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Comment by Alex3917 | Hacker News Reader

> Why didn't employee profit-sharing increase at the same rate as non-salary compensation did for CEOs?

Because employees generally hated profit sharing and created unions to fight against it. Joseph Blasi talks about this in his book The Citizens Share. And it's not like he's some crank conservative, he's the economic advisor for Elizabeth Warren.

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A good example of that [0]. Amazon is quoted as saying that hourly employees prefer the "predictability and immediacy of cash to RSUs", and I imagine Amazon would prefer to give RSUs, so this is probably accurate.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/3/17934194/amazon-minimum-w...

If I'm making a below-livable wage, I need ALL of that cash NOW. I can't wait a few days for it to clear - I can't handle the loss if I have to sell in a dip.

And amazon is using that fact to justify lowering total compensation for hourly workers, so I don't think they actually do have an incentive to give RSUs in this case

Cash is generally better than its equivalent worth in RSUs. If Amazon faces fiscal troubles, then you can potentially both lose your job and your retirement plan. The upside of potentially becoming a millionaire doesn't make up for this.

The problem is that a lot of people will spend their surplus cash on more consumer goods rather than rather than investing it their 401ks.

an RSU is a massive tax problem, for one thing.

How so? Isn't it just taxed as normal income at vesting time? Most employers automatically sell enough to cover the tax withholding to solve any issues.

Wash sales, long term/short term gains and associated tax issues, RSU withholding which is a fixed amount and not based on the income tax withholding, and a typical broker account to sell/get money are massively more complicated than a direct deposit to your bank account and money back from the government at the end of the year unless you massively screw it up.

By number, most of Amazon’s employees are working minimum wage and probably don’t have much of a balance. Many of them might get evicted if pay gets delayed even a couple weeks.

FWIW, Amazon doesn't treat its warehouse employees well, but it does pay more than minimum wage.

I only have limited experience but first I had to do an 83(b), then dealing with a K-1, and didn't make crap from the company so my RSU ended up costing more in accountants than netting money for me.

Amazon is probably a safer bet.

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