Salaries. Why can’t we pay people more already?
This article reminded me of a few grievances that I wanted to air out. I apologize in advance, but Jeopardy taught me to phrase my answers in the form of a question.
Did you live and work through The Great Recession? Did you feel the same fear about losing your job? Did you take on more work to make yourself more indispensable? Did you see all of the administrative positions get cut (more on this at a later date)? Whenever you complained about your job, did you find yourself or your friends lamenting that at least you had a job while so many others didn’t? Then you put in a few extra hours the next day because you weren’t one of the 8.7 million people that lost their jobs?
How was money back then? Did you get a raise? Or were you told that money was tight and no one would be getting raises this year? And then did you watch the CEO/Owner/President/Exec get a new car and take extra vacation?
Are you still paying off your school loans? Oh, are you sensitive about that?
And where are you now? How’s your raise situation? Did you get a raise last year? Are you looking forward to the amazing 3% base salary hike this year? Did you know that, for example, 3% of $50k is $1500? And that equals $125 per month before taxes? Where are you planning to spend that money?
Oh, what’s that? Your rent went up more than that? So is it like you got a decrease? Are you still thankful you have a job?
Are you starting to get resentful that companies seem to be taking advantage of you? That you have to hop jobs in order to get ahead?
Did you know that a lot of companies still run raise budgets in an outdated manner? That the 3% you get this year is part of the 3% budget that the company allotted to raises? And that if someone important wants a 5% increase, that sometimes has to come out of a scheduled increase for someone(s) else? Is that fair?
Do you think that it would be hard to live off of the $7.25 or $9.25 or $9.75 in your state? Do you support raising the minimum wage? But then do you wonder about how when that gets raised, you, making more than minimum wage, don’t also get a raise?
Can you believe it costs more than $250k to raise a child?
