OH, FUCK NO.

So, after you've earned 1099 wages and been laid off, none of those earning count towards any unemployment claim that you might make. When they go to figure out how much you qualify for, you will have effectively been unemployed for that entire time.

Tell them I said to go to hell.

That sucks huge.

If you care, you could counter offer with what you consider something reasonable, or fuck it, something way over the top.

Preferably someone with only a marginal grasp of the American dollar's buying power.

gah! So, are they planning to sponsor the (hypothetical) H1B applicants' applications for permanent residency? At those sub-sub-optimal wages? Yeesh.

it's insulting, that's for sure.

I empathize. It's what I've been seeing in the 3D animation world, too.

Unfortunately, with so much of our actual workforce being off-shored to save cash for bonuses for some CEO (and, let's be honest, CIO, Creative Director, and all other levels of management), the actual workers of this country have nothing to argue with. Nothing at all.

I liked hearing Obama's State of the Union address the other day. When I heard him tell Americans to, essentially, increase their level of education, all I could think was "...because we can't compete with other nations any longer."

Of course, no one ever seems to want to talk about the fact that most of those highly-educated off-shore workers received their educations in the United States, or that said educations were paid for by their own countries, or the companies that intended to hire them. Both options would be realistic in the U.S., if it weren't for the fact that some spoiled American trust fund kid might not get their legacy entry into an Ivy League school if that happened.

In short, the problems were facing are problems that the U.S. has had for decades, but hasn't had the guts to face up to.

Frankly, I don't know if we'll fix them, even now. Too many rich people are too threatened by what he plans to push through. That scares me. A lot.