Layoff Ledger
LayoffLedger
The financial bridge calculator for laid-off tech workers — severance, unemployment, COBRA, ACA, RSU/ISO clocks, and 401(k) rollover deadlines, modeled as one timeline against your actual burn rate.
Date: 2026-05-30 Form factor: Web app (single-page; mobile-friendly) Status: Prototype
What it is
LayoffLedger is a single-page workspace that takes a laid-off tech worker's package — severance offer, equity, retirement balances, family situation, state — and renders the complete post-layoff bridge stack as one number, one runway, and one deadline-driven plan. Each scenario surfaces (a) every source of cash and in-kind coverage, (b) every hard deadline that quietly drops value if missed, (c) the negotiation levers that are actually available with this employer, and (d) the watch-outs that send people into worse outcomes than they should have.
The prototype demonstrates the end-to-end flow on six fully-modeled scenarios drawn from the May 2026 tech layoff wave — Meta, Oracle, Google, Amazon, a Series B fintech, and Stripe — spanning the four severance patterns that drive most leave-money-on-the-table cases (generous package + acceleration available, minimal package + ISO clock, continuation pay + single-income family, individual termination + ADEA-protected age band).
Who it serves
The 134,603+ U.S. tech workers laid off in 2026 year-to-date — and the 800–1,000 more landing every weekday — who have to make a chain of high-stakes financial decisions under a 21-, 45-, 60-, and 90-day clock all running at once. Concrete personas:
- The Meta / Google senior IC with a generous package, large unvested RSU forfeiture, and the question "should I push for RSU acceleration and what's a credible ask?"
- The Oracle / Amazon mid-tenure worker whose company won't negotiate severance but who has a 90-day ISO clock and a $95–145k in-the-money option position to decide on.
- The startup engineer with a 4-week severance, underwater options, and a working spouse — whose biggest decision is COBRA vs. spouse-plan SEP vs. ACA marketplace.
- The 55+ executive for whom the Rule of 55 unlocks penalty-free 401(k) withdrawals — but only if they don't roll to an IRA — and for whom ADEA's 21-day individual / 45-day group RIF review window is the only no-cost negotiation lever.
The pain is concrete: losing a tech job in 2026 now costs workers nearly $14,400 a month in lost compensation. Severance packages are not standardized — Meta paid 16 + 2/yr weeks plus 18 months of COBRA, Oracle refused negotiation entirely, Amazon shifted to continuation-pay which can defer unemployment eligibility. The average laid-off worker leaves $5,000–$100,000+ on the table per layoff event, mostly because nobody is doing the four-axis math (severance + UI + healthcare arbitrage + equity clocks) in one place under time pressure.
Why it could be profitable
Monetization is freemium with a paid scenario unlock and a B2B outplacement / employee-assistance-program white-label:
- Free: One scenario, full stack calculation + timeline + watch-outs. No account.
- Pro ($49 one-time): Multi-scenario modeling (sign-on-bonus clawback, RSU sell-back vs. hold, ISO exercise vs. abandon, COBRA-month vs. ACA-month optimization), printable PDF plan, severance-negotiation script + email templates, attorney-referral directory by state.
- Concierge ($199): Recorded 30-minute review with a benefits-specialist; package-specific negotiation memo before the signing deadline.
- B2B white-label ($499–$1,499 / mo): Outplacement firms (Lee Hecht Harrison, RandstadRiseSmart, Right Management), employee-assistance programs, and HR-tech vendors embed LayoffLedger as the financial-planning module of their post-layoff offering. They already pay benefit consultants $200–400 / hour for what LayoffLedger can do in a single session.
Demand math: 134,603 tech workers laid off in 2026 year-to-date (May 30), with the layoff wave estimated to continue through 2026 at ~800/day. At a 5% Pro-conversion rate on 200,000 annual U.S. tech layoffs and $49 average, that's $490k of consumer revenue. The B2B white-label is the larger pool — Lee Hecht Harrison alone serves 600+ enterprise outplacement contracts; even 10 of those at $999/month is $120k MRR. The Uber-style "$2,000/month per heavy AI user" pain in the engineering org has a parallel here: companies running large RIFs need to look generous and operationally efficient at the same time, and a polished financial-planning module is cheap differentiation.
The market window is wide open right now: the 2025–2026 layoff wave is the first sustained tech RIF cycle since 2008, and severance/equity tooling has not kept up. Consumer-facing tools today either bury financial advice in legal-help portals (LegalZoom, Rocket Lawyer) or stop at "here's a severance calculator" without modeling the timeline.
Form factor & scope
Single-page web app, sized for mobile and desktop. Scope-locked to the bridge-planning workflow — LayoffLedger does not file forms, does not broker COBRA / ACA enrollment, and does not provide legal or tax advice. The minimum viable scope demonstrated here:
- Pick a worker scenario (sample).
- See the full bridge stack — severance + UI + employer-paid coverage + ACA + asset unlocks.
- See the runway against this household's burn rate.
- See the decision timeline — every deadline from the termination date, color-coded by urgency.
- See the equity and retirement picture — what vests, what lapses, which clock is running.
- See the watch-outs that quietly cost workers money on this exact package pattern.
- See the negotiation levers — specific asks tied to this employer's known precedent.
- Copy or download a plain-text plan suitable for sharing with a spouse, attorney, or accountant.
How to run it
- Open
index.htmlin any modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari). - Pick any worker from the left rail. The headline, KPIs, stack, timeline, equity, watch-outs, negotiation panel, and downloadable plan all update together.
- Use Copy plan to put the full plan on the clipboard. Use Download .txt to save it as a file you can send to a spouse, attorney, or financial advisor.
No build step, no API keys, no accounts. Sample data is embedded inside index.html as a <script type="application/json"> block so the page works directly from file:// with no local server. A standalone copy of the same data also lives at sample-data.json in this folder.
What's in this prototype
- Bridge stack engine that classifies every value source as cash / in-kind coverage / asset unlock / decision-required, and computes the total + runway.
- Six fully-modeled scenarios: Meta L5 (SF, 9 yr, family), Oracle senior PM (Austin, 6 yr, single, ISO clock), Google L6 (Boulder, 11 yr, 55, Rule of 55), Series B startup eng (Brooklyn, 2 yr, partner working), Amazon SDE III (Seattle, 4 yr, single mother, continuation pay), Stripe director (Tampa remote, 1.5 yr, 56, ADEA).
- Decision timeline engine that pulls the right deadlines for each persona — release-waiver-21-day vs. ADEA-45-day branches on age + RIF group size, ISO 90-day clock surfaces only when ISOs are non-zero, Rule of 55 surfaces only at age ≥ 55.
- State unemployment table for the 8 states represented in the personas, with current 2026 maximum weekly benefit + duration.
- COBRA / ACA / spouse-plan triage — the COBRA-vs-ACA decision is modeled per-scenario, not generically.
- Watch-outs feed — household-specific gotchas (continuation-pay deferring UI eligibility, Oracle's refusal to negotiate, single-parent burn rate, ADEA exposure on individual termination).
- Negotiation lever feed — concrete asks tied to each employer's known severance pattern.
- Copy / Download plan that produces a clean plain-text version ready to email or print.
Roadmap
- Replace the worker picker with a 4-step wizard: company → role + tenure → state + family → equity + retirement, with live recompute.
- Add a sign-on-bonus clawback calculator and an RSU sell-back-vs-hold module.
- Add an ISO exercise calculator with AMT scenario modeling — when does the $95k spread net out positive vs. the $61k cash outlay?
- Add an automated state-specific UI eligibility checker (continuation pay vs. lump sum) and weekly UI claim instructions.
- Add a printable PDF export branded for B2B partners (outplacement firms, EAPs, credit unions running personal-line-of-credit programs for laid-off members).
- Add an attorney-referral directory keyed by state, age band, and severance-pattern flags (ADEA exposure, RSU acceleration precedent).
Sources
- U.S. Department of Labor — COBRA continuation rules — 18-month maximum, 60-day election, qualifying event framework.
- 29 U.S.C. § 626(f) — ADEA / OWBPA waiver requirements — 21-day individual / 45-day group RIF / 7-day revocation right.
- 26 U.S.C. § 422 — Incentive stock options — 3-month post-termination exercise window for ISO tax treatment.
- Healthcare.gov — Special Enrollment Period for loss of coverage — 60-day SEP after losing employer coverage.
- IRS Publication 575 — Rule of 55 for separated-from-service workers age ≥ 55 — penalty-free 401(k) withdrawals from the separating employer's plan.
- SkillSyncer 2026 layoffs tracker — used to validate the May 2026 layoff count and per-company numbers (Meta 3,200 Bay Area, Oracle 30,000).
- TechCrunch, May 8, 2026 — "Laid-off Oracle workers tried to negotiate better severance. Oracle said no." — primary source for the Oracle persona's no-negotiation watch-out.
- American Bazaar, May 28, 2026 — "Losing a tech job in 2026 now costs workers nearly $14,400 a month" — used as the monthly-burn-rate anchor in the Meta persona.
Requirements
LayoffLedger — Requirements
Goals
- Reduce the financial blast-radius of a tech layoff by ensuring no benefit, deadline, or negotiation lever is missed during the post-termination decision sprint.
- Render a worker's complete bridge stack (cash + in-kind coverage + asset unlocks) as a single number with a single runway figure against their actual monthly burn rate.
- Surface every deadline the worker is racing — release-waiver review, UI filing, COBRA election, ACA SEP, ISO 90-day clock, RSU acceleration window, 401(k) rollover — on one timeline anchored to the termination date.
- Convert each persona's situation into a printable, shareable plain-text plan suitable for a spouse, attorney, accountant, or outplacement coach.
- Be runnable as a self-contained
index.htmlopened directly from disk — no build step, no network calls, no account.
Primary user
A U.S. tech worker who has just received a layoff notice or has 30–45 days of advance WARN-Act notice. They are not a financial professional; they have a base salary in the $150–400k range, may have unvested RSUs or unexercised ISOs, may be 40+ (ADEA-protected), may be 55+ (Rule of 55 eligible), and have a fixed monthly burn rate they need to bridge. They are using LayoffLedger in the first 7 days after termination to triage which decisions are time-critical and which are deferrable.
Functional requirements
- FR1: Render a left-rail picker of all sample worker scenarios with name, company, role, tenure, and state visible at a glance.
- FR2: Render a headline panel with four KPIs — total bridge value, runway months at current burn, missed dollars if no action is taken, and negotiation upside in dollars.
- FR3: Render a bridge-stack table with rows for every value source, columns for source label, type (cash / in-kind / asset / decision), dollar amount, and per-row explanation.
- FR4: Render a decision-timeline panel that pulls only the deadlines relevant to the current persona (age, group/individual termination, ISO non-zero, RSU non-zero, age ≥ 55, retirement-account balance > 0).
- FR5: Display each deadline with its absolute date (computed from the persona's termination date + deadline days), the trigger event, and an urgency band (high / medium / low) shown as a colored left border.
- FR6: Render an equity-and-retirement panel listing severance structure (lump sum vs. continuation pay), severance weeks + dollars, extended-COBRA months + dollars, RSU vested, RSU unvested forfeit risk, ISO exercise spread, 401(k) balance, HSA balance, and forfeit of next employer-match cycle.
- FR7: Render a watch-outs panel ordered by severity, with each item carrying a severity tag (high / medium / low), a deadline-day count where applicable, and a one-sentence description.
- FR8: Render a negotiation-levers panel listing concrete asks tied to this employer's known severance pattern.
- FR9: Render a plain-text plan that mirrors all of the above and is suitable for clipboard or
.txtdownload. - FR10: Provide a "Copy plan" button that writes the plan to the clipboard with both a modern (
navigator.clipboard.writeText) and legacy (document.execCommand('copy')) path so the action works underfile://. - FR11: Provide a "Download .txt" button that emits a file named
layoff-ledger-<persona-id>.txtwith UTF-8 contents. - FR12: Branch the release-waiver row of the timeline on age ≥ 40 + group RIF (45-day OWBPA) vs. anything else (21-day default).
- FR13: Hide the ISO post-termination clock when the persona has zero ISO value; hide the Rule-of-55 row when the persona is under 55.
- FR14: Compute the runway as (cash + in-kind dollars) ÷ monthly burn rate, expressed in months (or years + months when ≥ 12).
- FR15: Source all state-specific unemployment maxima from a
state_unemploymentblock in the data file; the UI must never hardcode values.
User stories
- As a recently-laid-off Meta L5 engineer, I want to see whether RSU acceleration is being offered and what the credible negotiation ask is, so that I can push the recruiter relations contact before the 21-day signing deadline.
- As an Oracle senior PM with 5 years of tenure, I want to know whether my company will negotiate severance and what my realistic alternative leverage is, so that I don't waste the first week pushing on a closed door.
- As a 55-year-old Google manager, I want to know whether to keep my 401(k) in Google's plan to preserve Rule-of-55 access or roll it to an IRA, so that I make the right one-way decision.
- As a single mother on Amazon's continuation-pay severance, I want to know when Washington UI will actually pay out, so that I can plan around the 8-week paycheck-deferral gap.
- As a startup engineer with underwater options and a working spouse, I want to compare COBRA, ACA, and joining my spouse's plan side-by-side, so that I pick the cheapest coverage without missing the 30-day SEP.
- As a 56-year-old director at a private company, I want to know which ADEA-related negotiation levers are credible on an individual termination, so that I can decide whether engaging employment counsel is worth the cost.
- As a financial advisor coaching a laid-off client, I want to download the entire plan as a
.txtfile, so that I can attach it to my client engagement record and revisit each deadline on a calendar. - As a recently-laid-off worker browsing on mobile during a stressful week, I want the page to render cleanly on a 600px-wide phone, so that I can use it without a laptop nearby.
Non-functional requirements
- Works as a single-page application opened directly via
file://with no local server. - Loads in under 200 ms on a modern laptop browser (no network calls, single CSS file, single JS file, inline JSON).
- Accessible — semantic landmarks (
<header>,<main>,<aside>,<section>,<footer>), keyboard-navigable left rail, role / aria-selected attributes on the persona list,aria-livestatus on the copy-confirmation pill. - Mobile-friendly — collapses cleanly to a single column under 1180 px and 760 px breakpoints.
- No PII or worker data is sent off-device. All sample scenarios are synthetic compositions of public severance-pattern reporting (Meta, Google, Oracle, Amazon, Stripe May 2026 RIF communications).
- Disclaims that this is decision-support, not legal or tax advice — visible in the footer and in the generated plan text.
Out of scope (for the prototype)
- Real form filing (UI, ACA, COBRA, marketplace).
- Real attorney-referral directory (placeholder roadmap item).
- Real-time tax computation (AMT, capital gains, ordinary income).
- Authentication, save-state, or multi-user collaboration.
- Real connection to brokerage APIs (Fidelity, Schwab, Carta) to read RSU / ISO grant data.
- Multi-currency or non-U.S. employers.
- Independent-contractor / 1099 termination patterns.
Open questions
- Does the Pro tier include the attorney-referral directory, or is that a separately-priced add-on?
- Should the B2B white-label include an admin dashboard for outplacement firms (active engagements, deadlines coming up, completion rates), and at what price point?
- Is the COBRA-vs-ACA optimizer accurate enough to publish without an actuarial review for the Pro tier?
- For the negotiation-script feature in the Pro tier — should we generate per-employer templates (Meta, Google, Amazon) or per-pattern templates (generous lump sum, refused negotiation, continuation pay)?
- What's the right legal disclaimer language to satisfy unauthorized-practice-of-law concerns when the negotiation script is auto-generated?
