I confess I read TFA just to see when the other shoe would drop, and there it is: compensation varies depending on number of dependents. Yes it's hidden from the paycheck but insurance premiums are absolutely part of compensation. Yet the author openly praises this discriminatory compensation decision.
Healthcare in this country comes from employers, and so if you've got kids, you've mostly gotta get it from your employer, and everyone with kids needs healthcare for those kids. So if you cover healthcare for your employees, that includes their family. Good system? Hell no. But it's not a trick's trying to punish the folks without kids.
For more information on that topic and how it's frequently used in arguments like these, I highly recommend _Thinking, Fast and Slow_ by Daniel Kahneman.
Netflix does. Or at least did. They set aside money for insurance, and paid out whatever you didn't use as cash. People with spouses could just opt for the cash.
E.g. you're breaking the law if you reimburse someone's healthcare plan directly or allow them to expense a health expense, even if you classify that as additional income for them, as opposed to having a dedicated HSA account.
Do you have a source? I'd be super interested in how it works, and I definitely may be wrong on this (I hope I am).
It's legal for companies to pay your health plan with pre tax dollars. Basically they just set your salary a few bucks higher each month for whatever the difference is.
In this case employee AND dependent premiums are paid by the company, so you could say that single people "get less." They get $500 worth of health insurance instead of the $1000 that other employees get.
(Not making a judgement on GP's argument, just adding context.)
Let's simplify and say that: everyone at the company, and their families, are entitled to 100% of monthly premiums covered.
Someone choosing not to use that benefit as much as someone else by having fewer dependents is not discrimination.
It's like saying "I don't have a gym membership, I'm not using the wellness benefit each month, this is discrimination and others are getting paid more than me!"
Where the real variation is is in the stock comp, which seems to be variable.