Intel Faces Age Discrimination Allegations Following Layoffs (engadget.com)

Intel is under investigation for potential age discrimination in its approach to layoffs initiated in 2016, according to a report. Engadget: The Wall Street Journal has learned that the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is investigating claims that Intel's large-scale layoffs discriminated against older employees. In a May 2016 round that cut 2,300 workers, for instance, the median age of those let go was 49 -- seven years older than those who remained. The EEOC hasn't decided whether or not it will file a class-action lawsuit against Intel, but the affected people will be free to pursue civil lawsuits if the regulator doesn't find enough evidence to pursue its own case. The EEOC isn't allowed to confirm or deny investigations. However, an Intel spokesperson categorically denied that age played a role.

Comments

They weren't old..

[Arzaboa]

...they just weren't young and vibrant.

--
"Wish you were here" -- Pink Floyd

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

And they had higher health care costs.

We really need to remove health care as an incentive to lay off older people and an anchor on business profits that prevent them from competing with companies in countries where business doesn't pay for health care.

It's so funny because *everyone* gets old. It's in *everyone's* interest to prevent age discrimination.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

All it takes is allowing people to fully deduct the cost of their own healthcare. As it is now, it's a tax benefit for consumers to have healthcare paid for by their employers. Change it so consumers can deduct the cost of health insurance/healthcare and there will be zero reason to stay with the existing approach. And a side benefit is they employee will now be in direct control of the expenditure on their own healthcare, most likely resulting in reduced expenditures on healthcare.

Re:They weren't old..

[Anonymous Coward]

All it takes is allowing people to fully deduct the cost of their own healthcare. As it is now, it's a tax benefit for consumers to have healthcare paid for by their employers. Change it so consumers can deduct the cost of health insurance/healthcare and there will be zero reason to stay with the existing approach. And a side benefit is they employee will now be in direct control of the expenditure on their own healthcare, most likely resulting in reduced expenditures on healthcare.

The problem with that is there is no benefit of pooling. Meaning everyone will be buying an individual policy rather than a group policy. On average, an individual policy will be 50% more expensive because there is no pool to spread the risk across.

Not only that, but you will loose the benefit of negotiated rates as the insurance companies can't negotiate based on a pool.

Re:They weren't old..

[Anonymous Coward]

a tax deduction is worthless. there's limits on those sorts of things, you know.. but there's no limits in how much the providers and drug companies can charge.

single payer tax-funded universal coverage with some pricing controls is what's needed. anything else is just a $9000 band-aid or a $6000 ice pack **

you're delusional if you think otherwise (you should see a doctor about that)

___
** no, i'm not making this shit up:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone...

Re:They weren't old..

[greenwow]

> ...49. Even if we could cut the average age to 30 years-old, ...

Just looked at the quote we received from our insurance broker, and the multiplier for 30 years-old is 1.135 versus 1.706 for 49 years-old where 24 years-old has a multiplier of 1. So you pay about 50% more in your case.

Re:They weren't old..

[Nidi62]

All it takes is allowing people to fully deduct the cost of their own healthcare. As it is now, it's a tax benefit for consumers to have healthcare paid for by their employers. Change it so consumers can deduct the cost of health insurance/healthcare and there will be zero reason to stay with the existing approach. And a side benefit is they employee will now be in direct control of the expenditure on their own healthcare, most likely resulting in reduced expenditures on healthcare.

How about just taking the middlemen out of healthcare? Get rid of the insurance companies and private insurance. Sure, the government might not be as efficient as private companies, but single payer still has to be cheaper when you realize that right now you are paying for the overhead/profit for the insurance companies, profits for the insurance company stockholders, the overhead/profit for local brokers and plan administrators, etc. You have at least 3 layers of people making money off your healthcare dollars before you even see a doctor! Add countless other layers of profit out of your healthcare dollars once you actually see the doctor and it gets even worse(can you say "chargemaster"?)

The point is, take out multiple layers of middlemen and costs will already go down, regardless of any loss of efficiency (which may not even occur).

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

How is removing insurance companies and inserting Government going to be cheaper or more efficient? At least now, insurance companies have to offer some level of service, or they lose clients. With single payer - you have, effectively, a single insurer who does not have to answer to anyone.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

You know... for the bottom 60% that's almost useless to completely useless, right? With a low income that's already maxed the limit on deductions, a deduction is worthless. And even with a deduction, that only lowers the cost of health care by about 15% or less for everyone making $120,000 and less. This leaves a family facing a $12,000 insurance bill and getting a $2000ish deduction.

Over 20 other countries use single player government health care and their health care costs are half to a third of our costs. And the cost is paid by the citizens who are well off. Not taken out of food and shelter money for the poor.

Re:They weren't old..

[Nidi62]

How is removing insurance companies and inserting Government going to be cheaper or more efficient? At least now, insurance companies have to offer some level of service, or they lose clients. With single payer - you have, effectively, a single insurer who does not have to answer to anyone.

Barring the fact government is (or at least should be, except for tax collection) a non-profit entity, you are effectively removing 3 different layers that derive profit off of the money you spend on health insurance premiums before you even see a doctor. Removing those is an automatic cost savings, even if you still have to pay out of pocket like most insurance plans make you do now. As for one single insurer, yes, that would be great. That means that everything is already negotiated out and everyone is charged the same. No more treatment costs X, is priced at 4X, and negotiated down to 2X (for you, it might be 2.5X for the person next to you, because reasons). When it comes to negotiation, how can you have more power than having literally every single customer on your side? And as a government agency, it would most certainly answer to someone: us. We would want to make sure our taxes and our premiums (if we have them) are being spent correctly.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

Until you get in an $89,000 car accident like my young 30's friends.

Or you have a stroke like my 45 year old bud.

Or your house burns down and you are hospitalized with $45,000 in ICU bills.

And the point isn't that *you* personally benefit anyway. If *everyone* needed $6,000 in health care each year, then the cost of providing it would be over $6,000.

The point is that 3 people out of a hundred need $60,000 in health care. The other 97 are fine. Everyone pays $600 and shares the risk.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

Actual hard data shows other countries pay 50% to 33% of our cost and have better adult and infant mortality ratings.

Our insurance is *great* if you are one of the "winners". It's bad for the other 80%. Insurance companies delayed coverage for a friend of mine until it was too late and she died of a curable form of cancer. They do this. All the time. That's why the ACA was passed in the first place. Insurance companies were literally canceling coverage after people had paid premiums for years as soon as they got sick. People who lost their jobs couldn't get coverage and died.

We need something that's fair to everyone. You never know when you may not be in the "Winners" group any more. It happens all the time. Chronic illness being a leading reason.

Re:They weren't old..

[mrops]

How about federal health care. Pay it from taxes, win win. Don't pay for a military, pay for health care.

Balance in favor of health care a bit.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

Uh... what kind of society results where our choice is to have no kids?

seems like a dead end to me.

Re:They weren't old..

[HornWumpus]

That isn't necessarily true. But there are many non-work related pools. Often you have to be a member for a year before you're eligible.

Re:They weren't old..

[HornWumpus]

Which amounts to about 2% ot total compensation.

Re:They weren't old..

[lgw]

Do you understand what "castrophic care" insurance is? Because it doesn't seem like you do. That's insurance which only pays for the big stuff - so you're not covered for routine doctors visits, but your losses are capped at $5k or $10k when something big happens.

It's an odd thing: a policy with a $5k annual deductible can be more than $5k/year cheaper than one that covers everything. Think about that for a minute - you come out ahead even if you have $5k of costs, none of which are covered. It just goes to show how big paperwork processing costs are as a percentage of healthcare.

I did have one employer who offered such a plan, and I was all over it, but they've vanished in the past few years as they aren't Obamacare-compatible. If I has the choice, I'd totally get the higher salary from my employer and get my own catastrophic care policy - I'd come out way ahead, in every scenario.

Re:They weren't old..

[jeff4747]

And a side benefit is they employee will now be in direct control of the expenditure on their own healthcare, most likely resulting in reduced expenditures on healthcare

Unless you are a doctor, you are not sufficiently knowledgeable about what health care you actually need in order to make good decisions that reduce expenses. And this has been demonstrated in study after study.

A functional "free market" requires an efficient market, and the asymmetry of knowledge guarantees the health care market can not be efficient.

Re:They weren't old..

[Magius_AR]

Barring the fact government is (or at least should be, except for tax collection) a non-profit entity, you are effectively removing 3 different layers that derive profit off of the money you spend on health insurance premiums before you even see a doctor.

If that were true, why aren't all govt operations cheap and efficient? 3 levels of profit, done right, is way more effective than a single level of government, done poorly (which is how most implementations go down). Hell, just look at the military complex -- that's a single layer right there and there's waste galore in it.

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

Then you develop a chronic condition that the insurance company assures you is definitely not catastrophic but you find the bills certainly are.

What we need is to quit messing around with individual insurance and just socialize the whole damned thing.

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

Except that our healthcare costs us several times more than it does in countries with socialized medicine.

Meanwhile, try actually hanging out in a business office for a few days. Just watch and listen. Never again will you be able to claim that business is run efficiently with a straight face.

Because of multiple insurance companies all with their own huge set of billing procedures, rules, and quirks, medical billing actually requires a 6 month course to absorb the specialized knowledge needed above and beyond being competent in managing accounts receivable.

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

Did you save up enough to cover that $20K every year for the rest of your life?

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

I can purchase insurance that works for me, like a high-deductible catastrophic plan. I cover everything up to $10K or so, and everything above that is covered 100%. Works for me, and I used to have that kind of plan until ACA and it was effectively banned. So now I pay about 4X the costs, for really no more use than before. Why should we have one-size-fits-all healthcare (because it certainly isn't insurance - insurance is used when you have a larger expense, like automotive or home insurance - not for regular maintenance).

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

I guess you don't realize we pay about $2 in Federal healthcare spending for every $1 in defense spending already. And you want to INCREASE that amount, even though the Federal Government dominates healthcare spending now - and drives most of the cost structure?

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

Best way to equalize it is to make everyone pay. You pay $3K for health insurance of your $50K income, and you can cut your AGI to $47K - full deduction. Just like businesses get. Right now as a private individual until you are well over 10%, you don't get to deduct anything.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

I wonder if you realize the Federal Government already spends about $3600 per year on healthcare for every man, woman, and child in the US? Shall we turn over the other 40% of our national spending on healthcare to that entity?

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

Seems like a problem with society- not with kids.

*My* college was almost free. So was the boomers. We should have a federal college system that is free and which gives basic useful degrees. High school isn't enough. And the extra tax income from a degree pays for itself.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

Our Federal Government spends about $1.2 trillion a year on healthcare already - they already spend as much as other nations spend, per capita. Yet how many actually get by with just the Federal Government spending? Vanishingly few. We end up buying private insurance (or extended insurance) because that already provided is basically worthless.

Re:They weren't old..

[Darinbob]

The problem is that few people realize the cost of their healthcare while employed, because they don't have to pay any of it. It's when unemployed, or underemployed with someone who doens't cover medical, that you notice the costs.

Overall, health care costs could go down if the insurance covered the minor stuff. The $5K deductible causes many people to avoid the doctor's visit for the small stuff. But if you keep the small stuff fixed you can often avoid the major stuff. Ie, my provider has no deductible, though you have to use their facilities, and they're very proactive about getting you into programs to manage, control, and prevent problems without any additional cost. Many other plans seem setup to only deal with what happens _after_ you get the heart condition, breathing problems, cancer, etc, and many insurance companies seem to be all about denying coverage if the condition isn't not serious enough.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

Our Federal Government already pays more per capita than most other countries, and it doesn't work. That's why people buy private insurance on top of public spending. Get rid of Federal healthcare spending in the first place.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

Sure. And it's terrible to the national health care provided by two dozen other countries.

Catastrophic care is 2 to 3 times as costly to per citizen with much worse results for most citizens- eno, less coverage, higher infant and child mortality, and higher adult mortality rates.

Also, those "mcplans" often bankrupted people and left hospitals with huge unfunded costs.

---

Look, I'd be fine if people like you were really exposed to bleeding out because you didn't have coverage. Instead, you go to the emergency room, run up 3x to 10x the costs and then don't pay them. Which means *I* pay them in my taxes or my insurance premiums.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

Then you develop a chronic condition that the insurance company assures you is definitely not catastrophic but you find the bills certainly are.

What we need is to quit messing around with individual insurance and just socialize the whole damned thing.

Yup.. and just a couple months ago some 25 year old died because he wasn't covered and couldn't get diabetes medicine. Totally avoidable. Happened in america.

---

That said- we have to be rational. We can't spend a billion dollars a year to keep someone alive. As a society, we decide where the line is and then we have to make those hard choices. For example, we can't cover medical expenses greater than per capita GDP. In reality we probably can't cover medical expenses greater than 10% of per capita GDP.

And that means some really cute young kids will die because they would run tens of millions of dollars in medical bills each and every year to keep alive.

It really sucks. But reality is harsh.

But we can have reasonable coverage, especially basic stuff, for everyone without bankrupting them when they have a car accident with an uncovered driver, when they need $40 a month blood pressure pills, etc.

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

There do have to be limits, but pretty much the entire developed world that is not the U.S. seems to manage it OK.

Re:They weren't old..

[aaarrrgggh]

There are many, many layers in military contracts, each with healthy markups. Accountability has high costs.

Governments are generally limited in a few ways that private industry is not: rate of change, and silos of influence are the main ones I understand. Some times these things are benefits and some times they are not, but healthcare is generally more in the former group.

Re:They weren't old..

[dryeo]

I thought America was a Federation of States. Why does the Federal Government spend so much on healthcare? Veterans?
You could do like Canada, where healthcare is a Provincial thing with the feds setting minimum coverage and some equalization payments as well as handling veterans, the natives and such. 14 healthcare systems, and it is a lot easier to replace the Provincial government then the Federal as your vote counts more and it is a different election, often with different political parties.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

We were a Federation, unfortunately the creeping hand of the Federal Government has continued to grow, and is heavily supported by a sizable chunk of the US.

Re:They weren't old..

[ChatHuant]

How is removing insurance companies and inserting Government going to be cheaper or more efficient?

Because insurance companies have exactly the opposite motivation that we want in a health provider. What we want is to maximize health. What they want is to maximize profit. For insurance companies, actually treating people is a *cost*, which they will try to avoid. On the contrary, extracting more money in any kinds of ways is a benefit, and they'll try to maximize it. They have no motivation to reduce the customer's cost - on the contrary, the worse they treat the insured, and the more they bill them, the better.

The government has no such perverse incentives; moreover, a large single payer system, such as Medicare, could use it's bulk purchasing power to negotiate great reductions in prices (as any reasonable business does). In the USA there are however LAWS forbidding Medicare to negotiate, which is just crazy.

This is not just idle banter - look at this study, provided by the NIH. Private insurers have an average overhead of 18%, while public insurers (Medicare and Medicaid) have an average overhead of 3.1% (table 1 in the study). As another point of interest, the overhead of the Canadian single payer system is 1.8%. The study concludes that removing the insurance companies overhead would save a staggering 350 billion dollars a year - which would be enough to cover the cost of treating all uninsured people in the USA, and leave enough over to improve everybody's current health care.

 

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

there should be but american society currently seems divided into really cruel sociopaths who don't care and marshmallow gooey softheads who can't make the tough calls.

It worries me.

Re:They weren't old..

[Whibla]

Just to expand and emphasize on this:

Our Federal Government spends about $1.2 trillion a year on healthcare already - they already spend as much as other nations spend, per capita.

Population of USA: 325 million. US Fed Spending on health: $1.2 trillion. Spend / Capita = $3392
Population of England: 53 million. UK Gov Spending on health (in England): £124 billion* ($165 billion). Spend / Capita = $3113

So, to within a few percent, our governments spend similar amounts on healthcare.

Yet how many actually get by with just the Federal Government spending? Vanishingly few. We end up buying private insurance (or extended insurance) because that already provided is basically worthless.

And yet, other than prescriptions for certain medications, I need pay nothing for medical care. I need no additional insurance to cover injury or illness, I have no overages, nor any 'realistic' maximum to the services I can receive if I have a condition that requires them. Of course I can take out things such as insurance to cover loss of earnings if an illness requires me to be off work or renders me unable to work, and can pay for private treatment should I desire, but these are not essential in keeping me alive.

So, it does make one wonder: What the hell does the money spent in the US get spent on? Why is there so little value for money within the US health service?

*In fairness the NHS is becoming increasingly cash strapped and, rather tragically, is being incrementally privatised, so it's not all roses in the 'Garden of England'. Free markets have their place, as does consumer choice, but, in my opinion, provision of basic health care is not one of those places!

Re:They weren't old..

[AmiMoJo]

*In fairness the NHS is becoming increasingly cash strapped and, rather tragically, is being incrementally privatised, so it's not all roses in the 'Garden of England'.

That's a deliberate policy by the government though, not an inherent problem with social healthcare.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

And for those of us who are not 65 of older, or destitute - we don't get any of that spending. We spend massive amounts, Federally, already on health insurance for poor coverage and poor results. And people want to EXPAND that, as they think it will lead to better results? When we're spending more per capita than the UK, but only spending that on ~20% of the people, what makes you think the Federal Government can handle the other 80% for really no increase in spending?

Re:They weren't old..

[jeff4747]

I can purchase insurance that works for me, like a high-deductible catastrophic plan

Health insurance is not health care.

Why should we have one-size-fits-all healthcare

Because health insurance is not health care.

insurance is used when you have a larger expense, like automotive or home insurance - not for regular maintenance

Because "regular maintenance" on a 50+ human is commonly multiple thousands of dollars per year.

I cover everything up to $10K or so, and everything above that is covered 100%. Works for me

Congratulations on being young and/or healthy. However just like your car insurance subsidizes people who actually have accidents, your health insurance premium pays people who actually get sick.

And again, health insurance is not health care.

Health care is you get a pain in your chest and your doctor wants to run a large battery of tests at a particular hospital. To make that efficient, you'd have to decide if 1) your doctor is correct in his initial diagnosis, 2) those tests are actually necessary, and 3) must be run now, and 4) that hospital is the most efficient place to run those particular tests at this time.

You can't do 1, 2, 3 or 4 if you are not medical professional - you do not have the education to make reasonable assessments. You can only make guesses. If you make a guess and you're wrong, you die. So you're not going to say "nah, that's too expensive. I'll just wait for a sale at Doctor Nick's discount testing barn".

Which means it can not be an efficient market - for all practical purposes you can not say "no". Which then means adding more up-front expenses to patients can not control health care costs. And this has been demonstrated in study after study. Higher co-pays/co-insurance/deductibles do not reduce health care costs. Instead, people guess wrong and either pay more than necessary, or guess wrong and a cheap-to-treat condition becomes an expensive emergency. If 100 people guess right and 1 person guesses wrong, you've un-done the savings from the 100 correct guesses.

But let's pretend patients magically have all the knowledge they need. Would having them pay more up-front control costs? Still no. 80% of patients create 20% of costs. People age 2 to 50 are really cheap. They only get expensive in rare events. Shaving 5% off their expenses is a rounding error.

The other 20% of patients are really expensive because they are extremely sick and are going to be really expensive no matter how much you make them pay up-front.

And conflating health care with health insurance doesn't solve this problem.

Re:They weren't old..

[micahraleigh]

This is a small factor. Hard to get contract work past 50.

Companies don't pay contractors health insurance.

Re:They weren't old..

[micahraleigh]

Health insurance companies have a 6% profit margin.

Imagine being able to keep 6% of your own money and do your own pooling !!

Re:They weren't old..

[micahraleigh]

I wouldn't expect evolution to be a good predictor of happiness ... although I have noticed a lot of people with kids are happy or seem to be.

Re:They weren't old..

[Magius_AR]

Except that our healthcare costs us several times more than it does in countries with socialized medicine.

That's a red herring. Everything in the US costs several times more than it does in other countries. Military expenses, education, healthcare, take your pick. You can't just expect a similar Euro implementation here in the US would just produce cheaper/similar results "because". One big glaring difference is that Euro countries are a hell of alot healthier than we are for one (we have boatloads of money going to pay for heart disease from a fat out-of-shape populace). You don't just implement a new system and "fix" those costs.

Meanwhile, try actually hanging out in a business office for a few days. Just watch and listen. Never again will you be able to claim that business is run efficiently with a straight face.

Uh, try the same in any government office and you'll rapidly get pissed about what your tax dollars are being used for.

Because of multiple insurance companies all with their own huge set of billing procedures, rules, and quirks, medical billing actually requires a 6 month course to absorb the specialized knowledge needed above and beyond being competent in managing accounts receivable

Most of the "procedures, rules, and quirks" you mention are standardized govt regs, like HIPAA protections. That doesn't just go away by swapping insurance companies for govt middle men. Tax law is streamlined to a single govt agency (the IRS). You think that doesn't require a 6 month course to understand? Tax compliance alone is costing us 400 billion a year: https://taxfoundation.org/comp...

That's what you get from govt. Red tape, bureaucracy, and massive overhead costs.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yes, health insurance is NOT health care! Yet I had to legally buy the former no matter my desire for it. And I am over 50 and my total costs are well under $1000 per year (sans insurance)... Would love to go back to catastrophic, as my experience is fine FOR ME. But the move to ACA forced us much closer to "once size forced on all" kind of approaches...

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

Everything in the US costs several times more than it does in other countries. Military expenses, education, healthcare, take your pick.

Note that like healthcare, education is much more socialized in Europe, so you're arguing my point there. As for military, that's because we keep starting wars all over the place. We should stop doing that.

As for being healthier, have you seen the per-capita beer consumption in the U.K.? Have you ever heard of poutine? Time to stop making lame excuses. Europeans are healthier because they can afford to go to the doctor and take their prescribed meds.

And the procedures, rules and quirks have nothing to do with government regs. They are all about maximizing the chances to deny a claim and making sure other company's plans cost more. Also about confusing the patient and maximizing co-pays. Much of it is the clash between people at the insurance company with no medical training but a lot of incentive to find nearly everything unnecessary and people at hospitals (also with no medical training) with a lot of incentive to find nearly everything absolutely necessary. The stereotypical fast talking used car salesman looks honest by comparison. Put the cool-aid down.

Given that the U.S. is the outlier by far, it is your claim that is extraordinary, bu instead of matching extraordinary proof,t you offer only handwaving.

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

The problem is that those payments are piecemeal and packed with sabotage to make sure it isn't accidentally socialist. For example, why isn't medicare allowed to haggle over the cost of prescription meds?

Given your extraordinary claim that doing the opposite of everyone else's demonstrably superior strategy is better, where is your extraordinary proof?

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

So clearly the problem is that we are being too carefull not to step on corporate toes here. We should spend more efficiently by modeling one of the many example systems that work better.

If 9 people go with strategy A and succeed, and 1 tries strategy B and fails, which strategy is better?

Or are you claiming that Americans are uniquely incompetent? If so, wouldn't it make sense for incompetent Americans to quit second-guessing their demonstrably more competent peers?

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

Wakey Wakey! The poster you are replying to is from the U,K, where they socialized the whole damned thing. It worked out well.

Let's see now, what are we doing here that produces such terrible results? I know, we run our medicare/medicaid as an insurance program paying private industry instead of running healthcare as a public service! We should stop doing that.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

Because of 77 bushels of wheat.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

You are ignoring that the u.s. then also pays additionally per capita where UK does not in the private market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

United Kingdom 4,192
United States 9,892

In other words, U.K. citizens pay *less than half* what we do.

Re:They weren't old..

[Maxo-Texas]

You mean unless you become unemployed... especially because you got sick. Like my 50 year old friend who died of a curable cancer.

With insurance provided by business, you are fine until you are not.

Even my 30 year old friends with the $89,000 accident were saved by the ACA. They didn't care insurance until it required it. Then they bitched about it. Then they were in a horrific car accident. If not for the ACA, they would have gotten much less treatment and they would have been bankrupt.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

Right now, the UK spends $3300 per person per year. The US Federal Government pays $3400 per person - and that's for just 20%. If we covered everyone like the UK does, but at the rate the Federal Government spends right now, Federal spending would go to nearly $6 trillion per year on healthcare alone.

Re:They weren't old..

[ahodgson]

Veterans yes, but mostly Medicare (subsidized health care for old people) and Medicaid (transfers to the states to subsidize health care for poor people).

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

RIGHT!! That's why we should spend the money more like the UK does. Then we could cover everyone for no more than we spend on just the elderly now.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

So we spend $6 trillion per year on Federal health insurance spending? The Federal budget is just a hair over $4 trillion as-is...

Re:They weren't old..

[Shotgun]

How about taking the middleman out of healthcare and having people pay for it themselves like they do every other product?

Doctors have to keep multiple staff just to comply with insurance paperwork. Eliminate them all, and the cost of preventive care becomes an out of pocket expense. This has been proven to the point that the insurance companies inserted language into the ACA to block health savings accounts from being used at for-fee providers.

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

READ AGAIN, for comprehension this time. IF we switched to socialized medicine, we can provide for the entire country and have the total spend remain level. That is, spend what we spend now in total, only everyone is covered.

Is that REALLY so hard to understand? What I find hard to understand is how anyone could be against that and claim to be fiscally responsible.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

Yes, it is. We socialize 20% right now, and that equals about what is spent by the rest on the other 80%. We spend 5X as much as the UK for every socialized medicine recipient. How do we cut the costs by a factor of 5 AND increase coverage? Because that's what it would take to reach what the UK or others spend. Where are you getting this $4.8 trillion in savings?

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

No, we socialize INSURANCE. We need to socialize CARE. The rest of the developed world socializes CARE and they get better results.

You seem to acknowledge that what the UK does is vastly more effective for the money, why don't we do what they do? Doesn't that seem obvious? Doing what others who are succeeding are doing?

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

Does Medicare/Medicaid socialize care or insurance?

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

How can you even believe you're qualified to discuss Medicare if you don't already know that?

And just in case, I actually answered that question in my last post.

Your homework assignment is to learn how Medicare actually works.

Here's a clue do (some) doctors accept Medicare when they ask what insurance you have or do they work for Medicare?

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

So then your solution is to nationalize all health care providers. Because if your doctor (and most of them do) takes Medicare, then your doctor is effectively nationalized, for you. What is it you're proposing?

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

Yes, I propose to nationalize the lot, much like NHS in the UK.

Let's try something known to work for a change.

Re:They weren't old..

[LynnwoodRooster]

We could try, but I have very poor expectations, given the state of most of the functioning of our Government. And I have a question about the Constitutionality of such a Federal takeover...

Re:They weren't old..

[sjames]

Function of the government can be a problem, but note that much of the dysfunction is monkeywrenching. Vote the monkeywrenchers out (they often proudly identify themselves). But given the state of medical billing and insurance accounting, it honestly can't get much worse.

As for Constitutionality, it isn't explicitly forbidden, and if we're going to suddenly get serious about not doing anything not explicitly permitted, we're going to be slashing a lot of programs.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes keeping up with the latest tech is irrelevant. My dad worked with COBOL for 20+ years and lost his job in a round of layoffs where he had to train his replacement, a younger dude that knew nothing of COBOL.

Besides, asshat, this is Intel. Knowledge of the latest JS hotness probably isn't going to help anyone there.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[halofan_sd]

I got my degree 20 years ago, I took classes in Java and Python, what's been new in the last 20 years?

What were the types of jobs?

[ausekilis]

I had heard they were closing down some factories in the past few years. Could it just be that they had a lot of older line workers?
How many young people fired does it take to prove this allegation wrong?

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Were these 50 somethings dinosaurs who never kept up with the latest tech and still coded in Fortran?

Stay with the times or go extinct. I have a feeling this has nothing to do with age discrimination.

You're talking out of your ass. And it's the excuse that is used - along with "they don't have the skills" or "they don't fit in".

Total bullshit. 100% bullshit. And it's just an excuse to to get around the EEOC laws with impunity.

As my retired CIO supervisor at my volunteer IT job says, "It's not right, but when candidates of similar skills are presented, we will go with the younger one." (And this VOLUNTEER job means NOTHING to recruiters!!)

What's similar? Well those laundry list of skills are just a distraction.

So, Mr. Fellow AC, you keep telling yourself that those old losers are just inept and keep sleeping at night.

How do I know? I was once like you at IBM in the early 1990s when Gerstner was cleaning house.

We - young punks - laughed at all those mainframe losers from NY who were sent down to Boca to work on OS/2 Warp. Hummpf! Old timer losers!

They busted their ass. And they laughed at our memory problems saying, "Uh, we solved this in 360. Look at IBM's patents."

But no.....we (I) were cocking young assholes who thought WE were beyond such things. We had the SKILZ! and we'd ALWAYS keep up!

And we did! I spent quite a few thousand dollars a year on books, class, and courses to stay ahead.

It makes no difference. I even had one asshole say that, "If you didn't go to Stanford, then you are no good - old man."

So, punk - shove it! Your day is coming!

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[ArchieBunker]

It all comes down to money. Why keep paying these guys high salaries when fresh college grads will do the work for a fraction?

Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[MobyDisk]

We can draw no conclusions merely from knowing the median age. The older employees probably probably made more money and received more benefits. Money is certainly part of the calculations for layoffs. There is also a greater chance that they were out-of-date making their cost/benefit ratio lower. Counterbalance that with the fact that companies often prefer to layoff younger workers to reward years of service. So the determination of who to layoff is quite complex, but it certainly involves many factors that are only 1 hamming distance away from age. So even if there is age discrimination going on, it will be really tough to isolate that from the other parameters.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[greenwow]

Good point about pay. Higher paid employees are easier targets when doing layoffs.

For us, it was hours worked. We let nearly every dev go that was working less than 60 hours a week. Of course, that skewed to a higher average age. Someone complained to the state DoL about that, and when we explained the metric used, we never heard back from them. I assume that meant using hours worked was a acceptable metric even when it appeared to result in age discrimination.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[sinij]

For us, it was hours worked. We let nearly every dev go that was working less than 60 hours a week.

You are stealing from your employees.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[K. S. Kyosuke]

We let nearly every dev go that was working less than 60 hours a week

Basically you kept those who needed more time to finish their tasks. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[fatwilbur]

While cost is always a big focus in layoffs (you're trying to save money!), from a practical perspective I find the larger reason I would skew towards some of the older folks in our organization is that they are far more resistant to changing their ways when business realities dictate we do so. Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but as a generality holds true. My organization has done a number of takeovers and integrated their IT departments into ours. More often than not, the older folks (50+) have no interest in changing culture and processes to the new company, and this ends up costing money that could be well invested in someone else.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[swb]

Experienced workers are more likely to be resistant to "culture and process change" because they've been down that road before and seldom seen it actually result in meaningful changes. At best its a workable rearrangement of existing process, at worst its a distortion of the process that makes it worse.

Younger and less experienced workers are more likely to fall for a charismatic sales pitch, not knowing that the changes will probably be a net zero change at best, or believe they have something to gain by attaching themselves to a "change agent" and their agenda.

These days these process changes seem even worse than in the past because they so often seem to be tied to just generating more data for managers vs. any actual improvement in work product or work process.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[mark-t]

Are you saying that you dismissed *every* employee that did not work at least 60 hours per week, and kept *every* employee that did?

Because if not, then hours worked was not the only criteria, although that was the only criteria you told the DoL that you used.

And if that's the case, then it follows that it may be entirely possible that hours worked was not even a criteria at all, but that you would have deliberately lied about it to the DoL knowing that it would skew the results in the direction that aligned with the deliberate discrimination.

I have to say, I'm more than a little impressed at the brass balls you must have had to do this if that's what you actually did.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Ha ha! You don't wanna work 60 hours a week, a third of it for no pay!

L0053r!!!

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[swb]

I have to say, I'm more than a little impressed at the brass balls you must have had to do this if that's what you actually did.

Lying to labor officials about layoff criteria doesn't seem that risky. For the most part, unless there's substantial proof of sexual discrimination (against women) or racial discrimination (against blacks, really) I don't think state labor agencies really have much authority or power.

For the most part, beefs with employers are outsourced to the legal system. If a lawyer thinks you have a case worth contingency you might get someplace.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[houghi]

At a previous company I worked I was the person providing most data via reporting. Almost never did I get a clear answer to the question "What do you need the data for. What are you trying to do.". Almost always it was so that they had the data IF they needed it.

I have send bullshit numbers to managers because I overslept. Never got a complaint that the data was not correct. So they either never looked at it, or they did and did not understand what they where looking at.

e.g. if your monthly number of whatever is 100 and you get a day with the number 50 of whatever, you must know that it is you need to look at closer.

The few that did gie a good explanation for the request of numbers would get all the help and we would be looking together if there where others things that needed to be looked at. Setting up alarms, so they do not get daily reports that won't be read, but weekly ones that had more useful info and alerts if needed.

Those where the ones that numbers where an indicator to show what was going on, not a goal of and by itself.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[swb]

Usually I find that orgs that demand a lot of data without any stated purpose are the worst managed. While there can be a reasonable stage in any organization where any data is valuable, usually the better managed organizations have some direction or goal for the organization and are choosing data that helps them further or refine the goal.

Managers who just want to hoard data don't know what they're doing and hope that they can find some answers in the data.

We're switching to a new "system" at work which demands even more data and I honestly think its just to further the owners need to micromanage.

Re:Sounds liek an investigation, no evidence yet

[micahraleigh]

What message does that send to potential future hires who are the brightest and the best?

"Come work for us! We'll pay you more than we can afford and then let you go!"

Pass ...

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[sycodon]

Thankfully, it does all come back around to the firing/hiring managers when legacy systems start to fail for lack of maintenance and knowledge of those systems. Ultimately the stock holders end up taking it on the chin as IT costs go up and service goes down.

Recent experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I got laid off last year by a very large and nameless company that had just bought us out.

One of the things in my packet was a list, by age, of the people laid off (titles but no names, of course) to show that they hadn't discriminated. I guess it did. This company is known (internally) for not promoting past a certain age, so they probably wanted to be proactive.

I was tired of the job and the terms were surprisingly good (an even more nameless member of management once commented that they are your standard soulless corporate bastards, but at least they're upfront about it), so no complaints.

At my advanced age, it took 6 months to find a new (and better) gig, a few weeks before UI ran out. Finding new jobs (except for short term contracts that charge thousands / month for insurance) are definitely harder the last ten years.

Not enough data

[DRichardHipp]

Maybe Intel is an evil company that likes to cast off older workers, just to make them suffer.

Or, maybe Intel was merely closing down some older and no-longer-profitable business units from the 1980s that happen to have been staffed with workers that hired on in the 80s.

Or, maybe Intel was merely flattening their management structure, laying off managers and keeping the engineers, thus disproportionally impacting manager who also happen to be older, on average.

Or, maybe there was some combination of the above.

The fact is, we don't have any information on the issue. That the EEOC does not like Intel tells us nothing, unfortunately. In a better world, the EEOC would be an unbiased and objective adjudicator of these matters and a source of reliable information, but any rational observer knows that it not the case, at least not lately.

Re:Not enough data

[Anonymous Coward]

Being one of those affected by this action, I have a little insight to this topic. Sure, I also have a little bit of a bias.

This was not a case of closing a factory, nor of flattening management structures. Intel has gone through those multiple times, and as painful as they were, they were not like what happened in 2015 and 2016. In the recent disputed cases, managers were told from upper management to fire that one and that one and that one, with no choice or input from the direct or 2nd or even 3rd line of management. In my experience, these targeted folks came from many different divisions, and the prevailing similarities were that we were all older white males. Our managers were extremely unhappy that they had to let us go, and if it were merely a cost issue, would love to have traded out for other employees.

To respond to one of the earlier comments above: most of these positions had absolutely nothing to do with Java or Python, thank you very much.

Re:Higher salaries?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I believe that is a perfectly valid excuse to fire someone, especially if they aren't part of a protected class. If they are then you need to make sure they are make a freight train take a dirt road ugly, and be sure to document it.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[OneHundredAndTen]

Oh, man, you are going to get so much in the way of poetic justice. Unless you do not make it that far, that is.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[DontBeAMoran]

Animated GIFs.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[forkfail]

You're missing the point completely.

For example, my read of this statement:

They busted their ass. And they laughed at our memory problems saying, "Uh, we solved this in 360. Look at IBM's patents."

is that the old timers were saying, "We already solved this - go and look. Make it easy on yourself."

And as far as "studying the latest technologies" - who, exactly, do you think is building the new technologies that you cut your teeth on?

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[sconeu]

Cue the app apper guy here...

Re:Higher salaries?

[mi]

"Hi, mi. Our new HR Director thinks you're ugly. You're fired!"

Actually, this can already happen. There is no law barring discrimination based on personal appearance. Nor should there be.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If you came into our workplace not knowing a Java framework like Spring, not knowing Hibernate, and still using Java 1.2 practices, I'd have zero use for you.

What's a Java?

It will happen to every techie someday

[ErichTheRed]

The entire tech industry is built on an endless supply of cheap, young fresh grads who are easily convinced that low salaries and grueling work weeks are the norm. As those grads gain experience, they demand more salary and a more flexible life and will reach a point where employers will find a way to get rid of them.

It's not fair to paint everyone over a certain age as a dinosaur. I've seen many freshly minted MBAs explicitly say they don't want resumes of anyone who "looks over 40." This is due to a widely held stereotype that the only people who understand technology subjects are in their 20s, and the 30s are the time to start planning retirements. Everyone in the first stages of their career deriding older workers should bear in mind that this problem will eventually claim them unless they're very lucky and stay on the cutting edge every day of their lives.

Losing a job in your 50s in tech usually means you won't be working in the field again, so I'm not surprised that these workers are trying to get an age discrimination settlement. Imagine you're 53 and can't access your retirement accounts until you're 59.5, and can't get Social Security until you're 62. If no one will hire you, you're dead. I've seen this happen to many people since our company tends to skew older.

Re:It will happen to every techie someday

[msk]

It may not be much, but Substantially Equal Periodic Payments (SEPP) are a way to pull some from 401(k)/Traditional IRA ahead of 59.5 without incurring early withdrawal penalties.

Re:It will happen to every techie someday

[Cederic]

It's also inefficient to work more than 40 hours/week (on average).

Brooks had a lot of good things to say but the number of people is just one variable amongst many.

No Country For Graybeards

[forkfail]

Software is viewed as a disposable product with a limited lifespan. Therefore, building it poorly is OK, because it's gonna be replaced in a few years anyway. Therefore, hiring a young person for cheap to build it is fine; it just has to work well enough to ship.

Except, of course, the above premises are almost never true. That backfill script you wrote for the one-off run to add data? It will morph into a nightly task. That snippet of code where you hard coded a few strings? It will become the primary limiter to your entire pipeline architecture.

I'd have thought that after all the study and work done over the years that folks would have figured this out, at least to some extent.

But what baffles me the most is how the software discipline is the only one that truly reviles age and experience. In every other math, logic, and scientific discipline, it is a known that experience almost always means better results, and the ability to teach and mentor those who come after. In this discipline, it is not unusual to be considered over the hill at 30.

It boggles the mind.

Re:No Country For Graybeards

[eclectro]

It boggles the mind.

Furthermore, can people actually blame women for not getting into programming? The fact that women stay out of programming or CS (or similar field) doesn't mean there is any kind of bias against them, it means that they're intelligent and smart

The SJWs don't know what they're talking about.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, Please.

You fucking morons think IT world revolves around Java and the web.

Sorry, but nothing and critical important in the IT world is done, "on the web". It's done with purpose built applications in old, but proven languages and very large and powerful computers.

Your pay check isn't the product of a .NET webapp and the IRS doesn't process tax forms with Java.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[sycodon]

I don't think there really is any, "Latest Technologies".

There is the latest regurgitation of technologies, Rearranged, Renamed, and Refactored, but it's always the same stuff, just in different costumes.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[ClickOnThis]

Why keep paying these guys high salaries when fresh college grads will do the work for a fraction?

Because they have more experience.

Despite their many virtues, fresh college grads still need adult supervision and mentoring.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[jythie]

For all but the most entry level and 'warm body' openings, I rarely see much interest in which technologies candidates know in the first place. Managers seem a lot more interested in what types of systems you have built and problems you have solved unless they are just trying to fill disposable seats.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[jythie]

Esp when the person doing the hiring is mostly thinking in terms of their next job in the next year or two, so if the college aged warm bodies do a crappy job it will be someone else's problem.

How do you talk people

[rsilvergun]

into paying for somebody else's healthcare? When you're young you don't need much. Maybe a little pre-natal care. It's not until you're in your 50s that most people really need the stuff. And those folks don't want to pay.

More importantly, while there are plenty of arguments to be made in favor of single payer healthcare any time it comes up the insurance companies spend half a billion dollars or more shooting it down. I still get people who tell me they don't want it because of "death panels". I ask them about "Wallet Biopsies" and that shuts them up, but I can't compete with the lobbying and advertising budgets of big phrama and big insurance.

I wish we could get a national referendum. Take out the deep south and the rural parts of Texas and Arizona and you've got over 60% in favor of medicare for all.

Re:How do you talk people

[lgw]

I wish we could get a national referendum. Take out the deep south and the rural parts of Texas and Arizona and you've got over 60% in favor of medicare for all.

Take out the people who disagree with me and everyone agrees with me!

As far as "medicare for all", Medicare is underfunded by $27.9 trillion (by GAAP), or about $230k per taxpayer. We can't afford it now - how's it supposed to work financially if we pile more people into it? And remember, you still need (supplemental) health insurance if you have Medicare, as there's a lot it doesn't pay for, and Medicare itself isn't free, so it's not like all the money that currently goes as health insurance premiums could go as taxes.

People will argue that there's less paperwork cost with Medicare, and that's true, but the increased fraud cost eats up a lot of that, and then you have the paperwork cost for the supplemental insurance.

The one sure win here is for the government to standardize claims forms. That would be a massive reduction in paperwork costs with no downside in care provided.

Re:How do you talk people

[AmiMoJo]

Medicare is underfunded because you are being shafted by for-profit insurance companies. A key part of having a social healthcare system is that prices are either fixed at a low level or the state simply runs the hospitals itself.

By the way, when are you going to fix your signature? It's factually incorrect and this has been pointed out to you a few times already.

Re:How do you talk people

[lgw]

WTF do for-profit insurance companies have to do with Medicare costs? Medicare decides what they will pay for care. Did you have an argument beyond proclaiming that insurance is evil?

And you inability to understand reality won't make me change my signature - though I'll get bored with it soon enough.

BTW, shouldn't you be busy Brexiting? Or arresting journalists with a secret trial and then putting a gag order on the whole thing?

Re:How do you talk people

[AmiMoJo]

You do know that she wasn't trans, right? That's simply untrue. It's bad that you care so little about accuracy and truth.

SJW is subjective, but her very conservative views don't seem to line up with any common definition of it either.

As for Brexit, I'm trying to stop it, and as for "journalists" if he was one he'd have known not to jeopardize other people's trials. It's actually the normal way it works in the UK, because juries are not locked up and cut off from the outside world for the duration, so while it can be reported that the trial is on-going and some details (including statements made by those involved, evidence presented etc.) can be reported it has to be done in a way that won't risk making the whole thing become unfair and subsequently collapse.

It's the price of freedom for the jury, i.e. not being locked up and cut off from the world. If he had just waited a few days he could have reported it all he liked, as everyone else did. Ironically he antics shifted the focus away from the people on trial who he was so concerned about and onto him.

Re:How do you talk people

[lgw]

But what do insurance companies have to do with funding Medicare adequately?

Re:How do you talk people

[sjames]

Bending over backwards to not step on the toes of insurance companys' toes (as well as pharmaceutical companys' toes) is why medicare's funding isn't adequate. Tell them and other for-profit healthcare companys to sod off if they don't like it would make medicare's funding adequate.

Re:How do you talk people

[lgw]

I don't follow. Medicare doesn't care about normal insurance companies. It has it's own claims process, and pays what it wants to pay. Further, it's funded from taxes (mostly) and monthly premiums (a bit). It's the single biggest budget line item in the US budget (Social Security is second).

Medicaid is currently funded at about 1/4 of the total federal budget (~$1 T), or about 1/3 of total federal revenue. It's probably funded at half what it needs to be, long term. Putting more people on it seems unlikely to end well.

Re:How do you talk people

[sjames]

Medicare is routinely sabotaged by bizarre rules about what it cannot cover and when it cannot negotiate. It is primarily members of the GOP whose stated goal is to make government programs fail at all cost who saddle it with those rules.

If it REALLY wanted to succeed (that is, if our "representatives" really wanted it to succeed), it would provide the healthcare directly like the rest of the world does.. That would be very bad for the insurance companies since everyone would demand medicare and drop their private policies.

The ACA was a desperate attempt to make some improvement to healthcare in America without cutting the insurance companies out.

Nine people try strategy A and succeed. One tries strategy B and fails. Next round, should that 1 that failed

1. Kill himself because he's too stupid to succeed?
2. Do more B harder and faster?
3. Try strategy A

Re:How do you talk people

[lgw]

Yeah, sorry, health care quality sucks in those systems you love. Government rationed product. You can keep it. Meanwhile, US health care costs are high because we subsidize all the world's health care research.

How about we have the EU and Canada for everyone who loves the way the EU and Canada do things, and the US for the rest of us? Freedom for all. If only California would get off its lazy ass and secede.

Re:How do you talk people

[sjames]

You'll need some big evidence for the rest of the world's healthcare sucking. Because most sources I have seen rank U.S. healthcare at 26th or worse.

Perhaps we should just not subsidize research for the rest of the world.

There are a number of islands where taxes and government services are near non-existant. Perhaps you should try one.

Comes to mind

[Anonymous Coward]

All the big companies are doing this. All of them. Recall that any of these same tech companies were complicit it in not hiring away from each other, tanking salaries and affecting career progress. We suspected that was happening before that behavior was exposed. Trust your instincts. And yes, all you youngsters, this can and will happen to you. Unless Skynet takes over in the meantime, in which case we are all fcuked.

Fully deduct just means a 20-30% discount

[rsilvergun]

that's nice and all but it's not that big a deal when a stay at the hospital is $20k. You're probably thinking of tax credits, e.g. when the amount paid is given to you as cash. I've heard that suggested in the past and it's silly. It's basically a round about way to do single payer healthcare. We keep all the disadvantages of insurance companies: high cost and substandard care. The 'substandard care' comes from the inevitable caps on the credit.

The only real fix is a single insurer; e.g. a single payer. That's because health care isn't something that should be left to the free market. Neither is food, which is why we do the farm bill every year. Some things you don't leave up to the invisible hand.

Re:Fully deduct just means a 20-30% discount

[LynnwoodRooster]

No, I'm thinking a straight deduction. You make $60K gross income, you spend $10K on insurance/health costs, your gross is adjusted down to $50K. Just like for your employer, every dollar spent on health insurance/healthcare is 100% deductible from their gross income.

Xyz

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

However, an Intel spokesperson categorically denied that age played a role.

"We didn't discriminate against older employees," said Cody McYoungling, 27.

Re: Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Were the olders given the opportunity to accept it?

No 'floating point unit' jokes?

[Rastl]

I'm really surprised at the lack of floating point unit jokes when dealing with Intel math here.

Seriously, numbers tend not to lie. If the mean age of the fired workers is statistically significant over those retained then Intel has some 'splaining to do. Yes the jobs these people were in will show as a factor but overall the public view will be that they culled out their workforce to get rid of older, more expensive employees to bring in cheaper hires.

Re:No 'floating point unit' jokes?

[HornWumpus]

They didn't fire them for being old. They fired them for remembering the Pentium 2 floating point bug.

Just a coincidence

[WillAffleckUW]

Salary tends to be higher as one ages, and they can pay younger hires much less.

Much
Much
Less.

Oh, wait, that's age discrimination on both sides.

Re:Just a coincidence

[Ol Olsoc]

Salary tends to be higher as one ages, and they can pay younger hires much less.

Much Much Less.

Oh, wait, that's age discrimination on both sides.

From my experience, there is a reason for paying the younger people less - they are worth less.

I do know it was shocking for the millenials who had just graduated to find out I knew a lot more then they did. They usually had one aspect they were semi competent in while I could work every position in the department. Which by the way is hella good job security.

Re:Just a coincidence

[Ol Olsoc]

You added a space in worthless

Brutal! Well played sir - well played indeed!

Re:Just a coincidence

[AmiMoJo]

By that logic it's older people's fault for expecting more money than they are worth to the company, resulting in them getting laid off.

The real issue is that there is no progression any more. All you can do is keep switching jobs, and if you fail to switch for too long you become too expensive and get laid off.

Re:Just a coincidence

[Ol Olsoc]

By that logic it's older people's fault for expecting more money than they are worth to the company, resulting in them getting laid off.

You still have to be worth something to the company. The concept of the older worker being lazy both intellectually and physically is a meme more suited for imgur than real life.

The real issue is that there is no progression any more. All you can do is keep switching jobs, and if you fail to switch for too long you become too expensive and get laid off.

I suppose it depends on the value you bring. The extremely simplified situation you build here doesn't account for value added and increasing skills and usefulness. Using my case as an example, in over thrity years of my career, I could add many skills the young pups simply hadn't had time to gain. Coupled with efficiency and work ethic that few of them had yet developed, I was simply worth more. As well, my employer and I knew that, and we both knew I could find another employer in a day or two.

Re:Just a coincidence

[AmiMoJo]

I agree with you. I was saying your originally proposed model was flawed because of the reasons you just explained.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[fahrbot-bot]

Why keep paying these guys high salaries when fresh college grads will do the work for a fraction?

Because they have more experience.

Despite their many virtues, fresh college grads still need adult supervision and mentoring.

Real-life example. We had three software products to deliver to the Government every quarter - Solaris SPARC, X86 and Firmware patches. Each took a week to research, generate and package manually and was usually done by the newest, youngest, cheapest, and least experience team member. I worked with him one cycle (I was his mentor) and wrote a Perl script that automated almost the entire process enough to produce all three products in one afternoon.

Guess who they laid off?

Of course, they laid off their most experience Perl programmer, so I'm not sure who's maintaining my script, but it's not my problem anymore.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[forkfail]

Your ignorance of the value of experience is stunning.

I hope that you yourself are not a developer. Because if you aren't, then said ignorance is forgivable; if you are, however, then you are certainly a part of the problem.

Grow up. Learn to do the right thing. Teach others to do the same. It actually can lead to a rewarding, successful, and lucrative career.

Or not. In which case, you'll probably be replaced in the next few years by a younger version of yourself who is gung ho to generate copious amounts of garbage that will implode under the weight of its own inherent flaws, poor design, and bad implementation, leading to the continuation of replacement of one second rate, spineless developer with the next, and a lack of progress in the actual engineering component of software development.

From an Intel Employee

[chubs]

I worked at Intel in 2016. I luckily walked away before the big layoff, but I know several people who remained. When they blanket offer everyone over a certain age a lump sum of money in order to "retire early" (the sum wasn't nearly enough to allow someone to retire early, unless they were already planning to retire in the coming months), you really can't claim that age was merely a circumstantial correlation. After the chips fell with who did/didn't accept the "retirement package", THEN they commenced laying off the rest of the workers. Not sure if the EEOC is considering those people to be part of the layoff, or if those numbers only represent the involuntary ones.

Re:From an Intel Employee

[thegarbz]

I worked at Intel in 2016. I luckily walked away before the big layoff

Explain something to me, what makes you lucky there?

I considered myself lucky to be part of layoffs. The tax advantages alone are incredible to say nothing of the government mandated payout. My own record was working at a company 1 day before the project got canned and I was made redundant. I have never earned so much for doing so little in so short of a time.

Do workers not get any protections in layoffs in the USA? No tax benefits? No payouts? No madatory benefits valued and paid? No pension contribution?

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bob, we need you to rewrite the payroll system in the latest advancements in Java."

"You fucking morons don't realize that :
A. It will take 5 times longer to process.
B. It won't be compatible with our accounting software.
C. It probably won't comply with regulatory requirements.

Oh, and BTW, when 10,000 people get fucked up paychecks or no paychecks at all, I'll tell the board it was because you wanted to have the latest and greatest stuff."

"...Bob, umm...never mind."

Seriously, fucking with shit that works and replacing it with unproven stuff, is a waste of time and irresponsible. Shit like that can bring a company down.

the h1b was willing to work 80+ hours for 70K!

[Joe_Dragon]

the h1b was willing to work 80+ hours for 70K!

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[sabri]

he had to train his replacement

Moral of the story: never train your replacement.

I don't care about two weeks of extra pay or whatever else they're offering. Why help your boss fire you?

we don't have single payer health care so some

[Joe_Dragon]

we don't have single payer health care so some where deemed to cost to much to keep on.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Security comes and escorts forkfail out)

(pushes button on intercom)

"Jessica, could you go through the hundreds of resumes we've got and pick 10 or so that you deem most qualified? Have that ready by Thursday please, I'm taking the family out on the yacht tomorrow so I won't be in, thanks"

Go figure

[Ol Olsoc]

The millenials claim they can't get jobs while the companies are laying off only the older employees.

Re:Go figure

[AmiMoJo]

There are jobs for millennials, it's just that they are McJobs which don't pay enough to afford the basics of life like somewhere to live and food to eat. So what they mean are there are no good jobs, with good being defined by the cost of living.

Re:Go figure

[ahodgson]

Millenial tech workers can get all the jobs they want. Millenial gender studies grads not so much.

Re:Go figure

[Ol Olsoc]

There are jobs for millennials, it's just that they are McJobs which don't pay enough to afford the basics of life like somewhere to live and food to eat. So what they mean are there are no good jobs, with good being defined by the cost of living.

The economic issues of the McJobs are many, and at least here in the US, working a minimum wage job as a career has you at a income level that qualifies for Government assistance. This is one of the problems with the corporate run state - as huge corporations pretend they are all about capitalism, but in fact, lobby very hard for the Government to pay part of their employees wages.

But that isn't going away any time soon, so the millennial must decide their path. Attempt to have a McCareer, or bypass that. By all indicators, I should be looking at retiring in maybe 10 years from a retail job, and subsisting on Social Security. Certainly many of my school friends have done just that.

But there is a lesson even in that. The first lesson is that some of these issues are not limited to millennials, and that perhaps people look for an easy answer, especially one that absolves them of any responsibility.

Another lesson is that drive and ambition are always a good thing. I was apparently blessed with it. I do know a couple millennial women who were very blessed with drive and ambition. Both are doing very well in life and career.

I know a few people with advanced degrees that are working as waiters and waitresses. Apparently their drive does not extend far enough.

Finally, I know some of these folk who lack the drive have ready excuses that conveniently blame everything but themselves. I've seen that in every generation, but none so strong and persistent as millennials blaming everything on everyone else. Its a free world, and if a person cannot deal with what is needed to succeed, I suppose the complaints might salve the wounds of their lives.

Re:Go figure

[Ol Olsoc]

Millenial tech workers can get all the jobs they want. Millenial gender studies grads not so much.

Very true. Unfortunately, many people have taken majors like Gender Studies and Philosophy, but of which consist of giving your opinion for the most part. Which hardly even prepares you for a job at the McDonald's drive in window.

"May I take your order tool of the patriarchy, opressive shitlord?"

"A hamburger please"

"Do you want fries with that, you disgusting manspreading, rapist pig?"

"Please."

"Don't mansplain to me you shitwad oppressor. You'll have to wait while I seize the means of production, cis white male asshole.

Thus ended the experiment in having gender studies majors working at McDonalds.

Universities are quite happy to take their money though.

So Happy That I Danced Out The Door of Intel

[mallyn]

Folks:

I was so happy that I was given the buy-out that I danced like a ballerina in the hallways of Intel's Jones Farm Campus as I left and started my retirement to Bellingham, Washington.

Here is the link to a video re-enactment of my behavior during my last days at Intel's Jones Farm Campus in Hillsboro, Oregon Mark Allyn as a Plastic Wrapped Ballerina Auditioning For The Nutcracker At Intel

So happy to dance and sing in front of Slashdot's community!

billing / codeing is a big mess in us healthcare!

[Joe_Dragon]

billing / codeing is a big mess in us healthcare!

Some dockets need to spend a lot of time on billing to just get paid.

well single payer stops balance billing and networ

[Joe_Dragon]

well single payer stops balance billing and network BS.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[murdocj]

Funny Hibernate story: I joined a project that was using Hibernate. Fairly smart devs, not DB savvy. They had a routine to clear a table in the database. Yep... they loaded up each row as an object, and deleted that object. Because heck, you had Hibernate, it was evil to directly access the database.

Duh.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[murdocj]

BS. Utter BS. You really think that older devs can't or won't learn things? Heck, when someone starts talking about some exciting new development, it usually reminds me of something I was doing 20 years ago.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[murdocj]

No. If your manager says "we need to do X" and it's something new, they want someone who can learn how to do X. Which you know, devs who have been around a while and seen a lot can do. Unlike some younger ones who think that a web app is the end all and be all of existence.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[murdocj]

Depends on whether you want it done right or not.

Re:billing / codeing is a big mess in us healthcar

[murdocj]

I remember listening to a co-worker argue with the insurance company over the phone. She had been to the doctor for some sort of "well-baby" pregnancy checkup. The office had coded it wrong so insurance denied the claim, even though it was clearly a covered visit. She was asking the insurance person how it should be have been coded, and the insurance person was accusing her of trying to commit "fraud" by getting it coded right so it would be covered. It was absolutely insane... "guess the code to get paid... no, that's not it, try again..."

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Darinbob]

I guess that's true, these days knowing Java is irrelevant since no one actually programs in Java, instead they use frameworks to glue together other people's frameworks.

I never really learned Java, since every time I tried to pick it up again, the language style had changed so much it felt like I was learning from scratch.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Darinbob]

I'm playing the game where no one under 40 understands how to actually program on bare metal anymore.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[Darinbob]

"Everything" requires a responsive design pattern or needs to be mobile? I've never done web or mobile development and I'm still working and get way too many emails and phone calls from recruiters.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[The Cynical Critic]

Maybe they just concluded that they didn't specifically need their most experienced Perl programmer to maintain that script? Experience tends to lead to higher salaries and it's kind of expected that the higher your salary, the more likely you are to find yourself on the chopping block when management starts looking for how to reduce costs. Looking hardest at the most expensive things when you're trying to save money is just plain sense when it comes down to it. Having worked with plenty of people considerably older than myself it's become very clear to me that experience and effectiveness as a developer are nowhere near as well correlated as experience and salaries.

When you have a set savings goal or need to maximize your cost efficiency it's only natural for management to try to minimize the number of people actually laid off and that's obviously going to lead to the most expensive employees, who tend to be older, to be given the most attention. I have a hard time believing that as an employee the average gopher is actually worth the 2-3 recent college graduates their salary could be used to hire/retain.

It's not just the money aspect, I have a feeling a lot of managers do this just to minimize the number of people they actually have to lay off as there's both PR and human reasons to want to do that. Thus all in all, if you consider the actual goals of management and the related circumstances, getting rid of older workers first does kind of make a whole lot of sense.

They missed a W....

[Darkling-MHCN]

I think you'll find this is Wage not Age discrimination.

Typically in these huge companies, when they decide to make a round of layoffs there's no analysis done on who is meat and fat in the company (trimming only the fat). The process goes usually....

Big exec goes.... hmmm I need to cut half a billion from the payroll? Easy !

Ring ring...

Exec: hey DBguy (in the payroll office) can you do a quick query for me?

DBguy: Sure....

Exec: if you take the highest paying employee in every department excluding top execs and sum their wages what do you get?

Dbguy..ummm... ....... ... 100M....

Exec: ok how about the top 3....

DbGuy: 350M...

Exec: hmmm with the top 4....

DbGuy: 490M....

Exec: Bingo! Thanks DBguy! (hangs up)....

DBguy thinks: hmmmm... yikes... better give myself a paycut for a month or two.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[radarskiy]

If an employee was not keeping up with the job requirements they could have been fired for cause at any point in time.

A defining characteristic of a lay-off is is that it is NOT a for-cause termination. It is an elimination of positions. If the demographics of those whose positions are terminated do not match the demographics of those who generally hold the position, that puts the lie to claim that it was the positions that were targeted.

I don't pay 100% of my income as tax

[rsilvergun]

so adjusting my gross doesn't really make that big a difference. It doesn't 'pay' for my healthcare. At best it's just a discount. One that even at my income level (above median) I already get to write off.

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. Increasing tax deductions for medical expenses isn't going to solve the health care crisis. It doesn't make healthcare affordable for the ever shrinking middle class, let alone the lower castes.

Re:I don't pay 100% of my income as tax

[LynnwoodRooster]

So what's your solution? Do you realize we already spend more on healthcare at a Federal level per man, woman, and child than the UK? Federal spending on healthcare in the US is $1.2 trillion already, which is about 10% more than the UK pays per person - and they cover everyone, not the 20% that is covered by the Federal levels (meaning we spend 5X at the Government level per person actually covered, than the UK - and that is before private insurance costs are factored in). How much more do we need to spend?

Re:I don't pay 100% of my income as tax

[Maxo-Texas]

It's already been shown above that we pay the same per capita as the U.K. for federal health care costs.

And then we pay over that amount privately on top of that cost.

UK per capita health care is $4100. U.S. per capital health care is $9800. As of last year.

And except for the top 10%, we get *worse* health care results.

Our health care system is *great* for the top 10%. Best in the world.

If you are not top 10% then you get to die early like my friend who couldn't get treatment for her curable cancer in time.

Re:I don't pay 100% of my income as tax

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's already been shown above that we pay the same per capita as the U.K. for federal health care costs.

But that is for just 20% coverage. In other words, we pay $3400 per person per year, but only 20% of those people get coverage. Or, to put it another way the Federal Government pays $17,000 per person that it covers, way above what private insurance covers. Our Government pays 5X that of the UK Government, right now - independent of private insurance.

Re:I don't pay 100% of my income as tax

[Maxo-Texas]

The metrics would be wealthy people who fly into the u.s. from all over the world for treatment.

One big difference from some other countries is if you have money and you want surgery next week, you'll get it. In some countries, you'll be in pain for months before you get much less expensive treatment.

That said, there are some treatments available in other countries that are not (and may not ever) be available in the states.

What?

[Doctrinsograce]

Who in their right mind would lay off the people who have demonstrated the greatest sagacity and experience in a company? Especially for a bunch of kids who don't have sufficient character to be honest on the resumes?

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[micahraleigh]

Most of the stuff I see on Indeed is web stuff.

The world might not revolve around money, but I'd rather have a job than whatever the "important" stuff is.

Intel may have tried to cheap out.

[Mike Van Pelt]

Then again, based on what mallyn ( 136041 ) said, maybe not.

I used to work for another big Silicon Valley megacorp, and they had a big layoff. A few months before the layoff, they had a Very Generous "Early Retirement" offer, which I had been working there just two months short of being able to take advantage of. (That sounds kind of like what mallyn described.)

The layoff, for those of us of a certain age, came with about an inch-think document of statistics of the ages of those laid off, a pretty nice severance package considerably better than industry standard, with a Very Generous super-duper severance package if you signed the "I will not sue for age discrimination" agreement. The enclosed statistics making it clear that they were well prepared to defend themselves from any such suits.

Since I already had calls from one of the company's competitors looking to hire someone to do pretty much what I was already doing, I took the money and ran.

Re:Or did they not keep up with technology?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

...and "web stuff" in no way requires Java.