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Comment by maire | Hacker News Reader

FMLA only covers companies with 50 or more employees.

A friend was fired in the US when she told her boss she was pregnant and discovered this limitation. Her previous work experience was in France so she did not realize this could happen.

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In CA, it’s any employer with 5 employees, thanks to the CFRA.

https://www.rigginslaw.com/cfra-vs-fmla-difference-between-c....

CA really is by far one of the most employee-friendly states, on nearly every issue.

Except taxes.

Dno. The roads here are way better than other places with lower taxes, it’s beautiful, the air and water are clean, and so on.

Everywhere has plenty of things to complain about. I’d like to spend less in taxes, always.

But at least it does feel, objectively, like we live in a mostly lovely place that actually does protect employees, have access to great healthcare, great roads, great charging infrastructure (relative to the rest of the US) and so on.

What part of the state are you in with good roads? Sonoma county here, miserable roads

Bay Area, but I’m from NYC, so my standard for “bad road” is relatively high - there are a lot of potholes right now from the rain, but in general they get fixed quickly, the roads are wide and many-lanes, and generally don’t do insane things like loop back on themselves or anything like that.

I disagree with this. I live in SF and the roads range from terrible to just-ok. And not just in the city; US-101 is just kinda ok (despite vaguely-regular maintenance), and many local roads I see in nearby smaller towns and cities (South SF, Daly City, Belmont, San Mateo) are -- at best -- just ok. Similar situation when I drive north toward Sonoma.

A major issue in SF proper is that crews are constantly digging up parts of roads to work on pipes or whatever, and then patch them in a haphazard, crappy way. Roads get fully resurfaced rarely. As an example, there's a super nasty patched and re-patched and re-patched and re-patched section of 18th St (between Minnesota and Tennessee) that has been a nightmare for at least 4 years now.

A section of Tennessee between 18th and 19th was resurfaced about a year ago (in part because there was building construction along the road that did heavy damage), but just this past week they were digging up a large section in the center of the road to do some work underneath, and when they patched it up, they as usual did a crap job, so the road sucks again.

I grew up in New Jersey (80s) and Maryland (90s), and the roads were much better maintained in both of those places, Maryland especially.

I agree SF has shit roads. I do not find that to be the case almost anywhere else in CA.

I’ll put it this way too: while I’m mindful of potholes, generally, I have yet to have a single issue popping any of my 21” thin sidewall summer tires on my >5500lb EV.

My counterparts in the South have popped between 2 and 10 depending on who you ask. The answer each time is: hit a pothole.

Some of that’s driving. Some of it is also just the roads. They’re far from perfect. But they’re better than most other states.

Anecdotal, but I have driven across a majority of US states, from Florida to Alaska (and also, on both the East and West sides of Canada) and haven't noticed any strong correlation between the quality of the roads and how high a states taxes are.

Since you mentioned Florida, the roads go from good to bad as soon as you cross the border into Alabama, which is a really interesting experience on the interstate. But yes, the roads are bad in Deep South states, although the taxes aren’t really that low either (just people don’t make much money to get much out of them).

> But yes, the roads are bad in Deep South states

Interesting! Quite contrary from the prevailing wisdom - snow and salt destroy the roads. Maybe they don’t make them well to begin with.

It’s all the water and the clay they are built on, Florida just spends to get around it.

Since you mentioned Florida, the roads go from good to bad as soon as you cross the border into Alabama

Same thing happens with California/Nevada.

I-15 is wide, flat, beautiful and flawless on the Nevada side. As soon as you hit California, it's like a rural county road with no maintenance.

I’ve driven track cars with bone shaking suspension from LA to Vegas and honestly don’t recall any difference.

I’ve driven track cars with bone shaking suspension from LA to Vegas and honestly don’t recall any difference.

Funny, because it's in the Las Vegas newspapers every six months or so how the mayor of Las Vegas and the governor of Nevada are always begging California to upgrade its side of I-15.

Almost every month there are 14-hour traffic jams on Sunday night as the SoCal crowd scurries home only to hit the bottleneck at the California border where I-15 goes from six lanes to four, then twists its way through the mountains.

I've driven it many dozens of times in the last ten years, and it's well known among people who live in Nevada.

Maybe Nevada could provide the money for it? Building roads on flat ground is easier than a freeway through the mountains is it not? And the primary beneficiary of the road is Vegas? Why would I want California taxes to subsidize Vegas gamblers? A road that is totally fine except Sunday night? Think about the two bits of road you are comparing: they are not representative.

I don’t notice much going between the two on I-80, well except you go from pretty straight desert roads into a freaking mountain range. Are mountains involved in the border at I-15 also?

California is rated poorly on roads on average because they have a lot of rural/mountainous terrain to cover. In the cities where most people live, the roads are actually pretty good.

Except in Texas.

For a state that often bemoans the federal government and its out of control spending, Texas takes an impressive amount of funds and puts it into a very high-quality and modern interstate system.

Texas will receive over $27 billion (with a B) over the next ~5 years in federal funding for highways and bridges alone. $10 billion was allocated across 2022-2023. Many of their roads are quite nice and only going to improve. Thanks, Uncle Sam!

Texas has high property taxes. It's actually not a low tax state as measured by overall tax burden. Texas is also very proud of its massive, well-resourced public schools (and their football teams!), and pours a lot of tax revenue into them.

Worse than California?

It depends on your income since income taxation in California is extremely graduated. If you make less than $60-70k, you’ll pay less in CA, otherwise you’ll do better in TX.

It depends a lot on the value of your property too as that's where the high taxes in Texas are. So it's a two-dimensional comparison.

Cross from IL to WI on 94. The toll road ends and the reads are so much better. Of course WI will pull over any speeder with out of state plates. They even take credit cards to pay your fine on the spot.

Of course, Florida and Texas both have zero personal income tax.

I live in Washington, so I’m not sure what the big deal of that is.

In my experience, it correlates fairly well, with Florida being the notable exception. I have no idea why their roads are so good.

Tourism.

Most of what you’re driving on could be federal highways.

I’m in the same boat, have driven just about everywhere and I haven’t seen any major correlation.

I noticed an immediate degradation in surface quality on the interstate when I crossed into Alabama. Aren't the states responsible for upkeep using federal dollars? Some states are better than others at this.

Initial roadway construction is using primarily federal dollars, but long-term maintenance is usually primarily funded by the state or local municipality.

I grew up in the suburbs. My town had pretty much no commercial base. The next town over had a huge mall. They had much better roads, a much better library, a sports complex, a swimming pool complex, the list goes on. It was obvious to a 10 year old how much of a difference the tax base made.

Of course, we just got a library card in their district and I enjoyed the use of the nicer library as well. But still.

Did you drive between Texas - Louisiana? It is a massive difference almost immediately. You go from 55mph top speed limit with many potholes in LA to smooth 75mph Texas roads. Texas roads are much better and I have heard the same opinion many times from people making that drive. Louisiana makes their roads cheaper by making them much more thin, and they don’t get repaired often in rural areas.

Is that why Texas property taxes are eye wateringly high?

That might be part of it, but far and away the main reason for that is to offset the state’s ability to tout about having no income tax.

There’s a list floating around by some personal finance blog that ranks the states based on effective tax rate across most taxes citizens are subject to and Texas consistently ends up remarkably high on that list due to the other taxes being relatively high.

Texas is essentially the personification of a low sticker price with hidden fees (e.g., “starts at $0”).

There's probably a lot of noise in the data. Off the top of my head, climate (whether roads are exposed to freeze-thaw cycles) and population density/clustering (how many miles of road do you need to maintain per person), are probably more strongly correlated with quality than taxation levels.

It's because they don't have winter. Winter, freezing/thawing, and salt is what destroys roads.

Tell that to Tahoe or any of the many mountainous regions of CA. :)

Tell that to Mississippi which has s*t roads and no winter freezing/thawing or salt to consider. Broke ass red states can barely afford to keep their roads passable for the most part. There are a couple of exceptions where the states are willing to starve their children to keep the roads up, but most red states fail at both feeding kids and maintaining roads. If it wasn't for the cash infusion from the well off blue states, the red states would literally be third world.

Don't forget the world-class higher education system, with the two of the top universities in the world.

Oh yeah, and spectacular public schooling - the state schools are top notch, as are many of the lower education public schools.

LA county school system is one of the worst in the nation and it costs nearly the most.

Fair point. I don’t live in LA and was not aware of the school issues there.

But by and large, CA does have great public school, and top-tier public universities.

Roads in California are good? We must live in different states.

Where are you from? To be fair, I mean relative to other states. Not that they’re perfect.

It truly depends within CA. San Diego or suburbs of LA? It's pristine. Bay Area? The roads flood with the slightest bit of rain and have potholes the size of a basketball.

My experience is that the Florida roads are significantly better than the roads in the bay area. And Florida has no income tax and lower sales taxes than California.

I mentioned Florida as the notable outlier. They have a lot worse other things, but I agree the roads in FL are great.

They make up their tax revenue in other ways.

> The roads here are way better than other places with lower taxes

I live in San Francisco and absolutely disagree with this. The roads are garbage. And lest we think that's just a city thing, whenever I leave the city and drive out on local and state roads they range from garbage to ok-ish.

My family moved to Maryland when I was a teenager, and the roads there were pristine (90s, not sure about nowadays). It felt like some section of some road or highway near me was always being resurfaced.

Arguably, it's better to pay higher taxes on a job that's protected than lower taxes on a job that you can't count on.

Yeah. I totally get why people conceptually hate the idea of paying taxes, even if my values lead me to a very different conclusion. That said, most of the arguments I've encountered about places with higher taxes being worse places to live strike me as either glib and uninformed, or in bad faith. That's not a partisan-specific folly by any measure, but it's a folly nonetheless.

It depends on how high the taxes are and what protection is offered exactly. The extra protections I would get in California are not worth nearly enough for it to be worth for me.

And that’s ok! But those protections are worth it for a lot of other people. :)

It is an honest argument. No point in a secure job that can't even pay rent. But people with families can't exactly engage in multi job hustles and expect to remain a healthy unit.

> Though Texas has no state-level personal income tax, it does levy relatively high consumption and property taxes on residents to make up the difference. Ultimately, it has a higher effective state and local tax rate for a median U.S. household at 12.73% than California's 8.97%, according to a new report from WalletHub.

Obviously there are more than two states, but it’s not so simple.

Plus, someone’s got to pay for everything:

> [California] receives $0.99 in federal expenditures per dollar of taxes paid, which is below the national average return for states of $1.22 per dollar paid, according to its review of a 2015 New York Comptroller study.

> for a median U.S. household

Please, not more of this nonsense

Show me a SWE who makes median ($40,480 in 2023) money or less. That quote does not apply. For people making SWE money, Texas is a LOT better tax-wise

I lived in Texas making six figures as a SWE. Texas was not far better tax wise. Texas does a lot to ding you in ways that aren't taxes, and buying a home that doesn't involve an hour and a half commute one way is unrealistic.

> For people making SWE money, Texas is a LOT better tax-wise

How do the people of Texas pay for things, then, if not through income taxes?

Property tax, sales tax, toll roads in places they shouldn't be, and so forth.

Property and local taxes, and also simply doing less.

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tax-burden-by-state...

Californians pay more taxes but they also get better social services, schools, universities, parks, etc.

Former Texan here. Property taxes cost quite a bit, far exceeding incremental tax load in areas I've lived out of the state.

Anecdata, but a counterpoint to your general claim.

Nonsense? Most people aren't software engineers.

Do you not care about people who do not make SWE wages?

> Plus, someone’s got to pay for everything:

Bizarrely, even experts miss this obvious fact. If not income taxes, then how does government pay the bills? Income taxes are usually the most progressive tax, so no income tax usually means less wealthy people pay more. If government spends less, what services are cut?

No income tax != free lunch. Someone has to pay.

Yeah it's very funny hearing my dad talk about how nice it is to have no income tax in Washington (he's a dentist). But when you tell him that the relatively higher income tax is worse for poor people he doesn't seem to agree. Washington is certainly a progressive state on the whole, but the taxation is horrible.

> relatively higher income tax is worse for poor people

How is it worse for poor people?

Poor people spend more of their income on things that have sales tax. In other words, someone who is worried about their 401k is probably spending less of their income each month by percentage compared to someone living paycheck to paycheck.

https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/#sales-and-excise-taxes

Governments can do less and spend more wisely.

What solution does that offer? People have been debating what to keep and cut for generations, as well as ways to improve spending; I don't see any low-hanging fruit or big improvements there.

> What solution does that offer?

Really? If people weren't forced to pay as much taxes as they have today they would have more resources to invest in what really matters to them instead of having a bunch of bureacrauts wasting it.

> I don't see any low-hanging fruit or big improvements there.

There are tons of low-hanging fruits, at least in South America, the issue is that government doesn't exist to provide services and seek the interests of the population. Government is just a big mafia and things are corrupt and inneficient by design because their true goal is to fill their pockets.

> Really?

Are you surprised I'm just not accepting the trope as God-given truth? Get used to it. :)

> If people weren't forced to pay as much taxes as they have today they would have more resources to invest in what really matters to them instead of having a bunch of bureacrauts wasting it.

And they'd have less services provided by government.

Anyway, your claim is a trope, but let's actually examine it:

People want government to do certain things; government does things that "really matter". Nobody gets exactly what they want from anything - the restaurant, their family members, employers, etc., or from government.

I know the word 'bureaucrat' has been demonized, but that's not evidence (in fact, it's evidence IME of right-wing propaganda). I personally know some government bureaucrats well, and they are serious professionals, completely committed to their job and to public service.

Government waste is long been a trope of the right-wing propaganda, as a way to persuade people to cut taxes (for the wealthy) and reduce government's influence (which democratically counters that of powerful people), but I've never seen evidence that government is more wasteful than other sizeable institutions - if you've seen the inside of a mid-sized corporation, you would recognize it. Same with churches, non-profits etc etc.

If you have evidence, that's one thing. Just repeating these claims doesn't make them true. It makes them ripe to be challenged.

> There are tons of low-hanging fruits, at least in South America, the issue is that government doesn't exist to provide services and seek the interests of the population. Government is just a big mafia and things are corrupt and inneficient by design because their true goal is to fill their pockets.

Who is there only to provide services? Don't businesses also want to fill their pockets? Also, we are grouping all of South America, from Columbia to Argentina, into one broad generalization?

> Who is there only to provide services? Don't businesses also want to fill their pockets?

Business don't put me in jail if I don't buy their services. Choice, freedom is an important distinction. Also this is nonsense because taxes are a one-way obligation, government has no obligation to provide services just because you paid taxes. There's a distinction between taxes and fees.

> Government waste is long been a trope of the right-wing propaganda, as a way to persuade people to cut taxes (for the wealthy) and reduce government's influence (which democratically counters that of powerful people), but I've never seen evidence that government is more wasteful than other sizable institutions - if you've seen the inside of a mid-sized corporation, you would recognize it. Same with churches, non-profits etc etc.

I have experience working for big-sized organizations including NGOs. The bigger the more inefficient. And you know what are the biggest organizations in the world? Government. e.g. California budget for 24-25 is $291.5 billion.

The truly wealthy are able to circumvent high taxes. They can have fiscal residencies in tax heavens along dozens of other loopholes to avoid taxes.

> If you have evidence, that's one thing. Just repeating these claims doesn't make them true. It makes them ripe to be challenged.

Honestly I think your worldview is limited to "Democratic" vs "Republican" parties. There's ample evidence. Historically socialism and big government lead to poverty. This is explained both by economical and political theory.

e.g.: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice

If you want to learn more there's Milei speech in Davos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfcd0gWNIog

> Also, we are grouping all of South America, from Columbia to Argentina, into one broad generalization?

Yes, because unfortunately this is a broad issue in South America. If you want specific cases look at Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. I'm Brazilian.

>invest in what really matters to them

You see libraries and schools barely having enough funding to function while consumers spend thousands on entertainment. I don't really trust the average Joe to know "what really matters". Or at least not realize it matters until it's too late.

Not to say government spending doesn't have its share of inefficiencies and outright corruption. But they at least have some checks to keep it from going off thr deep end (both literally and socially via elections).

> libraries and schools barely having enough funding

Probably because they are public and government responsibility.

> I don't really trust the average Joe to know "what really matters".

Average Joe live paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't have disposable income.

>they are public and government responsibility.

My point exactly. They barely get funding by people whose job is to allocate and get people to fund them. How many will actively think to fund these institutions if optional? And how much would they fund? And to which schools? Can't you see all the emergent issues?

>Average Joe live paycheck to paycheck. It doesn't have disposable income.

Average Joe makes 70k and pays 1300 in rent. Average Joe is fine, problem is half the people by definition aren't average and average is only a decent living with no kids and two incomes.

The truly poor Joe isn't taxed much or at all. This would affect them the least.

Texas levies property taxes now?

Totally agree. When taxes are the highest in the country and take almost 40% of your income and the only people who own houses are the ones that bought them 20-50 years ago that is very employee unfriendly.

Exaggerating like that doesn’t help your argument. California’s top tax rate is 12.3% and you’re only paying just on income over $680k:

https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2023/2023-540-tax-rate-schedule...

This means that in practice, California isn’t even in the top 10:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/30/1166970506/tax-burden-by-stat...

Now, the housing market is not great but again, greatly overstating your case is not an effective strategy, and it isn’t a uniquely California problem even though prop 13 makes it worse there than many other places.

These are the rates and includes a over million 1% tax for mental support.

California 13.3% Hawaii 11% New York 10.9% New Jersey 10.75% District of Columbia 10.75% Oregon 9.9% Minnesota 9.85% Massachusetts 9% Vermont 8.75% Wisconsin 7.65%

Tax burden is a different measurement including property. Parent poster has no property.

I don’t know your source. None of the ones I’ve seen support that ranking:

https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/tax-burden-by-state...

Ah, I see that was copied from the list of top tax rates rather than what most people actually pay:

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/fun-facts/states-with-t...

So, yes, if you’re making millions per year in taxable income, California’s top rate is higher. That is not a concern for anyone outside of the 99.5th percentile, which is uncommon even in FAANG circles.

Tax burden is also the best metric to use because the money has to come from somewhere. If you’re trying to decide where to live, looking at state income tax only is as foolish as only looking at housing purchase prices without also considering your commute, utility, and maintenance expenses.

> So, yes, if you’re making millions per year in taxable income, California’s top rate is higher.

But isn't that what "top rate" meant in the first place? It doesn't mean "median".

Seems like you're moving the goal posts over a few percentage points. Whether it's 12% or 14.4%[0], it's very high.

And at some point those very wealthy and highly mobile people start thinking, "maybe we should crunch the data and do what other wealthy people are doing: find a state with a more reasonable tax bite."

0. https://www.wsj.com/articles/gavin-newsoms-stealth-tax-incre...

Remember that I was correcting someone who hyperbolically claimed California “taxes are the highest in the country and take almost 40% of your income” in a thread claiming that taxes were high enough to make California employee-unfriendly. Whether it’s the 2023 or 2024 rate, they were arguing triple the actual rate and very, very, very few employees in the state are paying even that top rate. Even the WSJ editorial board–hardly neutral–clearly state that this only applies to people making over $1M a year (the top 1% starts around $550k, so that’s pretty elite!).

If you want to accuse anyone of shifting goalposts, start with the people trying to portray the concerns of the top .1% as employee issues.

I find it weird that people quote top-tax-bracket rates and try to use tha tto directly compare state taxes.

That's nonsensical. You need to compare the effective tax rate that people pay.

When I was making bank at tech, sure, I was in CA's top tax bracket. But I never paid that rate across all my income. My effective tax rate was quite a bit lower.

> But I never paid that rate across all my income. My effective tax rate was quite a bit lower.

This seems to be a strangely common cognitive pitfall - I’ve seen so many people talk about progressive tax rates that way, even claiming that a raise would cost them money, and it’s not like this is a secret or requires advanced math skills.

But it does require thinking about more than just the headline. A lot of people are lazy (I don’t mean that as a moral issue, just literally) and don’t want to think for themselves, so often they simply parrot.

The top tax bracket is more like 50% all in. So I was not quoting the top one with 40%.

Show me a married couple both working in tech in California which is what this website is for and show me their average tax rate. It will be almost 40% at the lower end of this income range. This stuff is not rocket science.

Then do the sales tax as well. I’m not exaggerating anything. This is why my family and so many others moved from the state during COVID.

Have fun buying tiny $2-3 million dollar homes paying 40%.

You’re the one making the claim, why can’t you show us your calculations? I can’t reproduce your numbers unless you’re assuming a truly massive real-estate assessment.

>Show me a married couple both working in tech in California

I didn't know everyone on this site met their spouses at work. Statistics say that's been dwindling for 15 years or so. Then you account for the 20-30% of women in tech (and the fact that not every woman wants to marry a techie)...

Still, congrats on your situation.

>Have fun buying tiny $2-3 million dollar homes paying 40%.

Well, I'm single (with worse rates) and CA is 9.3% for my bracket + 24% federal. Doesn't seem too unreasonable. Sounds more like a housing issue than a tax issue.

It's also why I live out in a suburb. I know people online these days glamorize walkable cities, but California right now isn't very "walkable", even if we could redesign everything tomorrow. Lot of other deep seeded issues to solve first.

We bought a home 11 miles from the Googleplex in 2009 and paid it off in 15 years and did it on a single salary working in non-profit tech. Your assumptions here are deeply flawed or your reasoning is broken.

So, two years after the nearly existential crash of 2007 and only one year after Sequoia's famous "RIP Good Times" memo, when housing prices were at their absolute lowest and investment in the Bay Area was at its lowest ebb since at least the dot-com crash.

Just not sure how relevant that anecdote is.

He was responding to the absurd assertion that nobody has bought a house in California in two decades. It’s not cheap but that’s pure hyperbole, and Asa was reminding him of that.

I have many friends who have bought homes. Some in Gilroy, some in Mountain View, me in Cupertino, and so on.

None of us were born with money, and none of us bought them 20-50 years ago. None of us were even alive 40 years ago.

It’s doable, and while a number of people bounced during the pandemic, a lot of people took advantage of lower home prices. It’s about priorities.

And thank you! Many companies follow CA regulations by default if they do significant business in the state or have even a small footprint there.

Yes this is one of the risks of working for a very small employer. A lot of the normal rules don't apply. But if a company is big enough to have "HR" I'm guessing they likely are bigger than 50 employees.

I perceive yet another motivation for companies to aggressively classify employees as contractors.

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