Engine 6: Externality Limiter
Employer Parity Surcharge

Employer Parity Surcharge Calculator

The employer pays the same for an immigrant hire as for a domestic one — parity is the guarantee (formerly published as the Parity Wedge). Of every wage dollar the employer pays, the worker keeps most; the rest funds the community hosting the worker's family, on a share that shrinks with every year of tenure. Rates come from a published, origin-neutral scoring formula.

Hire Profile
Illustrative landing points of the published scoring formula — indicative, not statutory. Origin country plays no role.
The market rate for the work — the wage at which domestic workers can actually be found. Hard manual labor is not fillable domestically below roughly $50,000.
Where the employer's wage dollar goes — Year 1
Worker's wage $26,316 (53¢)
Community $23,684 (47¢)
Of every dollar the employer pays in wages for this job, the worker keeps 53¢ in Year 1 — rising toward the full dollar as the rate falls with tenure — and 47¢ funds the schools and clinics of the community hosting the worker's family. The surcharge is never a charge on top of the worker's pay, and it is never a discount for the employer.
A three-way balance
The worker gains an immigration visa and a job that pays better than home — with full Distributed Healthcare from Day 1, Skills Wallet accrual, and a path to citizenship.
The employer gains access to a labor pool larger than domestic-only — at exact wage parity, so the expanded pool never comes at domestic workers' expense.
The community gains the funded capacity to welcome — school seats, clinic hours, ESL programs — paid for by the work itself, arriving on the same calendar as the workers.
Employer Pays (any hire)
$58,750
$50,000 wage + $8,750 employer payroll tax (17.5%) — identical for a domestic hire
Worker Gross (Year 1)
$26,316
= $50,000 ÷ 1.90 — wage + surcharge on it = the domestic wage
Surcharge → Communities (Year 1)
$23,684
~90% of the worker's wage, remitted at payroll
The worker's Year 1 paycheck, like any worker'sGross $26,316 − employee payroll tax $2,763 (10.5%) − income tax $745 = $22,808 take-home, plus full Distributed Healthcare, Skills Wallet accrual, and a path to permanent residency.
INDICATIVE — final calibration is rule-making by the National Statistics Board (NSB). The NSB has authority to set the formula weights against measured supply and demand; it operates under a published, appealable, methodology-audited process, and localities can nudge rates within published bounds for capacity, culture, and employer need. This calculator does not forecast the weights the NSB will set.
9-Year Tenure Decline Schedule
YearCommunity share of wageWorker grossSurcharge → communitiesWorker take-home (after payroll + income tax)
147%$26,316$23,684$22,808
245%$27,624$22,376$23,861
342%$29,070$20,930$25,026
439%$30,675$19,325$26,319
535%$32,468$17,532$27,752
631%$34,483$15,517$29,339
726%$36,765$13,235$31,136
821%$39,370$10,630$33,188
98%$45,872$4,128$38,308
The per-worker rate declines with tenure to ~10% of its starting level by Year 9, so the worker's gross rises toward the full domestic-equivalent wage as they integrate. Rows marked ✕ fall below the minimum-wage floor and are not legally fillable at that wage and year. Employer cost is $58,750 in every row — never less than a domestic hire. Aggregate community revenue stays roughly flat from Year 1 via residency-mix: each year's arriving workers enter at the top of the schedule as earlier arrivals move down it.
Why This Works
No Cheap-Labor Arbitrage
The employer pays $58,750 all-in whether the hire is domestic or immigrant — there is never a discount for hiring an immigrant, so domestic wages are never undercut. Misclassification is payroll-tax fraud with corporate liability.
Formula-Scored, Origin-Neutral
The rate comes from a published scoring formula over quantifiable factors — credentials and licensure, English-language score, years of experience, an age band targeting young adults. Origin country plays no role.
Communities Funded
The surcharge pools nationally; each host community draws its share by immigrant count and local need, spent locally on the services newcomers use — school capacity, primary care, library ESL. Targeted, not ring-fenced.
Priced Out By Design
Near the minimum wage the arithmetic closes the door: the post-surcharge wage would be illegal to pay, and raising the wage costs more than a domestic hire. The externality price of schools, healthcare, and services for the worker's family must be met, so ultra-low-wage substitution is priced out of existence.
The Domestic-Share Test — rates are dynamic by design
The declared prevailing wage is verified by revealed preference: if a job category's domestic share shows the declared wage is a lowball no American actually works for, the surcharge for that category adjusts until the offered wage rises to a level domestic workers accept. The same mechanism balances labor supply and demand. The Accord sets the goal, not a fixed prescription — thresholds, measurement, and the adjustment schedule are NSB rule-making under a published, appealable, methodology-audited process.
Calculations per Blueprint Ch 21. All percentages are illustrative landing points of the published scoring formula — indicative, not statutory. Income tax estimated at single-filer brackets on gross less the employee payroll deduction. The minimum-wage floor shown is ~$10/hr full-time; higher state minimums bind where applicable. Payroll tax 28% total (10.5% employee / 17.5% employer; governor corridor 25.029.0%).
Architecture version: v10.10
Scoring version: v10.10 (rerun 2026-07-03)