Well, I was going to write a comment about this being a dangerous proposition for employees, but an anonymous commenter on the site itself already made the point as eloquently as possible:<p><i>Beware the company town.</i><p><i>The workers who rent from the corporation, buy from the corporation, and depend on the corporation for all the niceties of life are at the mercy of the corporation.</i>
I don't believe large employers really care. The top management get enough benefits and pay to stay. They feel anything lower then the top management level is more like expendable cogs, replacable any time, so why bother going an extra mile to keep employees regardless of there worth.
OK, well that would not work in this country (Australia): 3 words: "Fringe Benefits Tax" - most likely would end up behind tax wise (definately will not be better off), and most definitely with a much greater compliance burden.
<i>Many families are struggling with rising food costs.</i><p>Not really. It seems like he thought...ah, I need a good reason for this besides the <i>only</i> reason, which is the tax dodge. But the tax dodge makes sense, and is the reason why companies like google give expensive lunches as partial compensation.<p>It's sort of amusing that the author seems to think that the idea of paying people "in kind" is somehow innovative on his part. No, it's definitely been done before. For instance, I owe my soul to the company store.
I feel like this has been done before in the early to mid 1900s with the industrial revolution. It seems like there are a lot of benefits to this, but also a lot of problems.<p>For example, the company may be 'generous' in housing its employees, but the employees are de facto owned by the company when their housing, food, etc. are derived from their workplace.<p>Furthermore, what happens if the employee is fired or the company goes out of business?