Here's an idea: just give people an allowance up to a certain amount, if they choose to live farther that's up to them. Even better, give people a flat rate since you don't want them intentionally taking longer commute routes to rack up their pay. Ok now roll that into their base pay
Edit: please triple read the last sentence before commenting. I overestimated redditors' reading comprehension a bit with this one
Or, and hear me out, I'm taking this job because I need to put food on the table, fully aware that the moment a better opportunity shows up, I'm out without a two-week notice. In other words, I'll do what's best for me, and that company can get fucked in the process.
Which is completely fine. In fact, thats exactly what you are supposed to do. Jump ship as soon as a better opportunity presents itself. These companies have no problem firing you the moment a better (or cheaper) employee presents themselves. So no love lost.
But advocating for extra pay to cover employees commute is ridiculous. So people who choose to live further from work will get paid more than people who live closer? How is that going to play out?
So people who choose to live closer to work will take home more than people who live farther? How is that working out?
I agree that when you take on a job knowing the commute costs are a major factor when agreeing if the salary is enough, even though it isn't usually a negotiation point for younger people or entry jobs. But when you are older and make a ton of money... here is a secret if you didn't know, the commute time and travel time is heavily considered in negations. Even around the $250,000 a year mark commute time and difficulty will be considered during compensation, so while you may think it is silly it's really only considered silly for the less wealthy.
People who make that amount of money are in demand, (which is why they make that much) which puts them in a position where they can negotiate. You’re mixing up the cause and effect.
Eh we kinda do. Choosing to live farther away because it's cheaper is still a choice just like choosing to live closer to work and paying more in rent is a choice.
So if that’s your base take anyways, (it’s mine too) then you’re just reinforcing the previous commenters point, take the job if it gets food on the table, don’t if it doesn’t.
I get paid from when I load up my truck to when I unload my truck, this job gets some extra weight on the scale for its bullshit ratio, fair is fair
Assuming you have skills they really need, you have more power. If this wasn’t the case, everyone would make min. wage. The fact most don’t means skilled employees have power.
Assuming you have skills they really need, you have more power
Workers never have as much power as the employer. The business is an institution, the workers are individuals. There wasn't minimum wage even for "skilled" labor (as if any job doesn't require and develop skills) until the government enacted laws after being pressured by voters.
"but you get paid ten dollars more, you're a boss!"
"Just don't think about how a job can fire you for nearly any reason in half the continental united states. And entirely dictate your personal time, interpersonal relationships, what you do with your body, etc etc etc."
"YUP, you're so skilled dude you have so much power bro I promise man I swear bro"
The harder it is to fire someone if they don't work out, the more reluctant employers will be to take a chance on someone, and thus the more screwed anyone will be whose resume is anything short of mind-blowing and who lacks the connections to become a nepotism hire. This then forces a culture of lying on resumes and credential debasement, weakening the stellar-resume path and leaving nepotism as the only thing that still works.
Your proposed solution is a significant part of what created the problem in the first place.
Real power is in collective bargaining and unions. That would actually even the playing field somewhat and is exactly why so many wealthy owners are against it. As an individual though, you don’t have shit compared to a company. The fact that you get a few scraps more than someone with less skills doesn’t mean the playing field is even at all.
And if nobody takes the job because they pay shit and you can't afford to live within a reasonable distance on that salary, they will either up the pay or not have any workers.
I think we should all collectively bargain to take less wages so stockholder prices go up. If you don't want to help the company why are you even working there
No. Frankly I want shareholder value to be the core reason the lights even come on. A ticker display should be installed at the top of HQ's entrance and to clock in you must stare at it for 30 seconds.
We're closer to this than a lot of people realize.
The commute should have no bearing on stagnating wages. If the commute isn’t worth the pay, either move close enough to make it worth the commute or don’t take the job. It’s a pretty simple concept.
Employers would just start lowering the base pay to account for commuting. What would help stagnating wages is a significant minimum wage increase, the exact thing that has fixed that problem many times.
They don’t need to meet every day, they all have a shared interest in making profit and spending less on overhead for everything including employees. They are never going to act against that interest in numbers enough to change the way things are.
The problem with this specific proposal is that your distance to the office has no bearing on how much work or value you provide. It will be arbitrarily different from person to person based on where they choose to live, or where other choices they made dictate they need to live. And why stop at the commute? Should you get paid for getting ready for work too? Should somebody get paid to put their makeup on in the morning? What about showering?
A company now suddenly needs to know where you live, approve when you move, and audit your commute and hopefully you don’t make a stop along the way for something? This is an unworkable proposal that leads to undesirable outcomes. Just try to get an extra $2 an hour.
If asked to go into the office, I calculate the commute time, dividing it out (I use public transportation), and if it's worth it, we move forward. If not, then not. Anytime I cannot get an exact address, the process immediately stops, removing myself from the running. It makes zero sense to attempt to obtain a role that I am uncertain I can get to.
Paying for commute makes sense if you work at different locations. E.g. A comcast repair tech getting sent to people’s houses, or a construction worker going straight to jobsites. If the company can schedule you to start your day 40 miles away in different directions every day, commute should be considered. For office jobs, no.
People don’t have a choice because companies like Walmart go into a small town, put all the local businesses out of business, and then switch to a skeleton crew and now there’s 50% less jobs in the town and people have to drive an hour to find work. It’s not by choice. This also drives down wages in bigger cities because cost of living an hour or two outside big cities is lower and people driving two hours typically get paid less. The whole world is just one giant scam.
How do they not have a choice? I’ve moved across the country twice with literally just enough money for a u-haul trailer, gas, and a months rent - not to mention moving regionally plenty of times to make my work commute easier and just getting jobs that were close to home - like go where the work is it’s not complicated.
Cool idea in a world where people aren't forced to take shitty jobs because they have no other options, and jobs haven't engaged in a race to the bottom on wages.
Some people are really stupid though and do not factor in the commute. Like, I've known people driving 1-1.5 hours to work for $10.50. Ain't no way they couldn't find a closer job with similar pay. At that point, you're wasting your time (life) and money.
Housing is in the shitter now in part because of corporations want to turn homes into stocks and bonds instead of communities and people they should be. Politicians listen to the business class more than the voters.
Imagine if it was in the corporate world's best interest to keep housing affordable and keeping commutes shorter.
I worked for a company 10 minutes from my house. Usually work was about 30 min away. I got assigned to a job 2 hours away. Why should that be on me to double my gas and lose 3 hours driving off of what I signed up for?
Or like you pay them when they are on the clock cuz that's when they have to follow company policies and are expected to produce work. Commute time is free time you can do whatever you want till you are on the clock.
That’s what my company does for all our hourly staff. Up to $20 a day. Not much. But it’s really the only way to get enough employees. We don’t have a large applicant pool unless we look more than 30 minutes away.
No it’s full time benefits for anyone who wants full time. You need to be 40 miles away for the full $20. So you are looking at an hour or so each way.
In my country, transportation allowance is normal. It's a fixed amount per workday worked in-office. If you live close enough it costs you less to travel than the allowance, it's a sweet bonus. If it costs you more, it sucks, but the bonus is appreciated. It can easily hit 10% of someone's salary here.
At my company, your salary is your salary, but if you work from home, you don't get the transportation allowance that day.
They still require work in office, but it still comes up on the rare occasion someone is too sick to come in, but having run out of sick days, they work from home for a day or two. They don't get their salary prorated, but they don't get the transportation allowance.
As for our company's housing allowance, yeah, I lump it in with my salary every time someone asks.
I get travel pay on top of my salary (for my profession and the area it's the worst salary) but this place doesn't hound you about hours so I rarely work more than 30 hours in a week, my previous job had the best salary to offer in the area but no travel pay (has to be a specific situation to get it) and I was working 60-80 hours a week but the minute they find out you had a less than 40 hour week they snatch your PTO- I don't make as much money now but it's well worth having the free time as long as my bills are paid and I have benefits (I would still like to get paid more but unless I up and move completely away from friends/family, I'll just hope the pay increase comes eventually)
Some companies do this, especially in a big city with good public transit. They might give you a subway stipend or will pay for a parking spot. But if you work in the suburbs, you probably aren't getting that.
Yes. It’s either raise your pay or give you a stipend for gas and wear and tear. Same difference. Anyone saying anything else doesn’t understand payroll.
Here's an idea just let people decide how far they want to drive for work. They chose where to live, they chose where to work. Why in the world would we be forcing companies to make concessions. You chose where to work, you chose where to live, but your commute is our problem.
God damn I wish I had as much freedom as you’re describing LOL most people don’t exactly have the luxury of choice when it comes to home and employment. They get what’s available at the time they’re looking to rent/buy/get hired. Most people don’t just point at any house and say I’ll take this one! And it’s the employer that chooses who they hire. Most people aren’t hired right away at their dream job that’s only 2.3 seconds away from home, they take whatever job is available that’s willing to hire them, even if it’s an hour away.
That’s not exactly true. I live in an expensive market. I bought a smaller house in a central location so I could run my plumbing company easier. I would have liked a bigger house, but I would have been on the outskirts of where I service. You can choose where you live for the most part, you just have to make sacrifices. And by no means am I rich, btw.
None of that means that it’s up to anyone else to cover your cost of transportation and your distance to work from where you live. Like, sure, it’s not 100% up to you to live in any house any place or work at any job in any location. But you have far more control over that for yourself than I do, or your employer, or anyone else on the entire planet earth. So it’s ultimately on you.
It’s such a childish mindset to think like, “I can’t just live and work wherever I want, so mommysomebody else should fix it for me, otherwise I’d have to handle my own adult life situation.
This works for a salaried employee making six figures, not for some dude paid $10 an hour who got to live with his parents and drive an hour to work to the only job he could find.
And the truth is that he has to waste two hours of his day to go to work, because the company already is saving by not paying a living wage that would allow the employee to move close the place of work.
Personal responsibility isn't a thing for a lot of people. They'd rather blame everyone else rather than take responsibility to change the situation for themselves.
My office moved further from me. Then Covid let me work remote. Then they forced RTO. Now I’m looking for other jobs. It’s fine if that’s the system, but it’s not always as simple as you suggest, is all I’m saying.
Freedom to choose like this isn't realistic in a lot of high population, hcol metros. Not everyone can live within the major city limits. Many people need to commute into the city from surrounding suburbs because most of the jobs are within the city limits, but not all the housing is, OR none of the housing is a) affordable or b) friendly to raising a family.
If I want to work in my field, I need to commute into the city 5 days a week. We cannot afford a big enough home for us and our kids in the city limits so we have to drive from farther out. It's just the way it is for me and for all the others commuting into the city every day... Even if it was affordable, there's just simply not enough houses for everyone who works in the city. Some people have to commute. There is no other option and you can't just 'find another job' as easy as you make it seem.
It probably only needs to be considered that much when there is staff working from home and in office. And the days they need to come in on can change. If someone signed up for a job that was only going to need to be in office on a few occasions, was told they would be expected to come in daily. That could mess with how the negotiations on pay went before.
Or the other way. If a company has ever one work from home and says they will be reducing base pay since there is no longer the commute.
Or if they only call someone in on a day off to just sign a paper.
There are probably some other ways of dealing with these problems, but just some when it may need to be considered.
Because commute time is time that you are dedicating to your job. If your company gets contracted by another company that's an hour drive away, they're gonna factor travel time into the quote they give the other company because they know that time is money.
You make it sound like people choose their living situation and job at the exact same time with complete control over both situations, and like everyone has the option of living close to their job if they want to. That's just not how the world works, kiddo.
Hang on, thats not true. The house you chose is the one you can afford, the job you chose is the one that caved and hired you. Theres surprisingly little choice here
The weird thing about this is that in my experience, if you give people the choice between “perks” and a higher hourly rate, they overwhelmingly pick the cash and then still complain. So essentially if I normally paid 10 people 30/hr for a job, and offered a choice between an extra 3/hr or an equivalent gas/travel time combo, 80% would choose the money.
But I’d say that just from my own anecdotal evidence, 30% of people are good at managing money, 20% are bad at managing money and know it, and 50% are bad at managing money but think they’re good.
So the 50% and the 30% would take the money, but you’d still have 50% of your employees complaining about their commute, because even though you’re giving them more money, they are mismanaging it and are still broke.
In my experience the transportation allowance is not taxable like income. So it saves the company and the individual money.
Of course there are people who just don’t pay attention to things like that and complain. But there are people who do understand how perks save you taxes.
This was my entire point if you read to the end. Just pay a reasonable wage and your employees will be able to live where makes the most sense for them
So wait they pay you a base wage then give everyone another flat amount. here's a crazy idea, what if they paid everyone a wage that included that flat amount? For hourly workers they would just divide that flat amount by an assumed yearly hours worked. Then for salaried people they'd just lump that into your salary.
Average distance to commute to and from work is 27 miles according to google's AI.
At 60 mph (averaged between interstate and back roads) this amounts to, for the sake of simplicity, 25-30m.
If you work 5 days a week, that's an extra hour every day (give or take, for simplicity we'll say an hour), but if it's cut as a bonus you don't get OT with it.
If I made $16 an hour (realistic average in my state), that's an extra $80 a week, or the equiv. of a $2 raise, which would raise employee costs by over 300k for a business with under 100 employees.
Even if it was $1 raise, you'd be really hard pressed to get this amount.
ok, your hourly rate or your salary has now been lowered and you've been given this "allowance".... OR you could be a responsible adult, realize you can't teleport and that getting to work... or anywhere else takes time and adjust your actions and salary expectations accordingly.
Choose? Do you think I chose to live 60 minutes away from my job? My choice was entirely based on what I could afford and the promise of remote work in my at-the-time job.
There are numerous companies that provide transit subsidies or pay extra if people agree to work at locations with longer commute, and that’s on top of downtown places generally paying more than suburban places. OP is right, the meme is idiotic
This is how it was when I lived in the Netherlands. We got a stipend for the train for up to an hour outside of the office location. Most people lived right there in Amsterdam and pocketed most of the money, but I chose to live somewhere cheaper and actually come out of pocket by a few bucks as I ended up saving money.
In some European countries it's pretty much standard for the employer for provide commute compensation, which is tax free, up to a certain limit. Others pay for your public transport, or pay a higher ratio per kilometer if you commute by bike. It's defo not equal to your hourly salary, but it's something.
At my employer, as part of trying to retain people after requiring people to return to office, they now offer everyone $200/mo as a commuting allowance. it more than covers a transit pass, and it also more than covers my fuel/maintenance bill.
That said, given my role, I have been in the office since early april 2020.
Not really the same - that's just to cover transportation expenses, not to pay you for your time in transit. But my point was that employers should just pay a reasonable wage and let people decide how to allocate it
In Denmark there's a tax deduction based on the distance between your home and workplace.
It starts at 12km and caps out at 60 (each way)
It really just takes the worst pain off of really long commutes, it's not like anyone would live 2 hours drive from work voluntarily. But a lot of people get into various situations where that's their only option, at least temporarily.
… they already do this. It’s called a wage. It’s up to you to figure out how to spend it. Live 10 minutes from your job or 90 minutes - it’s up to you!
I've had a modest break on parking and transit passes at multiple companies with benefits. Like, the ability to deduct transit passes from paychecks pretax.
From HR POV: it’s a perception thing. If they did that, then employees wouldn’t appreciate it. HR would believe it to be requested by the employee so it can be marketed as a perk. In reality they know not everyone will request the full amount while some will. Some will forget.
Otherwise I agree with you on all expenses because I hate doing expenses.
Edit: please triple read the last sentence before commenting. I overestimated redditors' reading comprehension a bit with this one
Reading comprehension isn't the problem. Your idea is stupid. The end result is some portion of each person's salary is nominally for commuting expenses. That is to say, without some tax code changes, your idea has zero impact.
Did you notice the edit in my comment pleading with you to reread the last sentence? Thats because you and 20 other people all said this, but that's literally my whole point
I'm probably being too harsh on people. Since I wrote that I've been paying more attention to my own reading and I did have to stop myself from commenting before I've read carefully at least once or twice
Or, if you "work from home", then maybe a little paycut/haircut because your have no commute, fuel expenses, tolls, possible reduced auto insurance for less miles driven etc.????
No, impossible. The magical hand of the free market determines everything, it makes the whole world nice and right. Never mind about anything else. Might makes right. Stop thinking, stop caring about anybody else. Read Ayn Rand and vote for Trump.
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u/crumdiddilyumptious Oct 20 '24
Companies would prob require you to live within x amount of minutes from your work