I think there are relatively few employee protections in the USA compared with the EU. Many states have "at will employment", which means you can be fired at a

I think there are relatively few employee protections in the USA compared with the EU. Many states have "at will employment", which means you can be fired at any point for basically no reason. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment For the extremely high end of salaries (your theoretical "10M" offer), you would do well to negotiate explicit terms of severance pay, or a signing bonus or other incentive, in your offer before signing it. Your employer will be bound by the terms of a signed job contract or other legal document. You should at the bare minimum not quit an active position on a verbal offer, wait until the full legal paperwork has been fully negotiated and signed. But there are almost no "default" protections applied at the state or federal level. Also job contract terms are often highly in favor the employer and non-negotiable language at most entry level / minimum wage jobs, leading to the vast majority of Americans working with a very low level of employee legal protection.