or behind depending on the situation. The company isn’t required to pay the full cost of operating the vehicle if they are more than the 65.5 cents so from that I am extrapolating that companies aren’t going to be paying the full price per employee just some averaged price. It will be a help to those who are currently paying out of pocket costs and will hopefully not be an undue burden on employers or employees.
According to the article, electricity costs are not yet decided, so it's probably closer to $2,100/year. Also that's only for workers who are required to be remote, not those that choose to be, so likely doesn't apply to all employees (edit: sorry, required or encouraged to be remote)
Yeah to give some context the average cost that employers pay for health insurance in the USA is $1,251 per month. For the big tech companies it's often higher due to better coverage/location.
So this is nothing. Employers will not flinch at this.
I do think salaries will be adjusted a little bit in new listings but 115k vs 116k is not a huge difference and I doubt most medium or large employers will make a stink over reducing people’s pay over this
Say you work 100% remote, 8 hours a day. That's 2080 work hours a year, out of 8760 hours.
That means you need to be connected to internet, have electricity, etc. 23.74% of the time - let's round that up to 24%
Say a worker pays $600 / year for internet, $2400 for electricity / year, and - dunno - $1500 for your cellphone / year.
So that's $4500 / year, and your employer must cover approximately $1080 of that. If the company has 1000 employees, that's a million in extra costs.
Doesn't really sound like it is going to break the bank, especially not if your employer is also able to cut previous office-related costs.
Also, employers would probably start to offer a bit lower salaries to the workers that don't live in very high cost of living areas...if you pay 1000 employers on average $100k / year, that's a minimum $100m in annual salary expenses. If employees are willing to take a $99k salary for guaranteed 100% remote work, with the above expenses covered, then those costs are offset for the employer...