Labor

Silicon Valley's tech giants are world renowned for their random employee 'perks' which include everything from free lunches prepped by expensive chefs, to free massages, nap pods and tricked out game rooms.

But the latest trend in Silicon Valley 'fringe benefits', which includes unlimited time off to protest the Trump administration, feels a little bit less like an attempt to attract and retain talent as it is an attempt to push a political agenda.

Authored by Catey Hill via Moneyish.com,

Yesterday, April 18th was the deadline for filing your taxes

Many Americans discovered they don’t owe the government a dime.

More than four in 10 American households (44.3%) — or upwards of 76 million — didn’t pay any income tax to the federal government last year, according to data for 2016 from the Tax Policy Center. This year that number is expected to be roughly the same, at 43.9%.

The minimum wage for H1B visa recipients is $60,000, unchanged from 1989. Let me emphasize that for you. Our government is permitting companies to bring in foreign skilled labor at 1989 wages, completely undercutting the American workforce and driving down wages.

Today President Trump signed an executive order to reform the program.

"Right now, H-1B visas are awarded in a totally random lottery -- and that's wrong, said Trump."

A 'shocking' discovery was made when a pair of researchers at Harvard Business School decided to analyze the impact of higher minimum wages in San Francisco on restaurant failures...hint:  they went up. 

Entitled "Survival of the Fittest: The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Firm Exit", this latest study on the devastating consequences of minimum wage was conducted by Dara Lee Luca and Michael Luca and concluded that each $1 increase in the minimum wage results in a roughly 4-10% increase in the likelihood of a restaurant going out of business. 

President Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday that aims to overhaul the H1-B visa program used by tech companies to bring high-skilled workers to the U.S., directing a government-wide review aimed at putting new teeth back into decades-old “Buy American” and “Hire American” directives.

As The Hill reports, Trump will travel to a manufacturing plant in Kenosha, Wis., to sign the order, which the administration says will make it more difficult for U.S. companies to look overseas for workers to fill middle-income jobs.