"...employees who move to Austin by the end of June will receive $7,000 stipends for relocating."
I would not relocate to Austin or anywhere else in Texas for $70,000 much less $7000. Even a bastion of sanity in Texas is still in Texas. What if my daughter needed healthcare "south of the border", go to court?
I'd take my chances with the severance pay and live somewhere sane where they can keep the lights on.
No state income tax likely does make this closer to $70k annual for most of those employees. If they get to keep their California salary it's a great deal.
They were offered a $7k one-time provision to offset relocation costs, the $70k figure was just a hyperbolic quip by the commenter you replied to. The average cost of housing is certainly lower, but despite the lack of an income tax, the average state and local tax burden for median incomes in Texas is significantly higher (12.73%) than in California (8.97%) [1].
The only people for whom Texas is a better deal for taxation are in the highest income brackets, higher even than tech workers at Apple. This is the case even though access to healthcare, higher education, and public services tends to be worse. This is why eliminating income taxes in favor of consumption and property taxes is widely considered to be regressive and disproportionately targeted at lower and middle class households. The higher median tax rate then seems to simply be a redistribution mechanism to funnel additional wealth to the wealthy on the backs of working Texans.
> the average state and local tax burden for median incomes in Texas is significantly higher (12.73%) than in California (8.97%)
> The only people for whom Texas is a better deal for taxation are in the highest income brackets, higher even than tech workers at Apple.
I pay 4-5% of my individual income in local property taxes of all types, and we pay less than 4% of our household income. And that's after recent large increases in our property value. We live in the city limits of Austin, one of the more taxed places in TX. We bought outside of downtown, but actually nearer most tech companies than downtown. Our neighborhood is perfectly safe, paying less didn't affect that. If you're in TX paying 12% of your income in taxes you probably either have a low income and inherited more house than you could otherwise afford or you made a foolish decision on where to live(had to be in that trendy part of town).
I know Texas very well, I was married there, all my kids were born there, and it's definitely the place I felt most accepted (Texas was very different then), but I gotta say it's a bit trickier than this for folks nowadays, the government there really has gotten into everyone's business and even local cities can't pass their own laws without the state government overriding them and enforcing their ideas on everyone else. It's a shadow of the state I'd come to love. So I get why people would not be anxious to sign up for that deal ( even if they don't know that Austin is in some ways less liberal and accepting than Houston or Dallas which are much more cosmopolitan and diverse).
That said, California has literally nothing like HEB and if I could have elected HEB to be the government I would have taken that deal in a heartbeat, so you and I agree there.
This can’t be the first time a company has tried to have a layoff without calling it as such. I have to believe there is legal precedent that a forced relocation is the same as a layoff.
In ancient times, IBM stood for "I've Been Moved". Luckily the late 20th century Silicon Valley model was to keep the same house and commute to a new job instead.
Genuine question, what's up with the ardent hatred for Texas (and noncoastal cities in general)
I might lack the nuance to pick up differences, but American suburbs are remarkably consistent across the country. All the new 'inner' tech cities (Austin, Atlanta, Phoenix, Boulder), used to be University towns.... so they were deep blue even before us tech yuppies moved in.
I've found Americans to be rather welcoming everywhere I have gone. If anything, Seattle has been my 'least welcoming' experience so far.
Is the abortion issue that big of a factor in moving decisions ? Other than a few headlines, I doesn't seem to be particularly difficult to take an out of state visit if the need arises.
I can understand the urban density or nature as good reasons....but I find that those most opposed to the move rarely give either as reasons. (I might be projecting based on a few similar anecdotes I've been on the listening end of)
> Is the abortion issue that big of a factor in moving decisions ? Other than a few headlines, I doesn't seem to be particularly difficult to take an out of state visit if the need arises.
All other things being equal, people normally like to live in an area where local government look after their people. Or at the very least, don't actively write legislation that is designed to harm you for no compelling reason.
Edit: It looks like you've been posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait repeatedly. Could you please not? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, so we have to ban accounts that keep doing it.
Btw there could be a way of making that point without starting a flamewar, but when a comment begins with political rhetoric and ends with a Molotov cocktail, it's obviously pointing to the latter. It's not as if this is a borderline call!
The last line in the comment was a little petty but I don’t think I’d describe it as a Molotov cocktail. It sucks that we’ve ended up in this situation but Texas is an objectively more risky place to live if you are in the 50% of the population that has a uterus.
Women and healthcare are welcome to be discussed abstractly in their own silos, but mixing “women” up with the idea of “tech workers” in the context of moving to Texas is going to piss off a group of people that are less of a hassle to dang if he deferentially capitulates to their preferences in advance.
I don't know who you're talking about but this was a straightforward moderation call, not some weird capitulation.
Nearly every time we moderate any X at all, someone jumps to the conclusion "mod secretly agrees with the enemies of X or is secretly under their power". But X varies across the set of all topics, so if this logic is correct, we'd have to secretly be favoring everybody's enemy.
> this was a straightforward moderation call, not some weird capitulation.
This makes sense. Despite the post being critically salient and undeniably on topic, it is a violation of the rules. Or not, just a moderation call or both or neither. Anyway despite the obvious relevance here the rules/your discretion (whichever one it is) have thankfully saved us from any discussion of the uncontested fact that this is a material issue and not an abstract discussion of moral issues.
I am sorry that I gave you the impression that this was some weird capitulation, that’s not the case. It’s a wholly normal and humdrum capitulation that is not in any way odd. Treating issues like this as abstract or unworthy of discussion is the norm in many industries, tech included!
The fact that the attorney general of the state can and will intervene between doctors and patients in order to further an ideological agenda is wholly abstract to a group that will insist that “this doesn’t apply to me personally and therefore is unworthy of discussion”. By default (either rules or moderation call, whichever) they have been deemed correct and endorsed here by explicitly disallowing any discussion to the contrary.
That's just a case of us not having seen it. I've responded now. It's not possible for us to see everything that gets posted to HN—there's far too much. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
> Were discussion about Foxxcon suicides equally moderated?
I can't fathom what that has to do with this, but the answer is of course. The principles are the same.
You can always find examples of comments that escape moderation on any side of any sufficiently-discussed topic. People are far too eager to make inferences about moderation bias from what is in fact just randomness.
This makes sense. Despite being neither generic or a tangent, this factually correct statement about an issue that people consider when moving between states in the US is just too spicy of a meatball and therefore should not be discussed in this thread about people moving to this specific state.
Edit: Obviously, taxes apply everywhere on earth and therefore are also a generic topic, so the even-handed approach of shutting down tax chat and healthcare chat is appreciated.
Yes, starting a flamewar about abortion is a big generic tangent, and throwing in flamebait like "Thanks Apple!" makes this particularly clear.
"Generic" in this context has to do with replacing a specific topic with a larger, more general one that it perhaps has some connection to. The problem from an HN point of view is that it makes discussion less interesting and more flame-prone. The generic topics drown out the smaller ones the way a black hole will suck in everything that comes too close (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...).
That doesn't mean the larger topic isn't important. Most probably it is very important, far more than the more specific topic is. That's not what HN is optimizing for, though (see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). Trying to stay focused on the specific rather than the generic, and especially the inflammatory generic, is a big part of keeping HN intact for its particular purpose. Otherwise it would quickly become purely a current affairs site, which it's not.
Dang I'm pretty disappointed by this comment and the fact that you flagged the parent comment. I agree "Thanks Apple!" doesn't add anything to the comment, but the rest of the comment (while touching on a divisive issue) is an important consideration for female tech workers (and male tech workers with wives/daughters/etc).
Losing the right to bodily autonomy is just as important to consider as potential tradeoffs regarding taxes. Yes, abortion restrictions are a contentious issue, but thats because they have material impacts on women's lives. I understand you dont want a flamewar but it seems wrong to dismiss comments raising legitimate concerns rather than inappropriate or flame-prone comments made in response.
This is one of the most prominent ideological faultlines that exists. There can't be many HN readers who are unaware of where their interests lie on this question—most likely there are zero. So I don't buy the public interest argument here; I think this thread is just the usual ideological/political foofarah, and on that the HN standard is clear: it's not what this site is for. If people really wanted to factually inform one another in a helpful way, they would post entirely different comments from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020465. As I already said, it's not a borderline call.
Here's another way of looking at it, in case helpful: we don't want anything predictable on HN. The rhetoric that people resort to when an issue like this comes up is fierce, repetitive, and predictable. That makes sense—if you're fighting for a cause you feel passionately about, repeating the same points as intensely as possible is what you do. But all of that is off topic on this site. There are plenty of other places to post that way.
Edit: I know how strong the temptation is to read something like this and think that the mods are taking the wrong position* on (in this case) abortion rights, and then get super mad about it. But I'm not saying anything about abortion rights (or California vs. Texas) in the slightest. I'm just trying to do the pedestrian moderation job I always do.
HN is a site for intellectual curiosity. Predictability cuts directly against that. What do you think we should do—not be a site for intellectual curiosity anymore?
There's been a tremendous shift in U.S. abortion, reproductive, and effectively general healthcare since the Dobbs decision in 2022, and Texas specifically has enacted some of the strictest and most vindictive state laws and policies, all of which would and should weigh heavily on the minds of anyone affected by Apple's decision here. Raising that point is absolutely on-topic in this discussion.
I'll allow that the "Thanks, Apple" wasn't strictly necessary, but even that seems within bounds given the circumstances and story.
If you'd like some guidelines here, I'd suggest that political considerations which impact on a story, particularly where those considerations have recently changed or are in flux (both of which apply here) should be permitted.
Totalitarian, repressive, and authoritarian governments and governance specifically operate on the very sort of generic, hot-button, emotionally-loaded issues and matters which HN typically eschews. Where those topics are not materially related to the story at hand I think that they can be reasonably admonished, particularly if the context and tone are inflammatory. In this case the consideration and its significance are material and relevant, even if Chron's own story omitted the consideration (a conspicuous omission itself).
HN's policy puts an extreme onus on those who call out repression, and is effectively a form of tone-policing. I've called this out in the past, and pointed out where you've acknowledged a comenter's stress in response, as here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37372792>
NB: much as I disagree with Dang's rationale here, HN mods almost never flag or remove comments, HN readers do. Mod actions typically show as "deleted" AFAIU (something I've had explained to me repeatedly by dang but cannot keep straight).
That said: HN's policy of strongly deprecating discussions of political hot potatoes does mean that HN has a de facto status quo bias, which is problematic in general and in this case specifically, as the issue raised in the flagged comment upstream is assuredly material for some Apple employees objecting to Apple's ultimatum.
[deleted] means the author of the post deleted it or asked us to delete it for them. The mods never do that without a request from the author (and usually not if the post has replies).
Mods almost never flag submissions but we do sometimes flag comments.
No, dang, this isn't a generic tangent. Apple is forcing women to relocate to a state that will premptively threaten doctors with jail sentences for giving these same women life-saving health care. If you don't know what I am referring to, please look up the case of Kate Cox and all of the deep reporting around it.
Apple is forcing women to move to a state that treats them like birthing vessels and second-class citizens. Calling it out is our duty. Keeping silent on it is agreeing with the State of Texas that a non-viable fetus is more important than the life of a mother of two.
The GP was starting a political flamewar of the most predictable type—two types at the same time, in fact: ideological and regional. That's not a borderline call, especially given the flamewar style it was written in.
None of that means the issue isn't important; quite the contrary. But HN isn't primarily a site for hammering out the most important issues in the world—if it were, then it would be consumed by political battle, and that's the opposite of the intellectual curiosity which the site actually is for.
We have to be proactive about moderating in this way, because the default tendencies on the internet are all flameward. That means the default end state of this site is scorched earth, unless we put in a lot of energy to avoid that. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Please don't use dismissive language around the atrocities going on in Texas like "even if that's all true." It is true. The hell that Texas is forcing women like Kate Cox through is well documented. And Apple, a major tech player, is choosing to pressure women to move there.
This is the epitome of a relevant tech discussion. Choosing to moderate it away because it is too controversial is coming out on the side of the status quo that the state of Texas is enforcing on women's autonomy.
What "lifesaving medical procedures" do you mean exactly? You can't possibly mean abortion, since saving the mother's life is one of the exceptions to Texas's abortion ban.
Errr no, that was always meant to be a fake empty promise to make the restrictions sound more palatable.
This was proven by the woman who couldn’t get an abortion despite her fetus having a terminal defect. After courts initially ruled she could get one, the Texas AG fought it and threatened to prosecute any doctor who did it, and was able to overturn the ruling.
In practice, Texas doesn’t allow abortions period. Guidelines are ambiguous and the AG will prosecute so doctors risk jail and losing their career.
A woman recently had to leave the state to get an abortion which her doctor argued was required to protect her life and maintain her future fertility. The Texas Supreme Court stepped in to deny her the right to the procedure in Texas: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/11/texas-aborti...
Any time a woman gives birth, there is a potential that her life could be at risk. I very recently had a friend who was expecting, but the baby didn't have a brain stem. Doctors couldn't abort the pregnancy within the State without fear of legal action, so they carried the baby to term only to have it die merely minutes after birth.
That is not the life I would want for a child, nor expecting parents. To live with the notion that your baby will die as soon as it exits the womb for months is completely unbearable, let alone just the loss of the child. Months and months of anticipating death. My friends found solace in their religion, and thought the best thing for the child was to be blessed by a religious leader after birth, but not everyone has the mental strength or willpower to do what they did.
This Texas law is an abomination to unborn children and women.
In a recent case of someone living in TX learning that their fetus had trisomy 18, there was a whole legal case that had to be fought, and when Judge Gamble ruled that terminating the pregnancy could proceed in this case, TX AG Ken Paxton filed an emergency petition to ask the state supreme court to overturn the ruling, and that blocked Judge Gamble's ruling. Meantime, the woman's condition was deteriorating enough that she left the state to get her healthcare needs met.
So, what can we expect when TX is making it this perilous to provide basic healthcare for such a large percentage of its population? More of the same, I'd argue.
If you care about your sisters/daughters/spouses' access to healthcare, consider other states.
I would not relocate to Austin or anywhere else in Texas for $70,000 much less $7000. Even a bastion of sanity in Texas is still in Texas. What if my daughter needed healthcare "south of the border", go to court?
I'd take my chances with the severance pay and live somewhere sane where they can keep the lights on.