San Francisco Passes a First-of-its-Kind Tax on Big Businesses To Help the Homeless (recode.net)

San Francisco voters passed a measure that has divided the tech community and sparked a national debate about the industry's responsibility to fix the city's homelessness crisis. From a report: The San Francisco Chronicle called the race at 60 percent in favor with 99 percent of the vote counted. Proposition C will raise the city's gross receipts tax by an average of .5 percent on annual gross receipts over $50 million that companies like Square, Lyft and Salesforce generate. The new funds will bring in an estimated $250 million to $300 million a year -- twice what the city currently spends on an annual basis to help the homeless in tech's de facto capital. The thousands of people living on San Francisco's streets serve as a daily reminder of economic inequality in a city that has one of the highest concentrations of billionaires in the nation. Earlier this year, a United Nations expert on housing called the living conditions of the homeless in the Bay Area "cruel" and "unacceptable." The decision to increase funding for the city's most needy is a victory for the local nonprofits behind the measure and their tech fairy godfather, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, who, along with his company, has poured more than $7 million into the campaign in the month leading up to the election.

Comments

Re:Take care of the homeless

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheaper to turn them all into Soylent Green

Just to be clear, you're saying the preferable thing would be to kill people because the act of killing them is cheaper than anything else, and cost is the most important measure on which you'd base your actions?

I think you misunderstood. The comment did not state that *just* killing people is cheaper. It implied that you additionally sell the product as Soylent Green which is more economical than plain killing.

Re:why don't just give money to the people

[DontBeAMoran]

It's all right there in the summary:

1. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, along with his company, has poured more than $7 million into the campaign.

2. The new funds will bring in an estimated $250 million to $300 million a year.

So, a bit over 7 million was spent once to generate 250 to 300 million every year from now on. And even if it's repealed next year, it's a net gain of over 240 million for the homeless until then. The only way it would have been bad is if the law didn't pass, but it was a calculated move on his part. What you can do for the homeless with seven million is nothing compared to 250+ million.

Re:HAHAH

[whoever57]

More corporate flight from California. Good.

You know that at least one big business CEO was promoting this, right? Or don't you care about facts?

True but they're few and far between

[rsilvergun]

and don't do nearly as much damage as what Florida sees every 5-10 years.

The myth that all costs are immediately passed on

[rsilvergun]

to consumers as price increases is just that, a myth. It's a common right wing talking point used to discourage employees from asking for a raise. If it was true we'd never made it out of the Gilded Age or progressed at all as a civilization.

As long as productivity per work (measured by raw goods produced, not by dollars, be careful there or paper money will make it look like your productivity is worse than it really is) you can raise rages without price increases. Automation in the last 20 years has massively boosted productivity. America produces twice as much manufacturing output with 1/3 less employees. But all of that went to the top 1%. They then used that increased wealth to buy out all their competitors. Not only did this let them raise prices (less competition) but lower wages (if 7 companies own everything that means they also employee everyone.)

America is becoming the larges company store in human history.