4 ms·

> Time is more valuable than money and taxes should reflect that. I understand the sentiment, but it literally isnt true. If it were, then noone would accept

> Time is more valuable than money and taxes should reflect that. I understand the sentiment, but it literally isnt true. If it were, then noone would accept a job since they'd rather have the time instead. At the very least, there is more nuance to be observed here.

bigyikes 5y ago
I would gladly take a pay cut if my job let me work less time.
- the_lonely_road 5y ago
  Seconded. If I could keep my career security (I will still be employed here 10 years from now unless black swan) and healthcare (no spouse) while cutting pay and hours in half I would take it in a HEARTBEAT. No one is offering that.
  - misterremote 5y ago
    But shouldn’t that be totally doable? What’s the argument against that by the employer? Because pay is also 50%
    - malloreon 5y ago
      there are costs to employing someone that don't vary with number of hours worked. The person you're responding to wants 100% of their current healthcare plan but only half the salary/expected hours, for example.
    - WJW 5y ago
      Many of the overhead costs scale as a function of headcount irrespective of how many hours each employee works. For example, let's say you work in a regulated industry where each employee needs to follow a certain training every year. Having twice as many employees each working 20 hrs will double the training costs. Management overhead will also go up since there will be more one-on-ones etc.
    - sfotm 5y ago
      There are some issues that I think would make this difficult to do: - Two employees at 50% salary and time are not equivalent to a single employee at 100% of salary. They're strictly worse if always run in series, all else being equal. Alice starts project X on Monday and Tuesday, and hands it off to Bob on Wednesday because it's urgent. There's some inefficiency there. Good management could help avoid it, but would be hard-pressed to prevent it in all cases. At best, it's one more thing to worry about. - There are benefits outside of your salary that are more difficult to cut in half. Health plans, headcount taxes, etc. That being said, there are some experiments being done (not at 50%): https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/part-time-tech https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/part-time-tech
      - misterremote 5y ago
        Ok, I see. I guess if company feels that the talent is very valuable to them, it's possible to negotiate special terms like this, but I guess in general companies are not then interested in part-time roles yeah. I'm actually planning to cut my time in half, but keep the same pay. My story was discussed here on HN yesterday/today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133376 Long story short: As the startup I'm working at doesn't have enough money to raise my hourly price, I'm now proposing to cut my hours in half, but keep the pay. So I'm working half the time, but keep the pay. It's summer now, so I'm happy to spend more time with friends and family. And while we're talking about working less, another thing that's interesting I think is "4-day work weeks". There are remote companies who work 32h per week. I even made a list of the ones I know, but I'm sure there are more: https://remotehunt.com/remote-companies-with-4-day-work-weeks https://remotehunt.com/remote-companies-with-4-day-work-week...
    - abetterday 5y ago
      Aside from fixed costs and aspects like coordination efficiency, companies have to raise pay more than linearly to get people into high hours jobs. Those disproportionate gains should be given back at cut hours, but too many employees would claim this is unfair. I wrote about this a while back: https://www.growwiser.com/2011/11/27/less-work-for-less-pay-why-dont-companies-offer-the-option/ https://www.growwiser.com/2011/11/27/less-work-for-less-pay-...
  - _dps 5y ago
    This kind of flexibility is one of the advantages of consulting/freelancing. Obviously the career security aspect is different, but in a hot hiring market there isn't a shortage of opportunities. I know several people who, as they got to more senior levels, decided to work 50% of the time for roughly 60% of their previous salary.
- pixelpoet 5y ago
  Come to Germany, where companies over a certain size (# of employees) literally cannot deny your request to work part-time: https://www.globaladvocaten.com/blog/labour-law-parttime-work-in-germany https://www.globaladvocaten.com/blog/labour-law-parttime-wor... Be warned though, you won't make the same batshit insane US salary here.
- langitbiru 5y ago
  Maybe you can find one here: https://parttime.careers https://parttime.careers
kissickas 5y ago
Neither of those things have units on them, so that's obviously not the comparison they were trying to draw. The way I see the comment, labor is more valuable to society than putting up capital is, so the government should incentivize labor by raising the capital gains tax.
ASalazarMX 5y ago
> then no one would accept a job since they'd rather have the time instead So, if we value air more than food, should we stop eating so we can breathe more?
- refurb 5y ago
  So we can breath enough? Hell yeah. I’d give up food to make sure I can breath.
- atatatat 5y ago
  You literally make this tradeoff each time you have a meal — what?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vagrantJin 5y ago
People would take time over a job if Maslows hierachy of needs are taken care of by some grant like Universal Basic Income. I would conjecture people don't always work for rational reasons -> Billionaires going to the office must piss off everyone like dude, you've won the game, go buy an island or something. So work is a useful habit. Useful in that it's a source of revenue for the government. Which is good and I agree with. But that makes unemployment a wholly irrational thing. Can our economic models even include unemployment as a variable? Surely government must hear those unemployment stats like a cat scratching a board. Should people have to lie, cheat, beg so that they can become tax paying citizens?

bigyikes 5y ago

I would gladly take a pay cut if my job let me work less time.

the_lonely_road 5y ago
Seconded. If I could keep my career security (I will still be employed here 10 years from now unless black swan) and healthcare (no spouse) while cutting pay and hours in half I would take it in a HEARTBEAT. No one is offering that.
- misterremote 5y ago
  But shouldn’t that be totally doable? What’s the argument against that by the employer? Because pay is also 50%
  - malloreon 5y ago
    there are costs to employing someone that don't vary with number of hours worked. The person you're responding to wants 100% of their current healthcare plan but only half the salary/expected hours, for example.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Many of the overhead costs scale as a function of headcount irrespective of how many hours each employee works. For example, let's say you work in a regulated industry where each employee needs to follow a certain training every year. Having twice as many employees each working 20 hrs will double the training costs. Management overhead will also go up since there will be more one-on-ones etc.
  - sfotm 5y ago
    There are some issues that I think would make this difficult to do: - Two employees at 50% salary and time are not equivalent to a single employee at 100% of salary. They're strictly worse if always run in series, all else being equal. Alice starts project X on Monday and Tuesday, and hands it off to Bob on Wednesday because it's urgent. There's some inefficiency there. Good management could help avoid it, but would be hard-pressed to prevent it in all cases. At best, it's one more thing to worry about. - There are benefits outside of your salary that are more difficult to cut in half. Health plans, headcount taxes, etc. That being said, there are some experiments being done (not at 50%): https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/part-time-tech https://www.amazon.jobs/en/landing_pages/part-time-tech
    - misterremote 5y ago
      Ok, I see. I guess if company feels that the talent is very valuable to them, it's possible to negotiate special terms like this, but I guess in general companies are not then interested in part-time roles yeah. I'm actually planning to cut my time in half, but keep the same pay. My story was discussed here on HN yesterday/today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27133376 Long story short: As the startup I'm working at doesn't have enough money to raise my hourly price, I'm now proposing to cut my hours in half, but keep the pay. So I'm working half the time, but keep the pay. It's summer now, so I'm happy to spend more time with friends and family. And while we're talking about working less, another thing that's interesting I think is "4-day work weeks". There are remote companies who work 32h per week. I even made a list of the ones I know, but I'm sure there are more: https://remotehunt.com/remote-companies-with-4-day-work-weeks https://remotehunt.com/remote-companies-with-4-day-work-week...
  - abetterday 5y ago
    Aside from fixed costs and aspects like coordination efficiency, companies have to raise pay more than linearly to get people into high hours jobs. Those disproportionate gains should be given back at cut hours, but too many employees would claim this is unfair. I wrote about this a while back: https://www.growwiser.com/2011/11/27/less-work-for-less-pay-why-dont-companies-offer-the-option/ https://www.growwiser.com/2011/11/27/less-work-for-less-pay-...
- _dps 5y ago
  This kind of flexibility is one of the advantages of consulting/freelancing. Obviously the career security aspect is different, but in a hot hiring market there isn't a shortage of opportunities. I know several people who, as they got to more senior levels, decided to work 50% of the time for roughly 60% of their previous salary.
pixelpoet 5y ago
Come to Germany, where companies over a certain size (# of employees) literally cannot deny your request to work part-time: https://www.globaladvocaten.com/blog/labour-law-parttime-work-in-germany https://www.globaladvocaten.com/blog/labour-law-parttime-wor... Be warned though, you won't make the same batshit insane US salary here.
langitbiru 5y ago
Maybe you can find one here: https://parttime.careers https://parttime.careers

kissickas 5y ago

Neither of those things have units on them, so that's obviously not the comparison they were trying to draw. The way I see the comment, labor is more valuable to society than putting up capital is, so the government should incentivize labor by raising the capital gains tax.

ASalazarMX 5y ago

> then no one would accept a job since they'd rather have the time instead So, if we value air more than food, should we stop eating so we can breathe more?

refurb 5y ago
So we can breath enough? Hell yeah. I’d give up food to make sure I can breath.
atatatat 5y ago
You literally make this tradeoff each time you have a meal — what?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vagrantJin 5y ago

People would take time over a job if Maslows hierachy of needs are taken care of by some grant like Universal Basic Income. I would conjecture people don't always work for rational reasons -> Billionaires going to the office must piss off everyone like dude, you've won the game, go buy an island or something. So work is a useful habit. Useful in that it's a source of revenue for the government. Which is good and I agree with. But that makes unemployment a wholly irrational thing. Can our economic models even include unemployment as a variable? Surely government must hear those unemployment stats like a cat scratching a board. Should people have to lie, cheat, beg so that they can become tax paying citizens?