Getting paid your salary for a couple of months (three is more common than six, in my experience) when most of your earnings might typically be in bonuses is less cushy than you might think.
On the other hand, in the hedge fund world, bonuses are a big part of comp but generally only base pay is paid out, so in reality you might be say 150K to 250K while your comp in expectation is much, much higher. For a junior dev maybe your bonus is .3x to .6x base but for someone senior, your bonus might be 1x to 5x base or more depending on where you sit in the organization. Therefore sitting out still costs you a lot of money.
I’m sure the Walmart cashier with a non-compete hanging around their neck is much appeased by this.
You describe an enforcement, not legal issue. Even with this legislation, the manager can still verbally threaten the employee.
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/upshot/when-the-guy-makin...
Non-compete clauses are not “concerningly common”, these are in fact so rare that NYT couldn’t even point out to a single example of non-compete actually affecting low-wage workers: their leading example of Jimmy Johns is not something that ever been enforced, and I seriously doubt that any worker there is even aware of this clause in the contract (low wage workers don’t read these anyway).
This is data from a longitudinal survey of which the respondents were 32-38 years old when in the 2017/2018 survey.
Scroll down to Table 1 and Chart 2 and it looks as though non-compete agreements affect about 1 in 11 people who make approximately minimum wage (presuming these self-reports are accurate), and increase in frequency from there.
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Non-competes for job creators can indirectly impact low-wage workers by preventing a job-providing business from opening in their area.
And while trickle-down economics isn't that powerful of a force, it does exist. When non-competes suppress higher-level wages this has a knock-on effect on lower wages, and a side-effect of reducing the discretionary income the higher wage people can spend into the lower-wage economy.
You are describing a minuscule world that comprises an insignificant amount of American workers.
IMO, it's healthier for the overall industry/market if talent can move more freely. As one example, it makes it much more challenging for toxic cultures to persist in their current form, if the Sword of Damocles (NCA) isn't hanging above the off-ramp.
Now that that doesn't matter, they may just not offer it at all.
Or it might go the other way, where they offer you a year of salary and bonus to keep you away from competitors.
Non-competes are "even if we don't keep paying you, you can't work for a competitor"
Nothing about the gardening leave incentives have changed.
"When you signed on, in good faith, you agreed to a 6 month paid notice period."
And of course it didn't included any bonus, which is typically the larger portion of total comp in these situations.
The proposed law will ban mandatory non competes, even if they are paid.
In fact not having a gardening leave might be more suspicious, as it means you’re so useless and out of the loop your previous employer doesn’t think there’s anything you could be carrying over.