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California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

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Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#401
post #399

Many young people or those cheering for employee/consumer rights do not seem to understand that this does more net harm than good. For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses. Like any economically rational entity, your employer is going to respond by reducing headcount, not hiring in CA anymore, cutting costs in your annual raises, or some combination of the above…

Companies are already doing layoffs and hiring offshore. They dont care about you or me or anybody but profits. Things will estabilize at some point and it's better for 99% of people if there are pro-workers laws in place by then.

It's because companies care about profits that these laws are harmful to workers.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#402
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is it not myopic or selfish for my neighbors to insist that I shouldn’t be able to afford a home because of their precious investment?

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).

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A computer uses 150kWh/year @ $0.42/kWh that is $75/year. Certainly internet is possible at $60/month so $720/year. Say you have a generous $500/5 years for equipment plan and you are still below $1,000/year/employee. Yes there are other expenses but you should already be providing a PC etc. How are you getting to millions at a small company? Certainly a shop with 3,000 people is out a few million but... You have 3,0…

$0.42/kWh!??! Jesus Christ. I think I'm paying around $0.0629/kWh. Where is this?

It is the "you are using too much electricity" rate when having a non-TOU rate in SoCal.

I figured I should aim high since the number was so low.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#404
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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. Housing should not be an investment, period.

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.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"something that will net out to a few thousand dollars max per employee" This is quite significant.

Average Cali salary is 73k. Assume an employee stays for 2 years (I just made this number up, I have no idea what the average retention for a remote worker is, but it’s probably more). It would barely represent 1% of total renumeration for the employee. “Significant” is not a word I’d use to describe a 1-2% cost to an employer.

Gross is silly you need to talk net. Living wage in California is like 37k before taxes 43k if you include taxes on that and assuming a tax rate of around 25% of the rest that means you have excess take home of $22,500 a year.

$2,000 a year would be around 10% extra income not related to staying alive.

I wouldn't call 10% a minor deal.

Also your point about 1-2% cost shows why this is a good bill. Cover the things you need to, pay a few points of payroll and get a significant benefit for your employees.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#406
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not myopic or selfish for my neighbors to insist that I shouldn’t be able to afford a home because of their precious investment?

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…

>Someone just living in a home they bought

That's the exact issue. They aren't.

But none of this has to do with small startups

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Someone just living in a home they bought That's the exact issue. They aren't. But none of this has to do with small startups

Are you saying we should make renting (landlording) illegal again? Or owning multiple homes? Or just businesses owning homes?

While they're all good ideas, I don't think they'll totally solve the issues of affordability here.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#408

Many young people or those cheering for employee/consumer rights do not seem to understand that this does more net harm than good. For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses. Like any economically rational entity, your employer is going to respond by reducing headcount, not hiring in CA anymore, cutting costs in your annual raises, or some combination of the above…

> For small businesses and startups, this can amount to millions of dollars of additional expenses.

I hate it when paying a portion of my employee’s internet bills totals in the millions for my small business

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#409
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> destroy the property values 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 abou…

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.

Re: California employers must reimburse remote workers for all necessary expenses

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Someone just living in a home they bought That's the exact issue. They aren't. But none of this has to do with small startups

Are you saying we should make renting (landlording) illegal again? Or owning multiple homes? Or just businesses owning homes? While they're all good ideas, I don't think they'll totally solve the issues of affordability here.

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.

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