That employee is distanced enough from the idea that people would genuinely want to leave that I kinda laugh when I read their quote. COBRA alone would eat up most of the severance.
Either people managed to get through a _whole interview process_ in a week, or they're fine with the idea of being jobless during the worst economy in 12 years, or they price the benefit of not being there fairly high.
Which then leads us to how the whole argument is blinkered. It reduces decisions to a cost benefit analysis where a significant part of the benefit doesn't have a market price. Then, it questions if the benefit was too large, but by definition the arguer is still at the company and thus believes the unpricable part of the benefit isn't worth enough enough to leave.
A single software engineer paying for full price for high premium plan on COBRA would be spending around $400[1], over the whole 18 months of doing that it would be $7,200 which would be less than one month's paycheck on a $160,000 salary.
A cursory look at h1bdata.info shows that Coinbase pays plenty of H1B's that much, on the low side.
Your view is a little exaggerated.
There isn't a downside here. If you were there a very short amount of time, just remove it from your resume and have a gap. Its inconsequential for software engineers. If you were there for over a year, take your vested shares, leave it on your resume, and still coast. If you were already interviewing and had another offer, do the same.
[1] To my surprise, people are paying WAY more for health insurance. Are they San Francisco/Bay Area residents? Unknown. Are they individuals or paying the family rates? Unknown. Are they using the most competitive providers? Unknown. Is Coinbase still covering health insurance for people on severance as if they were employees with COBRA starting after the severance period is over, adjusting all of our math? Unclear.
I also want to share that I paid for COBRA $1,660 a month for for my family coverage (spouse + 2 kids) so $400 is probably not true in many cases even if single it seems really a low estimate
The one time I was on COBRA, under 3 years ago, I paid close to $700/month, and I was the only person included in my coverage. Health insurance premiums have very likely gone up since then, and family sizes above 1 (such as even I have now) would cost meaningfully more than that. Smaller companies than that employer might also have higher total premium cost per employee, if they aim for good coverage.
This was NYC and was high quality and inclusive coverage.
Kaiser Permanente is from what I've heard an unusually good deal without anything comparable in NYC or most of the rest of the US, though not without their own weaknesses in areas like mental health coverage and dispute resolution.
You're right, if you don't have a family and don't have _any_ paycheck deductions, don't pay _any_ taxes, and use numbers 33% below the average cost, it seems small.
Survey of purported 2019 data shows $570 * 12 = $6,840 for individual, $19,000 for family (for some reason, no monthly cost there)
So lets say you only pay the feds income tax, and don't bother with medicaid, social security, state income tax, 401K, any other witholdings whatsoever - you'll earn 85% of $160,000, or $136,000. Divided into 26 paychecks, $5230 biweekly.
If you're single, yearly premium would be covered by 2.6 weeks of work, or 11% of your severance. If you have a family, 7.26 weeks of work, or 30% of your severance.
> If you're single, yearly premium would be covered by 2.6 weeks of work, or 11% of your severance. If you have a family, 7.26 weeks of work, or 30% of your severance.
yeah this is a better metric than my napkin math above.
it is also important to elaborate that we are talking about 4 months of payment with continued health insurance included, and calling that savings for an additional 12 months of paying for health insurance.
Software seems to be doing okay, jobs-wise. The number of recruiters showing up in my inbox hasn't changed. I think health insurance is included in the severance.
I haven't seen the details here, but I've been laid off twice in the last two years, in both cases when "the employer provided COBRA" they meant they are paying my COBRA premiums. This showed up as a cheque, on top of my severance pay, for the expected cost of COBRA premiums plus an appropriate amount to pay for the taxes on that payout.
I believe COBRA is available for up to 36 months after your employment ends in California by law. As a result, I don’t know how to read “6 months COBRA” from the excerpt of the severance email besides “we will pay 6 months of employer premiums.”
COBRA means employees paying the employer premium, by guaranteeing COBRA, an employer is saying "We won't stop paying the health insurance company for _everybody else's insurance_, so you'll still have someone to pay" - it's a great PR jiu jitsu move, I didn't realize until this thread how confusing it is - I'm only familiar with it because sadly I had to sunset a company in California.
That is the most convoluted interpretation of offering COBRA, and is almost certainly incorrect. You're referring to the fact that an employer can technically terminate COBRA by ending all health insurance plans. But Coinbase would have to stop offering any health insurance to all their current employees for this to occur. If that happens (I'm virtually certain it won't), there would be an actual employee riot/exodus and the tech media would be all over that story.
So are you saying the Coinbase CEO simply said something to the effect of “we will maintain our insurance plans for 6 months company-wide”? That seems disingenuous.
Either people managed to get through a _whole interview process_ in a week, or they're fine with the idea of being jobless during the worst economy in 12 years, or they price the benefit of not being there fairly high.
Which then leads us to how the whole argument is blinkered. It reduces decisions to a cost benefit analysis where a significant part of the benefit doesn't have a market price. Then, it questions if the benefit was too large, but by definition the arguer is still at the company and thus believes the unpricable part of the benefit isn't worth enough enough to leave.