Payments Giant Stripe Saw Major Uptake of Staff Offer To Move With 10% Pay Cut (bloomberg.com) 151
Stripe saw "major uptake" of the unusual offer it made to staff during the pandemic: Leave high-cost cities like New York and San Francisco and take a $20,000 bonus to boot. The catch? Workers had to consent to a 10% cut to their base compensation. From a report: "We saw pretty major uptake," John Collison, Stripe's co-founder and president, said Tuesday on Bloomberg Television. "There were a lot of people where they took advantage of all the remote working that was going on last year to be able to move to be closer to their families, to somewhere they wanted to move previously." Stripe -- dually headquartered in Dublin and San Francisco -- has long been considered a leader among Silicon Valley firms in its embrace of remote work. It began hiring engineers who work from home as early as 2013 and six years later opened a fully remote engineering hub. "We have not come to our ultimate stance or ultimate decision of what the exact mix of in-office versus remote will be," Collison said. "Everyone has been working remotely during a pandemic but I think that's going to be very different from the steady state of working remotely."
Remote workers?? (Score:3)
Re:Remote workers?? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been working remotely for almost two decades. I have to tell you I was never worried about being outsourced. It has eliminated some of my job options, but there was still plenty of options available so it never worried me. I have hired people remotely for years, way before COVID-19 pandemic. I love remote workers because they don't feel like they are owed a paycheck for just showing up in the office - when nobody tracks your hours you you have to show actual accomplishments. I always wanted to hire anyone qualified, regardless of where they are. Before COVID-19 I had to fight HR and management to let people work from home if they were located in the US (since we have offices all over the US). One thing COVD-19 did is make it much easier to hire people in the US remotely. People outside of US were always easier to hire remotely.
Of course, remote workers do require a different management approach, which I would summarize as "it's all about asynchronous communications and clear deliverables". People who do well in this kind of environment love the freedom it brings, ability to work whenever it works for them. I've had engineers tell me they love the fact that they can go pick up their kids from school, participate in their after school activities, only to log in late at night or early in the morning to deliver on their objectives. As long as they are producing, they make money for the company, so why should the company care? I even had one senior engineer once tell me once "this is the first job that I ever had where I was very clear about what was expected of me, and I didn't always feel anxious whether or not I am meeting expectations of my job". Of course, I also recognize that not everyone is well suited to this type of work environment, but even people who prefer to come to the office appreciate clear expectations of what they are expected to achieve - it is their choice to do it in whatever office hours they choose to keep.
All this said, there is also value of face to face interactions. 2-4 times a year it is worth for the whole team to meet and socialize in person. For remote workers, that means a "fly-in", which can be quiet fun team building events.
what about the PHB who needs the weaky or (Score:2)
what about the PHB who needs the weakly or dally face time and the TPS reports
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what about the PHB who needs the weakly or dally face time and the TPS reports
I worked remotely for about ten years. My experience was that a bad manager or project manager can't hide behind meaningless tasks like status reports. Assign tasks, they either get completed or they don't.
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He should see a therapist about that.
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How is this NOT a JOKE?! (New York Post - "You're office family misses you!") [youtu.be]
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Those "fly-ins" get pretty expensive and hard to justify when it comes to large teams and lots of teams. The remote jobs that existed before were at small companies that probably did not have existing workspace for employees, and hiring was done on a I went to college with that guy basis, and jobs where the talent pool was already fairly small. I do not believe your experience will hold for broader white-collar work. You can't possibly cost justify flying in 100 customer service reps, AR clerks or even SOC
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More fungible labor means less stratification how can I justify paying you a hire wage to live in Taxacusetts when I could get someone willing to do the same work for less because they live in low tax Wyoming or say Punjab. This is going to KILL real wage growth for domestic white-collar work.
FWIW, the concept of being paid less because of working in a lower cost area has been around for a long long time. In my case, over 20 years ago I could have worked in the DC area, and been paid a lot more money. A little math time showed me that was a non-starter, especially with the daily commutes. DC, Especially Friday afternoons should have been the torture the Dubya Bush administration was fond of over waterboarding.
Now back to the business of hiring people in Wyoming or Punjab, there is the question
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If a person has a bog standard skillset, they'll tend to stgnate.
Which is exactly the people I am talking about here. Lets face it a lot of the nations biggest employers of what you would call white-collar workers; employ a lot of people with "bog standard skill sets" and those people make up a lot of the people who say they want to remain remote! Its going to go badly for them long term. They might not end up unemployed but inflation will outpace their wage growth. If they move to the sticks the price of housing in the sticks will go up too, they won't realize the sav
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If a person has a bog standard skillset, they'll tend to stgnate.
Which is exactly the people I am talking about here. Lets face it a lot of the nations biggest employers of what you would call white-collar workers; employ a lot of people with "bog standard skill sets" and those people make up a lot of the people who say they want to remain remote! Its going to go badly for them long term.
I surely can't disagree with that. We're in a different age now, where not expanding the skillset makes for bad outcomes. I wouldn't be too surprised if many ended up unemployed either.
I'm probably going to be sent to slashdot hell for what I write next, but as intelligent people, we shouldn't try the old tactic of do as little as possible for as much as possible. Because too many focus on the do as little as possible part.
Because if a person's work is outsourceable to say Mumbai, then they should wor
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To add a final note to all this. I don't think move to remote work is going to be only bad for people who chose to work remotely. I think this is going to result in negative wage pressure on ANY job that can be done remotely, independent of it if is being done remotely or not.
What this is doing will expand the sectors of employment that are exposed to technical and political changes that were already underway and greatly speed the rate those changes are occurring. The pandemic will prove to be gasoline on t
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I am not trying to justify anything. I am not management either. I have never been downsized or fired. So try harder troll.
Those offices downtown were never for the most part filled with the people I am talking about. Companies of any size already had basic bull pen space in burbs that in terms of cubicle space was pretty damn cheap.
Look at some companies like Capital One or Wells Fargo. Do they have offices in Downtown Richmond and Charlotte - yes; but they also have campus space out in the burbs where mos
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This is slashdot. Most of us ARE programmers.
I've never had to work face to face with a coworker in 5 years at my company. For some reason, even though we had to go to the office every day, our team was distributed in 3 provinces in my country, and in 2 sites in another country. There was absolutely NO need for us to go to the office since all meetings were 100% done over Zoom and Google Meet.
When I asked our boss "why", he told me "because we don't have a process to measure productivity so we can't know if
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So they are refusing modern trends because of ignoring a long-standing problem that is only a problem in their heads.
If objectives are being met or exceeded, and schedules are being met or exceeded, why do they care what hours or what geographic location the worker is working? The goal is being met, and that worker is earning their pay. The rest is all an ego exercise in trying to control other people where that control is not necessary because the job is already being done as required or better.
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This is slashdot. Most of us ARE programmers.
[citation needed]
I think you'll find that the user population of /. is far more diverse than that. Plenty of programmers to be sure, but engineers of all kinds, scientists of all stripes, systems and networks guys, gearheads, the occasional astronaut or actor, etc.
"News for nerds. Stuff that matters." Not every nerd falls into the "programmer" bucket.
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Rare is the woman.
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Flying in once a year costs less than renting offices downtown year round. Also offices need power, water, cleaning, ... it adds up fast.
After while they realized that event he yearly flyin's are not needed. I've not seen some of my sub-contractors or clients face to face in years. But yet we work fine together every day.
As for taking that 10% pay cut to work from home, I did exactly that when I was cube worker. I still wound up having more money available not having to drive 30 miles back and forth every day with the saving of gas alone. Not to mention wear and tear on my car, stress of every day driving, and cloths. Instead of
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Again that was then this is now. You have moved on in your career. These changes will probably be minimally impact for you, as I expect them to be for me.
However if that 20 something version of yourself was pulled forward in time today these changes would probably prove to be career limiting and wage growth limiting. That is all I am saying here.
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I can see this. I'll admit 20 something me was a horrible worker. Today me would have fired 20 something me with out second thought. Back then I didn't have any where near the self discipline I do today. 20 something we working from home would never have happened.
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I don't know what kind of experience you had, or what your field is.
Personally, I've never, absolutely NEVER learned anything from a coworker. At least nothing that couldn't be linked and read on a screen. I never had a mentor, and I don't think they are relevant in certain careers today. Very few things need "explaining" that need you physically there for hands on.
The kind of jobs, "creative jobs", where people actually meet and "hang out", don't happen at traditional office cubicle "hey can you talk for a
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> I've not seen some of my sub-contractors or clients face to face in years. But yet we work fine together every day.
That reminds me I had a *business partner* I didn't meet in person until we had been in business together for two years.
Here's the weirdest part. We decided to meet up at a convention. We didn't mention anything to each other about what we look like. Yet when I walked into the convention hotel with a couple hundred people milling about, I almost immediately made eye contact with a guy acro
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I love remote workers because they don't feel like they are owed a paycheck for just showing up in the office
I hate saying this, but 2/3rds of my career has been just showing up.
As long as they are producing, they make money for the company, so why should the company care?
Because the narcissist in the corner office wants to see all of his/her reports working in their cubicles.
Two hours commuting each day so I can meet with co-workers via Zoom and Slack.
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Someone else can do the job in a far away place where the cost of living is even lower
When the need is competence, you get what you pay for.
Funny how we need to remind a payment processing company, of the ultimate price of that.
It's like forgetting you even make your own dog food.
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And you don't stand a ghost of a chance of recovering if they violate their NDA.
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This is one of those fallacies that is empirically proved false. Anything that can be offshored already has because businesses love saving money.
There's a reason programmers in rich countries continue to be employed: the education in the developing world sucks. To demonstrate: nobody is trying to save costs by taking their astronomically expensive degree in a third world country. This is because you get what you pay for.
Even the middle tier economies with a well educated workforce (for example, most of Eas
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If you are thinking of other countries, cost of living is widely underestimated. Even in countries that are labeled as low costs, middle class living in still US money. A small apartment in a nice neighborhood is still 150,000 d
Move to Marjorie Taylor Greene's district (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Move to Marjorie Taylor Greene's district (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Move to Marjorie Taylor Greene's district (Score:4, Insightful)
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You can't distribute normality just by pouring it into a bottomless pit of crazy.
Oddly enough, this is exactly what banks did in 2007 when they manufactured "dog shit wrapped in cat shit." (a.k.a. a CDO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Kind of makes you wonder how bad the manufacturing is, today. And what price we're going to eventually pay for it.
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Unfortunately many of those buyers were unable to make payments when they experienced an interruption of income
So in others words the CDOs as structured DID NOT WORK. Interruptions in income should be ASSUMED in something like a 30 year mortgage. Those loans should NEVER have been given to people who were unlike to have the ability to make minimum payments for at least long enough to sell the asset if they have to do so, in that condition. The bundling and default swaps were designed to try to spread the cost of loan failures out among a large number of loans. On the theory that if you could write more loans you cou
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Of course they are assume! Very few people have 30 years without some interruption in employment. Traditionally the people who could get a 30 year note had to show they had enough income that they would be saving while paying the note, and that they had near cash assets to service the loan with during an interruption.
It was definitely not assumed someone 10 years into a 30 year note was going to default because they got laid off! It was assumed they'd continue to make the minimum payments from savings, for
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That place needs some normal.
The only place in 'murrica free of the horrors of 5G.
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The AOC of the GOP.
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Yes, certainly the populace of NY, Los Angeles, and SFO are the definition of "normal".
She's batshit...but so are they.
Who wants the residents of Mogadishu moving to their town to turn their locality into the same shithole (literally, in SFO's case) that they moved from?
What an odd deal. (Score:2)
So, if you save the company money on office space and furniture, you take a pay cut in addition to screwing yourself out of promotions?
Re:What an odd deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
Save on gas and car wear, save commuting time, save (probably a lot) on rent. That could add up to more than the 10% of salary.
Re:What an odd deal. (Score:5, Informative)
A quick check of average cost of living for LA compared to where I live shows that you'd come out considerably better off living here and teleworking than living in LA and commuting.
Now, whether you want to live here is a whole different question. But you won't lose money by doing it.
Hell, you'd at least break even just considering housing cost (average cost of a house here is less than 25% of the average in LA).
So, sell a house in LA, move here, get a house that costs half what you paid for the place in LA (which is probably twice as big) & dump the other half into the bank, pay considerably less for basically everything (except computers probably), get $20K (plus the difference between your LA house and your house here), and lose 10% of your base pay (10% less income, but cost of living is 50%+ less). What's not to like?
LA (Score:2)
I watch a guy on Youtube who makes travelogue style videos. He was living in LA for a while, then when the pandemic hit he went back to live near his parents in Florida. Since then, he's been talking about how he really doesn't want to move back to LA. He loves the city and all the great stuff there is to do there (he's really in to movies) but he doesn't like living there. He ended up getting a really nice apartment near Orlando for a fraction of the price he's paying for half an apartment in LA.
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lose 10% of your base pay (10% less income, but cost of living is 50%+ less).
Actually, given the likely tax brackets of those taking the cut it'll be less than a 10% cut after federal and State tax is considered. Once they get over teh loss aversion people will realize it's a good deal and take it unless they don't want to leave for other reasons.
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That's not how taxes work.
Not sure what you mean. If I am in a 20% tax bracket, 10k is 8k take home.
This is a bad deal, especially when you can cut your cost of living other ways that don't impact your long term financial situation.
People who take this deal aren't thinking or understanding the long term implications.
There are a lot of variables. If I am paying $18k for rent, transportation etc. and $10k in low cost area my net change is zero. Chances are they are already maxing out social security. If the savings is greater than the effective cut your ahead. Sure you might cost of living where you are but if things like rent is the biggest part that is hard. The one area it will impact is pay raises since they no doubt will be smaller than in a
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Not sure what you mean. If I am in a 20% tax bracket, 10k is 8k take home
That's literally not how taxes work. They are tiered.
Lets say if taxes are 10% up to $30,000, 15% from $30,000-$60,000, and 20% from $60,000 to $100,000, and you're making $100,000/yr, you get taxed 10% on the first $30,000, then 15 percent on the $30,001 to $60,000, then 20% on the $60,001 to 100,000.
So you'd pay 3000+4500+8000=15,500, on $100,000 per year. Not a flat 20% on the full 100,000 which would be $20,000.
This is tax basics.
Yes, I realize we have a tiered tax system. I was simply looking at a likely highest bracket they are in, so the entire reduction would occur within the same bracket, for simplicity's sake. The end result is the same - the actual reduction in buying power is less simply because of tax effects; which should factor into the decision.
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That's not how taxes work.
This is a bad deal, especially when you can cut your cost of living other ways that don't impact your long term financial situation.
People who take this deal aren't thinking or understanding the long term implications.
There is no way you can cut your cost of living AND maintain your standard of living to the same extent as moving to a low cost area when housing costs are usually a significant portion of your costs.
Where I live, a 6000 square foot house on 4 acres costs about $3k/month. What would something comparable cost in Los Angeles or New York?
Moving to a low cost area is probably one of the quickest ways to improve your long term financial situation even if you have to take a 10% pay cut to do it.
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Re: What an odd deal. (Score:2)
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Given the cost differential, you could potentially lease a second house and still come out ahead.
Re:What an odd deal. (Score:5, Informative)
So, if you save the company money on office space and furniture, you take a pay cut in addition to screwing yourself out of promotions?
My commute was an hour each way, five days a week. Add that up. That's 40 hours a month sitting behind a wheel instead of working. An entire extra workweek, spent commuting.
Years ago, I compromised with my boss and said I would happily give half of that time back, if they allowed me to take the other half and dedicate it to exercise each day. Win-win for all involved. Saved almost $200/month in gas too.
Your health. Your stress. Left unchecked and ignored, I promise these will cost far more than any missed promotion, especially in the US Medical Industrial Complex.
Some change, is worth it. And no matter where you work, simply continue to demonstrate competence in your job. Goes a long way in sustaining it.
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Nothing odd about such a deal. Honestly 10% pay is nothing compared to the 20% of additional free time you get not being stuck in traffic, to say nothing of the cost of actually driving a car.
If you think this is strange then my next sentence is going to blow your mind: I work with 3 people who voluntarily took a 20% pay cut in exchange for only working 4 days a week. I know right! Madness. These people think their own happiness is worth more than money. Absolutely delusional! They should be rich and misera
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I became self employed in 1996, boosted my hourly rate ~5x from wage to market, and moved to the sticks. My commute is the few steps from my bedroom to my home office and there's a nice trout stream about 100m from my house.
If you think that's strange, then my next sentence is going to blow your mind: I work with lots of people who've done the same. Madness! They make more money in exchange for working whenever and wherever they feel like it. These people think that their own happiness is worth more than su
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I became self employed in 1996, boosted my hourly rate ~5x from wage to market
Cool story, and congrats. I mean that sincerely. But its an absolute fantast that your case applies universally. You've committed a logical fallacy that isn't very common here on Slashdot: The gambler's fallacy. You won the lottery by buying a $2 ticket, so you believe no one else has an excuse to be poor.
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Worse, an employee that works remotely is markedly different than a self-employed consultant.
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So, in your world, people want to contract with independent programmers who are randomly lucky? :D I was just playing with the dismissive tone because I'm an old bastard who's been in the industry a long time.
The point I was hoping to make is that it's a bad freakin' deal. The boss scores reduced overhead AND reduced wages, and you get to go live where there aren't other employers competing for your talent. I'm all for remote work, but we already know what the market will bear because they were paying it an
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So, in your world, people want to contract with independent programmers who are randomly lucky?
No. In my very real world only the truly luckiest people are in a position to get a 5x wage to market increase for contracting. What *normally* happens is maybe a 1.2x increase which quite often ends up being completely eaten in the overheads involved with contracting, and when it's not, it's eaten up in job uncertainty between contracts.
You won the lottery. Don't pretend everyone else can as well.
The point I was hoping to make is that it's a bad freakin' deal.
You made your point. I directly stated it's incorrect. There's nothing bad about taking a paycut to improve you
Re:What an odd deal. (Score:4)
This exactly what makes this whole discussion so hard - not complaining at you specifically thegarbz.
We have three forms of discussion going on here -
1) personal anecdotes - which are fun stories but not really relevant
2) Micro-economic - looking at things from the individual perspective; perfectly valid but no comparable to the macro-economic statements other are making.
3) Macro-economic - looking at the big picture, real wage growth, inflation, deflation, labor migration, etc; perfectly valid but not comparable to the micro-economic statements people are making.
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I think I'd jump on this.
1 - I'd immedaitely move to somewhere with a sunny, summer climate. Hell, I might just follow the sun. Except for when I want to ski. Just make sure that I don't reside in one place long enough to get taxed.
2 - I might just recruit someone in a low wage country to do the actual work for me. Only attend the meetings (which unfortunately, are pretty much all I do at the moment, but that may change).
No car and any of its stress. No commute. I value my time more than I value the dollars
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Promotions? In Corporate America? They haven't been a thing in years. The way you get ahead is you move on to other opportunities... heck it's virtually always been that way in the tech field.
I'm self-employed. I promote myself whenever I like :)
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So, if you save the company money on office space and furniture, you take a pay cut in addition to screwing yourself out of promotions?
Also if the company gets to cut employee compensation under the assumption that the employees are saving money, do the customers of the companies get to demand the company cut their prices because the company is saving money on payroll and rent?
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Also if the company gets to cut employee compensation under the assumption that the employees are saving money, do the customers of the companies get to demand the company cut their prices because the company is saving money on payroll and rent?
That's not how capitalism works. There's no incentive to improve efficiency if you're just going to give the increased production away. Unless you're a working stiff who can rationalize a pay cut as good for you. :D
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Regional Purchasing Parity for the San Jose MSA is 126. If you take a 10% pay cut and move to Seattle (RPP=114) you break even. Anywhere cheaper than Seattle and you come out ahead.
Mental health (Score:2)
Although I own my own business atm I still drive 50KM each way. If I had a job where I could work at home my mental health and two extra free hours per day not having to drive would be worth the pay cut.
At the same time you can also start a online business which could if done right bring you extra income.
I'm a little jealous, TBH (Score:3)
Bullocks! (Score:2)
It seems a lot of people here are missing the bigger picture, how to value your services. The value of a service should be the same, regardless of where the provider lives. For those who are taking these deals, realize that your only undervaluing your services.
Re:This is why milennials are broke (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it depends on the specific circumstances of the person.
Maybe the employee spends more than 10% of his salary on gas to go to the office every day? In which case taking a pay cut, but also saving on gas results in more money in his bank account.
Maybe he can now move to a place where he would save more than 10% of his salary just because the rent is lower?
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Maybe the employee spends more than 10% of his salary on gas to go to the office every day? In which case taking a pay cut, but also saving on gas results in more money in his bank account.
In the UK, if you work in London, public transport is bloody expensive, and going by car is practically impossible. In Germany, the inland revenue (and the tax law) says that any cost that you incur because you are working is tax deductible. That's obviously your transport, but there are other things. And public transport is a lot cheaper. USA, different rules again I suppose. Here in the UK, I'd have more money in my pocket working from home and 10% paycut compared to working in the office five days a week
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It will take DECADES to grow that 10% back, and you will likely lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The 10% that went to the gas station or the landlord?
Let's imagine this the from the opposite position. Let's say I work remotely and get an offer from another company to work at their office for 12% higher salary. However, to go to that office every day would cost me 15% of my (current) salary every month. Would it still be a good idea to switch jobs, even though I would be giving all of my raise (and some more) to the gas station ending up with 97% of my current salary in my bank account?
But it's even wor
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Let's take your example.
Initial salary $5k/month ($60k/year, but I am more used to /month calculations) for 40 hours/week of work and 5hours/week of commute. A month is 4 weeks, so for 180hours I get $5k, making it $27.78/hour. I also have to pay $300/month for gas and $2200/month for rent. in total $2500/month..
The alternative is to work remotely for $4500/month. I could move to some place cheaper and pay, say, $1800/month for rent and not pay the $300/month for gas. I also would save the 5hours/week of co
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It's not hard to believe housing and/or transport costs couldn't be cheaper in the new location. More than compensating for the 10% of pay cut.
They also just got the 20k to stick in the index fund.
Financial wellbeing depends on expenses as well as income.
Mental wellbeing and enjoyment depend on even more things.
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This is why millennials are broke.
The math to figure out that's a bad deal is super simple.
It's not necessarily a bad deal: I used to spend about US$ 100$ of gas a month to reach my office (southern Europe, gas is expensive), and about half of that when I moved and could finally start using public transport. But you also have to factor in that you are having to eat outside everyday (often including breakfast, since you are always in a hurry), you spend more for beverages and snacks, cleaning and buying clothes, etc. And, if you have to use a car or a motorbike there is insurance, maintenance, etc
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The math to figure out that's a bad deal is super simple.
There's more to life than money. Maybe your millennial peers realize this.
I'd give up way more than 10% of my salary to be able to live closer to the people I care for.
Hell, I'd give up 10% just to get the 1.5 hours I spend commuting back - that's over 6% of my day, about 10% of my waking hours, and almost 20% of my awake non-work free time. I'd happily trade that for more free non-working time.
Sure there are people that prioritize money over all else. But many of us don't.
Each to their own.
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Once you are "telecommuting" you are now in a global market, competing with people from every country. You thought H1B's had a negative effect?
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The cheapest countries tend to have poor infrastructure, poor education standards, poor political stability and often people who only speak their own language.
Plus there are regulated industries where you need people in the same country, or at least within certain closely collaborating countries, for customer facing roles you often have customers who won't be happy dealing with foreign staff either and will consider the service you're providing to be of lower value simply because it's delivered by what is p
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Speaking of magic doubling penny, imagine you're an up-and-coming millennial following your advice, moving to San Francisco.
What was the price of a house, 3 years ago?
What is the price of a house, today?
It's truly amazing you want to assume what "fools" are doing, while failing to see the obvious. There's a reason people are leaving obscenely priced areas, in droves. Not much point in even a 100K bonus when your costs eat it like a starving animal. Greed keeps this up, and 5 million dollars won't even be
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"5 million dollars won't even be considered a valid retirement in certain areas"
Say you have $5M in a 401k.
Realtor.com has 349 houses currently available in San Francisco (one of the most expensive places in the world) under $1M. Buy one and you have $4M left. Let's say you make a conservative 7% return on that and save 2% of that to account for inflation. That means you get to spend 5% or $200k/year and don't have to pay rent or a mortgage. You'd also be collecting at least $2k/month in Social Security. Th
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So tell me, what "areas" could someone not retire on $5M/year, and be quite comfortable?
Depends on what year we're talking about, doesn't it.
Are you that one human with the crystal ball that will accurately predict the future of inflation/hyperinflation, interest rates, cost of living, and state/federal taxes?
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This is why millennials are happy.
FTFY. It seems that they are one of the first generations that realise there's more to life than sitting at a desk, sitting stuck in traffic, and then laying 6 feet underground.
Sincerely: Someone who took a paycut 6 years ago to move to a place with a far better lifestyle.
They're trading long term exponential pay growth for quick cash today.
Except they didn't. The bonus is a redecorating expense. It's not cash today, it's to cover moving expenses.
Financial literacy is SORRILY lacking from my generation.
Or maybe they not only understand finance but *also* understand how finance fits in the grand scheme of things. I had an American t
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Millennials are broke. [youtu.be]
Millennials: The Unluckiest Generation In Modern History? [youtu.be]
Millennials in the Workforce, A Generation of Weakness. [youtu.be]
Millennials don't sound very happy to me.
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I had an American tell me the other day he couldn't live with my low pay. I asked why not? My country is full of people who live with my low pay and we rank far higher on most indexes than America except for pay level.
From what I understood from someone in the UK (I'm not sure if the rest of Europe is the same way), salaries there are expressed as after taxes, while salaries in the US are expressed as before taxes. And UK taxes include health care, so American salaries are pre-tax and pre-insurance. In the UK, an engineer with a salary of 50k gets paid 50k, while an American engineer with a salary of 100k is really only paid 50k.
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From what I understood from someone in the UK (I'm not sure if the rest of Europe is the same way), salaries there are expressed as after taxes
I've never heard of this before. It's definitely not the norm in the UK nor in parts of Europe I've lived. And it makes complete sense as well, your tax situation is personal it can't be advertised up front. All sorts of things impact it including how social security is applied, what discounts are available (if any).
The reality is Americans get paid more (take home), but have far higher after pay expenses. It's a great deal, providing you remember to put aside money for your retirement, put aside money for
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It kind of blew my mind when I realized the entire premise of Breaking Bad simply doesn't make sense in any other developed country worldwide.
Eh, mate, that's awful. Go get that cancer treated at the doctor right away. Wait, what? Why are you going to make meth? That's illegal and dangerous.
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Yes, and Americans, lacking a real pension and public healthcare system, are very conscious of needing hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in order to comfortably retire. This makes a European salary look even smaller.
As it is currently in the US, a lot of retirees end up having to sell their houses to pay for their healthcare!!!
I'd definitely be able to work for like half my salary if I knew that in retirement I was just on the hook for utilities and food. But I'm going to need something like 1/3
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What educational institutions offer majors "in Political Blogging with a minor in Wokeness"
I want to be sure to advise people against going there.
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This is why millennials are broke. The math to figure out that's a bad deal is super simple. They're trading long term exponential pay growth for quick cash today. They're taking the one time million dollars, instead of the magic doubling penny for 30 days which would be over 5 million dollars. They're taking the one marshmallow now, instead of the 2 marshmallows in 15 minutes.
Unless you plan to leave the company in the near future for a new job that'll pay you more than the 10% you lost, and are putting all this money straight into an index fund, you're a fool.
Financial literacy is SORRILY lacking from my generation.
Yes, things are more difficult for us, but the biggest problem is the total, utter, lack of financial literacy.
This is way more complex than the way you present it. If you move out of of the really expensive housing markets (SF, NY), you could increase your disposable income significantly - and thus have plenty of more money to save. Salary doesn't matter on its own, you need to look at the cost of living as well.
In addition, you might get far more time you you can use for other purposes than commuting to work.
Of course, there is a major downside as well... Apart from having less interaction with your team and othe
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The magic penny is an excellent comparison.
The magic penny is 5x as much as the money up front, but it's a HUGE burden (turning 500 million pennies into money in the bank is not going to be easy).
1 million, thought only 1/5th as much is enough to get by on (30k/year inflation adjusted with a small buffer, most likely in 10 years that can be re adjusted higher), especially if willing to move.
Similarly, one can cut out a commute ($100+ after tax/month), a car from a household ($150 after tax/month), save on r
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This is why millennials are broke.
I think I'd worry more about your mental health than why ("all"? really?) "broke" "Millenials", who have more wealth than gen x, are doing fine everywhere except the rent free space in your head.
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Some money people have a skewed view [wolvesandfinance.com] of life. While technically true on some of his points, the negative is glossed over as the "cost of progress". And yes geeks are guilty of this after all because geeks love the fruits of progress/money as much as anyone, just different fruits.
Re:Racist (Score:5, Insightful)
It depends on the nature of the business...
Some customers want to deal with locals for various reasons, and will avoid dealing with foreigners. Regulated industries and government often have compliance reasons for wanting people under their jurisdiction working on their contracts.
Some customers want people who can speak the language (and would usually prefer it spoken without an accent thats not familiar to them), others will expect to pay considerably less for a service delivered from a cheaper country so you don't end up saving anything.
Of course outsourcing to cheaper countries is only ever a short term measure. With massive offshoring, people in these countries will start demanding higher salaries and the high unemployment in your local country will cause a reduction in demand for whatever you're selling.
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Avoiding dealing with foreigners is not necessarily racist, hence the next comment regarding regulated industries. Sometimes it's a legal requirement that your suppliers are governed by the same jurisdiction for instance.
Preferring a familiar accent is not necessarily intentional racism, it's simply a factor which can result in poor communication and all of the problems that result from that. You get it amongst native speakers of the same language, even within different regions of the same country.
And when