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They were talking about what it costs the company, not just the salary. There are taxes, insurances, equipment costs, etc.

10k might be a bit too high, but it's far from "absolutely ridiculous" amounts of being too high. An employee with a 5k salary can easily cost the employer 7-8k

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I took into account all of that. Still ridiculous.

In the US, it’s really difficult to live a middle class lifestyle if you’re not making at least low to mid 100k. I don’t see any starting software salaries at good companies below 100k even in the Midwest.

Sure in the US. But people are throwing token caps in 500, 1000, 2000 dollar range here. That is a very significant expense on top of salary, taxes and benefis. It's only justifiable if they observe 20% 30% or more productivity increases across the board.

If you have huge salaries, yeah sure 500 dollars its okay even if you only get 5 10% more productive.

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