Originally Posted by
braslvr
Well, here is the way it was explained to me when I first started working out of town in the 80s. Per diem for meals is to help offset the cost of eating in restaurants as opposed to eating in your own home. You don't expect your employer to pay for your meals when you are home. Why should they pay 100% for nice restaurant meals every day out of town when that is something you might only occasionally splurge on when you are home? It made perfect sense to me then, and still does to this day. $20-25 per day even today in almost any city is more than fair, and if you want to splurge, pay for it yourself.
Uhhh no...
If I am out of town for two weeks, so 14 days, you cannot assume if I was home I would be eating out for any of those days, let alone all of them.
The cost of doing business, out of town, should never affect the employee financially. I am there because it is my job to be there and I expect certain comforts as if I was at home, such as not eating Denny's every night and staying in comfortable rooms. I am a traveling tax write off.
We can just quash the whole "Get a room with a kitchen" BS, half the time I am lucky if I even find a decent room within 40 miles of my work site, let alone a kitchen suite.