don’t forget to scrutinize benefits when you’re considering a job offer

by Alison Green on July 25, 2024

A reader writes:

I wanted to share a recent story that highlights why, when reviewing a job offer, it’s important to consider the benefits package in addition to the salary.

I was recently offered a position that would be a huge step up for me. It only came with a modest salary increase, but I figured that was okay. I did let them know I couldn’t formally accept until I had received and reviewed the full offer. I’m glad I did, because what I found out is that with my payments for insurance premiums, I would effectively be taking a pay cut by accepting this position. My current organization includes spouses and dependents in the employer-paid insurance coverage, whereas the new company does not (even if my husband were to go on his own insurance and cover our child, it would still be a large increase in what we’re currently paying monthly for insurance).

While I have not fully declined the offer yet, it has allowed me the opportunity to negotiate based on this new information. Whether I take the role or not will depend on how they respond (and thankfully I’m in a comfortable enough role at the moment that I don’t feel the need to settle). So just want to remind folks that salary isn’t the only thing to consider when looking at a job!

Yes! I have seen too many people accept job offers without running all the numbers … and then realize after they’ve already started the job that they effectively took a pay cut after you account for insurance premiums and other benefits.

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  1. PB Bunny Watson*

    And people made fun of my spreadsheet that compared my job at the time with the offer I was given. It was for a lower amount, but the commute was a lot shorter (saving a LOT of gas) and it had regular increases that the job I had at the time didn’t. It didn’t take long at that new job for me to make more than I was after 8 years at the old one. Crunching the numbers is always important.

    1. Sally Sue*

      A shorter commute not only saves gas but also saves time and stress which is sometimes worth even more!

      1. FricketyFrack*

        Definitely. I happily took a pay cut when I went back to school because the job was only about 10-15 minutes from my house instead of 30-60 (depending on weather and traffic). It wasn’t just getting the extra time back – though that helped – it was also just so much better for my mood.

      2. Slow Gin Lizz*

        Definitely! I moved to an apartment that was 20 minutes away from my old job after living in a cheaper apt that was over 2 hours away by train. I got over three hours back in my life and it was worth the extra rent (although I was sad to leave the other apt; it was really nice and the pricier one wasn’t as nice b/c it was closer to the city). What I didn’t realize when I’d taken that job is not so much that I’d have a long commute, which I didn’t love but figured I’d be ok with, but that the long commute meant that I’d be spending a lot less time actually at home. Not sure why I didn’t figure that out ahead of time, but honestly, I really should have, b/c that turned out to be more of an issue than the time on the train (which I’d spend sleeping and knitting, two activities I enjoyed anyway).

        1. Don’t ask the non-manager*

          I absolutely agree and tell people to make a chart with each major element for multiple offers. My current firm has 1/3 fewer days off per year compared to my old firm, and I didn’t pay attention to that until it was too late. I won’t make that mistake again.

        2. Disappointed Australien*

          There’s a slight culture in Australia of selling a house in the suburbs and buying a more expensive but smaller house much closer in. Normally that means selling one car, sometimes all cars, which saves an amount of money that shocks many people. If you have teenage kids the cost savings from not needing to taxi them around or buy cars for them too greatly magnify this effect. Good public transport helps, but in modern cities a bicycle works better.

      3. Laura*

        We relocated for my spouse’s job and while my new job came with a huge pay bump, I went from a 15-20 min commute on back roads with minimal traffic to commuting into the city in heavy traffic with a commute anywhere from 45 min – 1.5 hours each way. Luckily, I have some flexibility with my schedule and there is company provided transit (which is not a huge improvement in total commute time but the stress reduction from not driving myself is absolutely worth it). Unluckily, pretty much all the jobs in my field are in this same metro area.

        1. Panda (she/her)*

          Having lived both rurally and in a large city, the thing that stressed me out about the city commute was the uncertainty! Like, maybe it’s going to be 45 minutes, or maybe it’s going to be 2 hours (if there’s an accident or construction, bad weather, etc.) which means I essentially had to prepare (mentally, schedule-wise) for a 2 hour commute even if it wasn’t that long the vast majority of the time.

      4. Momma Bear*

        I’m glad this whole “look at the benefits” is being discussed. We had a change in benefits last year and that and a couple of other shifts basically ate any raises I’d received in the last 2 years. It’s depressing.

        I had an hourish commute and now it’s more like 20 if the lights are right. It’s made a huge difference.

      1. Resume please*

        Essentially a benefits comparion of current job vs prospective one. Commute time, 401K (or equivalent) matching, medical insurance premiums, any other perks such as office gym/discount programs/incentives, remote/hybrid vs. in office status. Basically, any lifestyle change between the two positions

      2. k*

        When I’m including commute time difference I like to assigned a dollar value to it in addition to the actual gas/train/etc cost. If a job’s salary works out to $30 an hour and it requires 2 hours a day commute, I’m subtracting $60 a day from the take home pay (since we’ve agreed my time is worth that much an hour, and they’re asking me to give up that time unpaid). I look at that number separate from the on paper take home pay, but I like to have it to get a sense of the overall valuation of what the job is worth to me.

        1. MassMatt*

          I think the actual number of hours the employer is expecting factors in here as well. An $80,000 job might sound great, that’s $38+ for a 40 hour week. If you’re expected to work 60 hours per week, that’s less than $26 an hour. You might be better off with a 40 hr job and doing a side hustle.

          1. DJ Hymnotic*

            This is the exact calculus I am making right now. I was just offered a promotion at my job but it would entail going from being hourly to being salaried, and among the numbers I need to crunch is how much my raise will actually be after factoring in the possibility a few hours per month of uncompensated overtime.

      3. Disappointed Australien*

        Don;t forget to add full commute costs, the extra 1000 miles a year is $500 out of pocket (or whatever the IRS travel cost is).

        For me work clothes and bicycle parking are big ones. If I have to buy and maintain a shiny wardrobe just for work that goes in the spreadsheet. If there’s no secure bicycle parking at work I add the cost of a new bike every year because in practice that’s what happens.

        But this can be anything that matters to you. New job has a proper cafe-style coffee machine? That’s $5/day saved right there if you buy cafe coffee. New job has a gym/discount gym membership that would replace your current gym fees? Ditto.

        It’s also fair to ignore things that don’t matter. Company provides discount car lease that you won’t w=use? Worth zero.

      4. Lizzie (with the deaf cat)*

        Also worth considering is whether there are useful services near your job- doctor, dentist etc, whether there’s a little park nearby to eat your lunch in, a supermarket so you can pick up stuff to take home rather than having to do that at the end of your commute etc. Can you get access to daylight during the day, is there storage so you can leave something at work if you need to, do any friends work nearby, is the workplace filled with plug in air fresheners and obligatory music.
        These things will matter more, or less to each person – what matters to you?
        I changed a 2 1/2 hour commute on public transport to a 15 minute walk – that was worth a lot more to me than I thought! But I missed my ‘train buddy’ and the little cafe in the railway station where I would get breakfast. And really enjoyed the extra daylight time with my cat!
        So the economic part is just one (important) aspect.

    3. Bitte Meddler*

      Yep. When I was comparing two job offers last fall, I was able to get my preferred company to come up $10K in salary to cover the gap in benefits that my 2nd-choice company had.

      Their salaries were comparable, with Preferred Company coming in slightly higher, but 2nd Choice had better (and earlier) 401k matching, better health insurance premiums, better health insurance coverage (i.e., less out of pocket expenses), and better other benefits (legal aid, a great physical therapy app, better annual bonus, better short- and long-term disability coverage, etc.).

      When running the numbers side-by-side, I would “lose” $7,000 by taking the job at Preferred Company.

      I showed the internal recruiter my spreadsheet and she took the numbers to the CFO and HR, and then came back to me and said, “What if we raise your salary by $10,000? Will you accept then?”

      I accepted.

      And, bonus, Preferred Company is re-doing its benefits offerings such that they’ll be almost identical to 2nd Choice’s. So next year I’ll have better benefits *and* the higher salary. :-)

    4. Tupac Coachella*

      Your spreadsheet sounds epic, and I side eye anyone who made fun of you for it.

      When I took my current job, the excellent benefit package at my old job really gave me pause…until I calculated up that at the rate I expected raises based on past experience (and not taking into account the fact that they’d stopped altogether during the COVID lockdown and could again without warning), it would take me 8 YEARS to get to the starting salary of the new job. Once I factored in that I was only partially using some of the benefits that looked most impressive on paper (generous vacation that I was too busy to actually use, lots of sick time and great HSA in a family that rarely gets sick), the take home pay won. If I hadn’t done the crunching, the difference from the great benefits package (which they frequently used to justify the low pay) to my current good-enough package may have scared me off.

    5. Just Another Cog*

      I’m glad that you are able to ask about the benefits package at all! Early in my career (in the early 80’s) I started looking around after I had been in my first job for a few years. It wasn’t that I was unhappy, just wanted to explore what was out there. I ended up being offered a job with a bump in pay, but when I asked about their benefits, the HR person was taken aback. She was visibly offended that I’d even ask such a thing. It felt too awkward to accept the job so I ended up staying where I was for several more years.

  2. Parenthesis Guy*

    It’s also a good way to negotiate for some extra money by saying your previous benefits were better and therefore you want a few thousand more than their offer.

  3. Texas Teacher*

    I just started a job in a new school district, and also ran the numbers based on the length of the school year. On its face, I was taking a slight pay cut but when you factored in the total contract days, it was a slight raise.
    It’s certainly not even in the top 5 of reasons I’m switching districts, but something I did calculate.

  4. Knope Knope Knope*

    I kept thinking about this in the letter the other day where the LW was stuck on needing a $170k minimum salary to accept the role, even though the recruiter and hiring manager seemed to think $165k was reasonable. $165k and room to grow at a company with good benefits can work out to more than a company where you’ll get $170k with worse benefits. I actually thought this was going to be a follow up to that letter.

    1. Sally Sue*

      Yeah, that letter was a little off, IMO. If you’re making $30K then $5K is something worth fighting over but to me, by the time you are at the $165K level, I probably wouldn’t be dickering over that amount. I’m not saying that $5K isn’t a lot of money but it’s all relative especially when you figure in the benefits and perks that usually come with high salary jobs.

      1. Great Frogs of Literature*

        We don’t know that it’s a $5k paycut from what she’s currently making — it’s $5k lower than the lowest number she’s willing to accept. If she’s run the numbers, and her household can’t afford their current expenses on $165k, then that’s a meaningful difference, even if it’s a much smaller percentage of her overall salary than it would be for someone making $30k.

      2. Sloanicota*

        If I understood correctly, it was the top of their range and the absolute bottom of hers. Presumably she’d be wanting raises. Also, there was no discussion of the benefits so I was assuming they weren’t a big factor. But it’s true that $5K can be easily absorbed in benefits, or even commute time as someone else said.

        1. DJ Hymnotic*

          FWIW, this is exactly how I read that letter too. I understood it not as the LW refusing to compromise over 5K, but them saying that the 170K figure represented them already compromising significantly. And honestly, fair enough–I started out in a field where significant merit raises are rare and so you had to negotiate a wage you could live on (and live with) before you even started.

          1. The Unionizer Bunny*

            I started out in a field where significant merit raises are rare and so you had to negotiate a wage you could live on (and live with) before you even started.

            Wages without COLA are like a pay cut every year. Inflation reduces what you can purchase. Some of it might be employers not increasing what they charge customers to match inflation (so they “can’t” afford to adjust their labor costs), but if your company can’t afford to pay its workers a living wage, then maybe it can’t afford to be in business. These days you have to look not just at what you’re earning to begin with but how long you plan on working for the company, and ask if the duration of your contract lines up with anticipated inflation rates.

            1. DJ Hymnotic*

              I started out in one of those areas of the nonprofit world in which people’s sense of vocation and desire to make a difference can sometimes get cynically and hypocritically exploited by their employers, and the dearth of raises were a part of that. Ironically, it sometimes meant more turnover than employers wanted because they had made it so that the only ways for their employees to get meaningful raises were to either change employers or to almost change employers and accept a counteroffer (something I know Alison has written negatively about at length before).

              I’m now in a different nonprofit setting within healthcare and I noted somewhere else in this post that I’m contemplating a promotion I was just verbally offered this week. I’m waiting on the written offer so that I can calculate and then negotiate just how much more I’ll be making, but I’m so much happier now that I didn’t have to leave or threaten to leave to get this raise.

            2. Anon in Canada*

              This. If you “can’t afford” to give your employees an annual COLA based on the inflation rate, you can’t afford to have employees, period.

      3. Morgan Proctor*

        I hate this attitude. The LW knew their worth, and refused to compromise on it. That’s awesome to me. It gives me, who makes substantially less, the inspiration to figure out my worth, and go out and find it.

        1. Knope Knope Knope*

          Well the point is, even if you make $165k, you could end up with more money in your paycheck each month or more on the things that matter to you than someone who makes $170k. For instance, to make it quite simple, I used to make $80k at a job that provided free healthcare. I took a lateral move at a job with a slight pay bump that at an employer that used an employee contribution for healthcare, and my paycheck was hundreds of dollars less a month despite the slight raise. Or, silly perk, but my partner gets free MLB tickets several times a year. He’d spend hundreds on this, so effectively gets hundreds back in his pocket because of his company’s affiliation if he left and worked somewhere where that wasn’t a benefit. My company has stock options, but a four year vesting period. So in four years I will have around $50k. If I leave now, one year into my vesting period, I walk away with $12,500. If I work somewhere for the same base salary and stock options but a two year vesting period, I would walk away with $25k if I left. So it really is worth doing the math to know what you’re worth.

        2. Bootstrap Enjoyer*

          “If my boss earns ten times as much as I do, well, that just inspires me to work ten times as hard!”

    2. MassMatt*

      But there was nothing in that letter saying the benefits were better, or even good, in that job offer. Just because the hiring manager thought the offer was “reasonable” doesn’t mean it was attractive to the LW, who noted they had been underpaid throughout much of their career.

      I am also skeptical of the “room to grow” argument employers make to give lower offers. If they low-ball in the offer they are likely to continue to underpay more than they are to make up for the difference later, and even if they do, money now is better than money later.

      I have seen many cases (and we’ve seen many letters) where verbal promises of 6 month reviews and larger increases after a year etc never happen.

      1. Lawrence's Intern*

        When I was graduating college I got four or five job offers (that was a good time in my profession) and one was the most interesting but had the lowest pay. I tried to get them to match the highest pay, they told me they couldn’t pay me that much because they had employees who had been there ten years (which I realized also meant they had at least 10 years more experience than me) who weren’t making that much. But he swore to me if I took the job I’d make more in the long run. He didn’t explain where the extra money would come from.

        In the long run, he might have been right. I took the highest offer, but got fired 3 years later for mediocre performance (at least compared to my fellow employees). It took me over a year to find another job (that was a bad time in my profession).

      2. Knope Knope Knope*

        Stated above, but LW in that letter never found out about the benefits. So if $170k was truly the lowest they would accept, than at $165k it would be worth it to get to the benefits portion of the conversation, because $165k could be more in terms of real compensation than $170k.

        Well the point is, even if you make $165k, you could end up with more money in your paycheck each month or more on the things that matter to you than someone who makes $170k. For instance, to make it quite simple, I used to make $80k at a job that provided free healthcare. I took a lateral move at a job with a slight pay bump that at an employer that used an employee contribution for healthcare, and my paycheck was hundreds of dollars less a month despite the slight raise. Or, silly perk, but my partner gets free MLB tickets several times a year. He’d spend hundreds on this, so effectively gets hundreds back in his pocket because of his company’s affiliation if he left and worked somewhere where that wasn’t a benefit. My company has stock options, but a four year vesting period. So in four years I will have around $50k. If I leave now, one year into my vesting period, I walk away with $12,500. If I work somewhere for the same base salary and stock options but a two year vesting period, I would walk away with $25k if I left. So it really is worth doing the math to know what you’re worth.

    3. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      “Room to grow” is often a trick to persuade people accept less than the top of the stated pay scale. % increases are based on starting salary and that lost pay really mounts up over the years. With how they were pushing that 165k I’d be concerned that budgets were too tight for good / rapid raises anyway. Better to wait for 170k elsewhere if you can.

      Benefits can make a big difference to takehome pay (I think much more in the US than elsewhere) and also someone might choose less money for fewer hours, shorter commute, switching to a different field etc but that’s very different to accepting starting at lower pay to “grow”.

        1. Slow Gin Lizz*

          I’ve fallen into this trap a couple of times, but not even with the employer saying there’d be room to grow but me just blindly expecting that I’d get decent raises on a regular basis. Oops. I know better now.

      2. Artemesia*

        they always seem to find that extra 5K for the GUY they want to hire but are reluctant to offer it to a woman. Men who negotiate are alpha, leaders, top of the line — women are pushy and annoying. I have personal knowledge of this with friends and family who were l punished for successfully negotiating.

      3. Knope Knope Knope*

        Yeah the room to grow was really not my point so much as the benefits. But, at least I personally have taken lateral moves that led to more than doubling my salary in 4 years because the company really did have a better growth trajectory. So it is worth considering. I am a woman FWIW.

    4. Parenthesis Guy*

      I think that person was feeling that if she was worth $170k when she started at the level, then she was worth at least $170k now for a position at the same level after having two years experience. Which is understandable.

    5. HA2*

      I think we should trust the LW. If $165k was the minimum, she would have said that.

      Otherwise, if she’d said $165k is the minimum, would you be saying that actually, if she were offered $160k she should take it? Or if she said $160k, then she should accept $155k?

      Somewhere there’s an actual line which is a minimum she won’t go below, and we should trust her when she said $170k is that minimum. That doesn’t mean that $170k is what she’s making now, or that $170k assumes good benefits (maybe her minimum is $170k if the benefits are excellent?). Just that it’s the minimum she would accept.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        Especially since the salary range in the ad went far higher, so it was a bait-and-switch. Why say you’ll pay $190k for the right candidate and then refuse to say under what circumstances you would pay $190k?

      2. Knope Knope Knope*

        My point is that at a salary of $165k, benefits can make up more than $5k if the company is good. See my examples above. My company vests Restricted Stock Units every 4 years, so assuming I leave at some point, unless I tie it exactly to my stock options, I will lose money. I have about $50k in RSUs and if I left this year I would have $12.5k. If my company vested every two years, I would have $25k. I used to work at a company that provided free health insurance for a family of 5!! I’d have like $1k more a month if my company offered that. I would gladly take a $5k cut in base pay for that!

  5. zuzu*

    And make sure when you look at the various plans offered, that you look beyond the monthly premiums at how much you’ll be paying out of pocket per year, and what each plan covers, including the prescription formulary. My current plan is twice per month in premiums, but saves me a TON of money on the back end, and covers far more than the other plans my employer offers.

    1. daeranilen*

      Absolutely – I have this experience in the other direction. The high deductible health insurance offered by the small business I work at (the best they can afford, unfortunately) wouldn’t be great for most people, but for me, a person with expensive prescriptions who basically slams into the deductible at full speed, the low premiums, extensive coverage, low prescription copays, and $0 copays for ALL other covered services (yes, even emergency room visits, surgeries, etc) makes it by far the most affordable health insurance I’ve ever had.

      Still, I wish I’d done that number-crunching BEFORE I took the job, and not AFTER I got to experience the sticker shock of being charged $1k for a prescription! Now it’s something I know to ask about first.

      1. Mid*

        Hello fellow expensive medication person! Yeah, I rarely mind a “high deductible health plan” because I hit the $3500 deductible by February every year, and then everything for the rest of the year is functionally free, minus a few $5 or $10 co-pays, and if I hit the out of pocket max, it’s all no cost. So when my job offered a new plan option that was a “better” plan because it had a lower deductible, but a way higher OOP max, and way less prescription coverage, it was clearly a way worse deal for me, and would have cost me over 4x more per year. A lot of my coworkers were excited for the new plan, because it saved them a lot of money, because they don’t have expensive medications or regular specialist appointments. So it’s not just “what are the insurance premiums?” but also “what is the actual coverage? Are my doctors in network? Is my pharmacy? What are the co-pays and OOP max? Is there an HSA or FSA?” to figure out how much it’ll cost you.

        I had a job offer that was a $10k raise, but I would end up losing money because the health insurance was expensive, the commute was longer, and they had less PTO. Several of my friends thought I was ridiculous for turning it down because the salary was higher.

        1. Coverage Associate*

          We hit our deductible in the summer. It’s still the best for us, but the first half of the year paying out of pocket for most healthcare is lean.

          It’s my first year on this plan. I’m trying to set aside the deductible amount in a pseudo HSA so it doesn’t hurt next year. (We have a real HSA too, but we pretend it’s a retirement account. We also itemize tax deductions for medical expenses.)

      2. AngryOctopus*

        At my last job we had a high deductible plan, but the company had HSAs for everyone and put in the amount of the deductible for us. Cheaper for them overall, deductible covered if you hit it, and the HSA money was yours to keep if you didn’t.

        1. Yellow*

          My old job did that too. It was awesome. I think they covered all but like $200 of the deductible.

        2. Evan Þ*

          Yeah, my job does that, and it’s wonderful. I’ve been fortunate enough to never hit the deductible, so it’s just free money.

      3. Laura*

        Yup, I had an employer offer both high deductible and PPO plans but with the high deductible, everything was 100% covered after the deductible was hit. So if you knew you would have high medical bills and could save enough to pay the deductible it was a fantastic deal – I used it when I had a high risk pregnancy and hit the deducible less than a month into the year.

    2. HonorBox*

      I moved to my wife’s insurance a year or so ago. There was actually some additional cost to us for premiums, but it turned out that coverage for an ongoing medical thing I have is far better, so the $100/month in premiums was covered the first time I went in for my appointment when the medication that had cost me several thousand a year was fully covered by the new insurance.

    3. Paint N Drip*

      THIS. My super-small employer doesn’t offer any benefits so I get my insurance through the Marketplace… I’m the one shopping for the darn plan and sometimes I still get totally blindsided! My insurance from last year to this year is a DRASTIC cut in coverage for the exact same price, thank god my year of MRIs, physical therapy, and many many prescriptions was last year during good coverage (and it was still a VERY expensive medical year, of course)

    4. Momma Bear*

      Also, look at what insurance your favorite doctors take. I don’t much care who writes my Rx for glasses but I care if my PCP is in network or not. If you need to change all your providers, that might be a factor, too.

  6. MKR*

    A few jobs ago, I made a huge cross-country move for a slightly lower salary. I was almost 40 at the time, and “conventional” wisdom said this was the wrong step. But while I wasn’t changing industries, I was changing sectors, and the only way I could step “up” was to stay in the sector I was rather done with. The benefits made it possible — without fully paid insurance premiums at that job, I couldn’t have made it work. Benefits really do matter. Also, it was 20000% the right call for me, career-wise, and I do love my new city.

  7. FG*

    Absolutely. I did that for a job offer years ago, needing to ask follow up questions to get all the info. When I came back to them with a rundown of the added costs to me to take the position, they were actually impressed. They liked that I had that detailed, analytical approach & didn’t just leap to an answer.

  9. Iamapatientgirl*

    just ran into this- was laid off from a company that paid for my family insurance premium entirely – when talking with employers I laid out exactly what I was getting in terms of salary, benefits and stock. I knew it was very likely I would get a pay decrease overall since I was getting a TON of stock but managed to find a company that increases their base pay + bonus enough to get me up into the neighborhood of the salary and benefits number I started with. (boy am I going to miss all that stock though…)

  10. Three Flowers*

    This happened to a friend of mine this year. They went to work for a government agency (in a place that generally emphasizes the social safety net), and got clobbered by the cost of health insurance. I also was a finalist for a job with a different state org and read the fine print on retirement, and hoo boy, it would have made it hard to take the job if it’d been offered.

    1. Banana Pyjamas*

      Oh I looked in to another state’s retirement recently because it vests after five years. The catch is you’re only eligible for 50% at five years, then increases 10% per year. I’m not near retiring, but I also haven’t managed to stay anywhere 10 years yet.

      1. Clisby*

        Don’t most state retirement systems work across the whole system, though? Not sure if this is what you mean, but at least in my state, you could move around from state agency to state agency, and change locations within the state every few years and still keep your state retirement.

        1. Banana Pyjamas*

          Yes, and state systems often include municipal governments. The thing is that doesn’t mean there will be appropriate jobs available near you when you’re ready to move on. That’s what I ran into, and why I didn’t leave my last job even though the grand boss and I weren’t a match. My particular specialty has been so consolidated to cut costs that I would have had to commute an hour and take a pay cut, or commute an hour and change time zones (and still possibly take a pay cut). Both would have prevented me from accessing childcare because I wouldn’t be able to make pickup under these conditions. The state capital is 3 hours away, and the only state office here is WIC.

      2. Doreen*

        I think most pensions work that way – mine pays 60 percent of your salary if you have 30 years of service, but less than 10 percent if you only have five years. It’s not a great benefit if you don’t expect to stay a long time ( in my case, 10 years gets you health insurance once you start collecting the pension, so lots of people stay for the 10 years)

        1. MassMatt*

          Pension plans are generally offered to encourage employees to stay in the long term. Formulas that promise a higher payout based on # of years employment are extremely common.

          There are often also age components. In my state, teachers can retire with lifetime payments of 80% of the average of the highest three years of their pay after their # of years and age add up to around 90-95 or so.

          The reason traditional pension benefits are disappearing is they are expensive to administer, and the employer is then obligated to have enough money invested (and pay to manage it) to pay out for an uncertain amount of time. Lengthening life expectancy has thrown a wrench into many of those calculations. Employers would much rather not have this risk and pass it on to employees to take via their own saving and investing.

        2. Banana Pyjamas*

          The two systems I have been in both changed to 10 year vesting, then had a formula based on your pay prior to retiring and years of service. I very annoyingly missed 7 year vesting by a year in both states.

    2. FricketyFrack*

      That’s interesting – I’ve stayed in government my entire career specifically because the benefits are so much better than the private sector. The retirement, too. I mean, I don’t have that much in retirement compared to what I’d actually need, but I’m miles ahead of pretty much all of my friends.

      1. H.C.*

        Ditto, the benefits offered at my (municipal-level) public sector def outweighs any packages I’ve received in private sector job. Just the pension + additional 10% retirement savings match alone is enough to make me consider becoming a “lifer”.

        1. M2RB*

          YES! Looking at strict salary per year, I took a pay cut to move from last job to current job. HOWEVER. Current job at a municipal utility deposits an amount equal to 10% of my annual salary into my retirement account *regardless* of what I deposit. Plus my health insurance premiums are fully paid for by the company, and they fund my Health Reimbursement Account (which is $3k/annually, losing whatever isn’t used at the end of the year, but it’s not my money to lose). AND the professional training and memberships they pay for!! Adding everything up on paper, I would have been foolish to miss this opportunity. It’s even worth the extra commute time and expense, because I’m so much less stressed when I get home that I have energy to do other things.

          1. H.C.*

            >>I’m so much less stressed when I get home that I have energy to do other things.

            That reminded me of a non-monetary benefit too, the job culture here is very “work only when you’re on the clock,” which relieved a lot of stress of dealing with unplanned overtime, answering correspondence after hours, etc. Even I still do some of that (particularly in planning for and catching up after extended time off) but I loved that there’s zero obligation to do so.

          2. Banana Pyjamas*

            IME that’s unusually generous. One employer provided an allowance to buy private insurance, while the other three offered plans that employees still had to pay for.

            Certificates and continuing education are hit or miss. In particularly conservative places it can be a fight with the board to get funding. Also pay-back agreements are becoming more common, which shift the cost or a portion of the cost to employees when they leave.

            Government offices also tend to be underfunded and under resourced. It’s not uncommon to go four years without a pay increase during times of austerity. It also can mean higher stress due to understaffing and poor tools (cough cough legacy systems).

            Government can have excellent benefits (and even pay sometimes), but it’s a widely variable and changing, so I wouldn’t want to paint an overly rosy image.

            I’m glad you got to experience the positives, and I still encourage people to look into government employment

      2. B*

        It varies so much. I find a lot of government workers think their benefits are great when in fact, especially after a few rounds of austerity cuts, they’re pretty mediocre.

  11. Sarah*

    I was not happy at my previous position due to a toxic work enviroment (more on that later). I found a great job, pay raise, nice people but insurance would be paid by a percentage. I negotiated and was able to get them to pay for all insurance!!! I did lose a little PTO, which was fine with me considering I didn’t havie to deal with crazy co-workers I will take it as a win!!!

  12. Panda*

    Sometimes I think it’s hard to figure this out though. Yes, they’ll tell you the cost, the company, and what type of plan they have, but their actual plan on the back end may be much different that the same type of plan with the same company. For example, both my old company and my new company carry Aetna and Express Scripts. But the Aetna plan my new company has makes me jump through tons of hoops that my old plan did not. And the Express Scripts plan my new company has doesn’t cover a bunch of the meds that the old company did, including my asthma medication that is the standard of care from the AAFA. Unfortunately, I’ve found the hard way that it’s really hard to compare them apples to apples.

    1. Catherine*

      Couldn’t agree more! Especially when there are multiple plans you can choose from. I haven’t found a reliable way of knowing how much I’ll actually be paying for healthcare and healthcare costs without actually experiencing it. Curious if anyone else has been able to actually navigate this.

    2. Sloanicota*

      It’s so true. It’s often quite hard from the outside to determine what will be covered. And since you don’t get have the coverage, it can be hard to get your questions answered. I hope someday we create a legislative fix for this, where it has to be more transparent or there’s more of a “standard” they have to maintain or explicitly depart from.

  13. OrdinaryJoe*

    It’s such a hard call! I was miserable at one place I had worked at for years but felt trapped because, while I could easily find the salary elsewhere or even higher, Bad Company had amazing, unbeatable benefits. I calculate I lost between $25-$30K in benefit costs (401K matching++, bonuses, & PTO) when I changed jobs but sanity is priceless! Just took me two years of misery to figure that out …

  14. SK*

    My friend left a job in his hometown for more money on East Coast and then discovered he got 2wks of PTO (vs 4-5 at old job), so it was hard to travel home much, or even for holidays. Check all the benefits!

    1. Paint N Drip*

      That’s a good point regarding making a big change for the new job, too – even if everything is equal, is it still ‘the same’? If I moved far away from family and friends for a job, I’d definitely need MORE vacation time to get my life balanced closer to the way it used to be living in my hometown

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      Oof, that’s awful! They didn’t tell him ahead of time? I’d consider that bait-and-switch! A coworker at OldJob is looking for a new position but keeps finding places where the pay is comparable but the benefits much worse, including less vacation* and terrible insurance plans. Plus OldJob is almost all WFH and that’s especially hard to find. So even though she’s been miserable at that job for a couple of years, she’s sticking with it for now.

      * OldJob has that seemingly-great-but-not-really unlimited PTO plan. It is nice in the sense that you didn’t have to worry about saving your vacation time but of course there are a lot of downsides too. Most ppl there only took about 2 weeks off a year, which is way under what we should have been allowed to take. And everyone was overworked and had too much work to really take vacation time, and underpaid by so much that we couldn’t really afford to go anywhere anyway.

      1. Isabel Archer*

        This doesn’t sound like “bait and switch.” SK wrote that their friend “discovered” the 2 weeks PTO after accepting and relocating for the job. It sounds like they either didn’t ask about PTO, or didn’t read something the employer gave them that stated the amount of PTO on offer.

      2. MassMatt*

        This is exactly why you need to ask about benefits! Many jobs start even senior people out at the minimum vacation and you earn more only through seniority, and the amount of vacation they will grant varies tremendously. You can’t assume four weeks just because your current job has it.

    3. Lizcase*

      One of the reasons I stayed at my old job so long was that I was never going to get 5 wks vacation anywhere else. At least, not at the beginning. That vacation was worth a LOT to me.

  15. Miss Muffet*

    Also remember to consider 401K matches in that calculation! Different companies do it different ways and that can have a substantial impact on your finances.
    I’d also add – are you going back to work from WFH? Include commute, parking and possibly clothing in your calculus. These little things really can add up.
    On the flip side – a lot of companies are adding a lot of little side benefits that you might not think of if you are just focusing on Medical/Dental/Vision. Infertility benefits are a big one that come to mind and can really be a huge $$$ saver if that’s something you are thinking you might need. Lots of others too.

    1. AngryOctopus*

      100%!!! I ostensibly was taking a $6K paycut when I started the job I have now. However, with lower insurance premiums (for a better plan!) and a 410(K) default percent plus a match, I took home the same amount that first year while having more put aside in the 401(K). And they also do a defined contribution plan yearly which puts a percentage of my salary (percentage is based on age) into the plan every year. all that plus the bonus multipliers mean I took home way more this year than I would have with a higher salary at OldJob. Totally worth it to really think through all the numbers.

    2. Adam*

      Also, max out your 401(k) match! A lot of places match depending on how much you contribute, so if they match 50% of your contribution up to 3% of your salary, or whatever, then if you’re contributing less than 6% you’re just leaving money on the table!

      1. Sloanicota*

        Plus some companies have complicated vesting schemes and some don’t. Not having to wait three or five years to be vested is worth something to me, since I can’t always control when I get laid off.

  16. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    Absolutely. And as much as possible vet the insurance plan and other benefits.

    We switched from having my husband carry the insurance to having me carry the insurance even though my premiums are higher because the insurance is so much better and it is stable. In 2023 we had $500K in medical bills and had out of pocket of under $100 and while there were some delays and extra documentation requested, we really didn’t have to fight to get everything covered.

    It can also be little things, like when my husband’s company got bought out, they switched 401K plans and they clearly switched to a cheaper plan. The fund options are not as good and the expense ratios are higher.

  17. Manic Pixie HR Girl*

    I always include the benefits package with the conditional offer letter (it basically says, don’t quit your job until we call with a start date, which we can’t authorize until a full background check is completed – the letter just memorializes agreed upon salary and start of the process), because I know how important this information is!

    1. Atomic Tangerine*

      Yesss as an employer who offers a bunch of benefits I give them a breakdown of the full value of their package.

      1. Manic Pixie HR Girl*

        It’s so important! We’re government, so generally the benefits are quite good, but they are also rigid. We have absolutely no authority to negotiate a different price on health insurance, or additional PTO, for example. It’s all set in statute. So, as a result, I think it is really important for people to know this up front and whether this is a fit for them!

  18. marketing lady*

    I used to work at a European-owned company and we had excellent PTO and benefits. When I got an offer for a new company, they couldn’t match the amount of benefits but did match the PTO and gave me a bonus that covered out of pocket costs for the benefits I wasn’t getting (like an EAP). I was so glad I brought this up during the negotiation!

  19. RCS*

    I had to find a job quickly last summer (company not doing great/lots of layoffs) since I am the sole worker in my family for money and insurance.

    Took a position with a lower salary with the idea it would be a stop gap until I found something better. OMG – the benefits at this company are STELLAR! My salary is lower, but I am taking home more than I ever made at my last place. Cost of family benefits is the lowest I’ve ever paid and they cover almost everything even expensive prescriptions.

    My new plan is to stay with this company and try to move up or change departments to get a better wage. It was really just good luck!

    1. Banana Pyjamas*

      This is so important. I stayed at a stressful job for years because the family insurance was around $60 twice per month.

  20. Justin*

    Before I started my current job, I had two not-quite-offers but two that seemed really strong.

    One was directly across the street from where I lived at the time, but it didn’t offer much remote work. Which wasn’t really that bad because… I lived across the street. It was also a job that came with literally free health insurance because it was within a city department where that was part of the package. I knew the salary because government jobs are posted publicly.

    The other was my job I now have. I wasn’t yet sure of the salary (they passed the NY state law later that year, so now all our ads have ranges). But it offered remote work (or, the option – I go in sometimes because I want to), and was more centrally located in midtown, which meant that if we ever moved, it would probably be easier to get to from anywhere.

    We made a spreadsheet for what the salary for this job would have to be to counteract not having to pay for insurance. And if the offer was significantly above that, it was definitely the leader.

    It was. So I took it. And it turns out the city is so bizarre that you can only receive “conditional” offers and basically it can take anywhere from 1 month to 6 months to start, so, it was the right call for other reasons (we also bought a house later, and indeed the commute to midtown is better than it would have been to Queens).

    The new job also just pays us $150 no questions asked for transportation every month. So that’s nice.

    But these benefits (and it’s not just health insurance, for the non-US people) really really matter.

  21. Mouse named Anon*

    We have done this too when looking over offers. I do really hate it when companies will not allow your spouse or dependents on your plan. Ugh ‘merica!

    1. Justin*

      Wait, what? It’s not just more expensive??? I’ve never not had a family plan option. I wonder if it’s the state (NY) where I’ve always worked.

      That is more “crappy company” than the country (obviously it being legal is the country).

      1. ghostwriter*

        My spouse works for the public school district of a major city. The contract is negotiated such that there’s only an employee + family option (and it’s insanely expensive). There isn’t an employee + spouse option.

      2. ScruffyInternHerder*

        That is the locally owned “Catholic” hospital companies…

        Mileage varies. It is a true statement where I live though.

        1. ScruffyInternHerder*

          Oh, and clarifying my statement:

          There is no way to add a spouse. You may add dependents, obviously (*sarcasm font*), but not a spouse because they should be gainfully employed with their own insurance.

          1. Magc*

            The employees / union at the non-profit I work for does NOT want spouses covered because (1) the employee demographics skew heavily female so most spouses are male and statistically more like to be employed with their own health insurance coverage and (2) spouses can’t get insurance through the ACA marketplace if they can be covered via their spouse’s employer’s healthcare — the insurance is good enough that there are much lower rates than the 100% the employer would no doubt charge to add a spouse.

            Don’t know if this will change, given what seems to be happening with ACA marketplace rates going up, but that’s what my boss told me when I started 2.5 years ago.

      3. LuckyDuck*

        My employer requires an additional fee to add a spouse who has employer sponsored insurance, unless their premium is above a certain amount. I questioned this when hired as I had never seen it before and they said it was getting more and more common. But…I don’t think it has.

      4. Helewise*

        My husband’s company stopped covering spouses that have access to another insurance plan a year or so ago, without notice and after many people’s open enrollment periods had already closed. I’m still pissed. My insurance is pretty good, but now we have to meet two deductibles. Switching everyone to mine would mean everyone needs to change doctors. Very frustrating.

    2. pally*

      “Will not allow”? Or “employee must pay the entire premium for spouse & dependents”?

      I’ve seen many companies -in recent years- reduce the health insurance coverage to where the employee premium is 90% -100% covered by the company. The employee is entirely allowed to add dependents to the policy, but the employee pays 100% of the monthly premium for all dependents.

      Ouch either way.

      2. mreasy*

        My husband’s company was acquired and now pays for my insurance entirely, so I was able to take a pretty significant pay cut when I got my most recent job. (I have never even known a company to do this, it is truly amazing!)

    3. Mouse named Anon*

      Yes, the place where my husband works won’t allow a spouse on a plan if they have access to their own health insurance through their company. Doesn’t matter what their spouses plan is. You also have to provide several pieces of documentation that state your spouse is infact YOUR SPOUSE.

      1. Morning Reading*

        I didn’t know insurers were doing this these days, but, it seems slightly better (given the option of getting ACA insurance) than the old way; when I began working, 40-odd years ago, any claim a married woman made on her employer-benefit insurance was routinely punted to her husband’s insurer, which often denied the claim because she had her own coverage, so they punted it back. And around they went. Eventually if you could prove you weren’t covered on husband’s insurance, you could get coverage. – retired person commenting from bad old days perspective.

  22. Nomic*

    Our company just did a SURPRISE merge (with just a couple months notice). A lot of stuff is still in the air (i.e. does our Heath Spending Card work after the end of the month?), but even though they have said our salaries *probably* won’t be cut, my PTO will be cut by over half because we are being treated as “new” employees. It’s been very hard to get any information from HR, they just send out links to the new company website and we have to figure it out ourselves.

    It’s not all bad, but since PTO is one of my prime reasons for staying with this company, it’s a real shot to the gut. Unfortunately the new company is much larger that us, and is a State entity, so I doubt there’s much room to maneuver here.

    1. Anon in Canada*

      The idea of tying vacation time to years of service at a single company – and resetting it to entry level every time one changes jobs – is horrible, horrible, horrible.

      It’s also a purely American and Canadian construct. Other developed countries don’t treat their employees like garbage like this. All European countries, plus Australia and NZ, guarantee at least 4 weeks of vacation, and it isn’t based on tenure.

      This practice needed to be nuked, like, 40 years ago. Hopefully as more millennials get into high level positions, more companies will start giving everyone the same amount of vacation regardless of tenure, or at least make it negotiable.

      1. MsSolo (UK)*

        But even if Europe you get more vacation for longer tenures – it’s very common to add an extra day at 5 years, for example, and continue adding at whatever interval is decided until you’ve got 1-2 weeks extra leave. Obviously, even the baseline is still large compared to the US, but it does make a significant difference when it comes to trying to cover school holidays (which are around 13 weeks a year, so three times the baseline leave)

    2. Ashley*

      Your health spending card should still work because it is your money and you can take it within you into retirement. The major issues will likely can you still add money to it and how much will the new monthly management fees for it be.

      1. Miss Muffet*

        She may be thinking of a health care flexible spending acct, which is handled differently.

    3. Bitte Meddler*

      “You’re treating us as though we’re all new employees? OK. Here are our resignations. Now you can staff an entire business unit full of actual new employees. Good luck!”

    4. Lady_Lessa*

      We recently had our PTO time cut, probably because too many folks had too much accumulated, and unable to use it all. We are also shorthanded, and HR won’t approve new hires, even to replace those who left or are leaving.

      If the conglomerated is located in central Ohio, we might be co-workers.

  23. MassMatt*

    Benefits definitely need to be part of the discussion, including health insurance (both cost and quality), retirement benefits, vacation time, and disability coverage.

    And I agree with those that get hard numbers on these; don’t rely on empty generalities such as “competitive” and “great benefits” or the like. I’ve dug into benefits for a number of job offers only to find packages described as “competitive” were actually lousy.

    And what is with the secrecy on benefits, sometimes when I have requested details they act as though I have asked for nuclear missile command codes. One employer took over a week to respond, only to provide an 8th generation photocopy of only part of their benefits, which was over 10 years old. If you can’t provide documentation about your benefits that doesn’t predate the first Bush administration it’s not a good sign.

    1. Three Flowers*

      Yeah, I love “competitive” packages that are 12 days of combined PTO, HDHI covered to 80%, and you can have retirement matching in three years. Nope, I will stay at my current dumpster fire until they lay me off, thanks.

  24. RCB*

    This is why I hate the “what salary are you looking for” question, because I am not looking for a specific salary, I am evaluating the total compensation package, which is salary and benefits combined, to make my decision.

    1. pally*

      Yeah! I always worry that I’m somehow locked into my initial response to that question and not allowed to modify my response after (1) learning more about the position and (2) learning more about the benefits (or lack thereof).

    2. Ashley*

      Last time I was asked the questions I specifically asked about PTO and retirement benefits during that conversation. I wasn’t giving anything up until I knew about the 401(k) match at a minimum.

    3. Filosofickle*

      Ranges help here — I want to give a range for a bunch of reasons anyway, and benefits provide a solid reason for sticking to a range and not getting pushed into a number. “I’m looking for [x to y] depending on the role and benefits.”

  25. Rhymes with mInsperity*

    It’s also important to know where your benefits are coming from. There are companies out there that broker health insurance to employers and have the employers sign co-employment agreements making you an “employee” of the broker. That means if your company is located in a state that requires medical coverage for something like IVF, the plan offered to you doesn’t have to have that coverage because you’re “co-employed” by the broker company who might be located in Texas or any other state.

    1. Magc*

      If your employer self-insures their employee medical coverage, state laws regarding insurance coverage don’t apply and instead it’s federal regulations that come into play:

      https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-is-self-insured-health-insurance-and-how-is-it-regulated-4688567

      I just learned this recently after multiple hassles with my employer-provided insurance’s coverage for physical therapy, and it was something that was new to the billing manager at the more sports-medicine-oriented physical therapy practice I went to at first. Since the state I’m in mandates coverage for the initial assessment plus a set number of treatment visits, she wasn’t used to dealing with a payer which could legitimately deny those first treatment visit claims.

      The other practice was much more used to billing Medicare (which is notoriously very careful about what physical therapy it will cover), so I managed to get 4 visits in before they denied a claim — which meant I stopped going for the four months it took for the provider’s appeal to generate a payment. If I return, it’s likely I’ll simply pay cash at time of treatment so I can get the discount instead of hoping the $50 copay will be all I owe.

  26. Llama face!*

    I find that it can be very difficult to get actual numbers for benefits coverage from prospective employers, even when I ask for them. I’ve gotten excuses that they can’t provide the actual benefits package until I’m hired, verbal claims of coverage that leave out the large deductibles ($500 deductible on dental, really???), and only the vaguest of details (“we have health and dental, life insurance, and also a pension matching plan”). Push too hard and suddenly they’re looking suspiciously at me like I’m hiding a very expensive medical condition. And, yeah, that’s discriminatory and ableist but it is a thing that happens.

    I wish more employers were upfront about this information that absolutely affects compensation!

    1. Coco*

      I work for a large non profit and all of our employee benefits (full details, including cost of premiums) are listed publicly on our web site. The transparency is refreshing compared to some of my previous employers who acted like their benefits packages were some kind of national security secret.

    2. Magc*

      I’ve run into this as well, with one small family-owned employer where my boss would simply NOT tell me anything about the medical / dental coverage even after I started but before insurance coverage started.

      When I finally got covered and saw the basics of the plan, I understood why: because the medical/dental benefits sucked.

      I wouldn’t take another job without getting that info first, but this was in 2010, I’d been unemployed for six months, and I was the sole support for my family at the time.

  27. Andrew*

    I once had a job offer withdrawn because I asked to see details about the benefits. Literally told “I can tell from that question you aren’t going to be a good fit here.”

    1. Paint N Drip*

      Luckily, you can tell from their response that they are right! Benefits are part of the compensation package, idiots

      1. Andrew*

        Yes, it was the last red flag in a series of them. I did insist on having the info sent to me anyway, just out of spite.

    2. Scarlet ribbons in her hair*

      I once asked if a company provided health insurance. I was applying for an office job in New York City, and you would be surprised at the number of companies that aren’t start-ups that don’t offer health insurance. I was told “IF we decide to hire you, THEN we will tell you about health insurance.”

      At another company, I was asked if I was married or single. Thinking (incorrectly, according to Alison) that that question was illegal, I asked politely, “What does that have to do with the job?” “Nothing!” the hiring manager snapped. “I just wanted to know your marital status so that I could tell you about our health insurance.” “Oh, I see,” I answered. He didn’t say another word. He just glared at me. I knew that I wasn’t getting the job. As I said, I thought that his asking me about my marital status was illegal, so I figured that he said to himself, “I’ll just ask people if they are married or single. If they question me, I’ll just say that it has to do with health insurance. And then I won’t tell them about our health insurance. And I’m certainly not going to hire them, because I don’t want employees who question my asking them about their marital status. I want employees who will answer any questions that I choose to ask them.”

      1. pally*

        I got an offer once- without any indication of the benefits. That felt odd. I asked about benefits but they didn’t want to talk about them.

        So I asked to see the employee manual, figuring that had to be the place where all the benefits would be listed.

        They hemmed and hawed over whether it was “legal” to let me see the employee manual. Someone mentioned that they’d have to ask their attorney first.

        They did produce the employee manual. And wow, the benefits were paltry. Five days PTO per year. And five holidays per year. They will not reimburse for jury duty, but one can use their PTO for this (yes, this was explicitly spelled out). That’s it. No health insurance of any kind. Or anything else.

        And the salary was low too.

        Pass.

  28. I don't work in this van*

    Yes, and get it in writing and read the fine print. I took a job a few years ago where I was told their parental leave was really good. And it was, if you lived in state that already had mandatory paid leave. Their policy was to add 2 weeks on top of that, which is great if you’re in California (which a portion of the company was), but not so great if you live in a state that has no paid leave (which I do). So for me their “really good” paid parental leave was 2 weeks. Needless to say, I moved on before having a kid.

  29. NotARealManager*

    It’s a big reason I haven’t looked more seriously at leaving my company. My pay is…fine, but my benefits are great and hard to match elsewhere.

    1. MassMatt*

      I remember one company making me an offer called their retirement plan “excellent”. I said well, “excellent” would mean a company match of x%, and an employer contribution of x to a pension (this was years ago when pensions, though uncommon, were less rare than now). The HR person said that was an unrealistic expectation because no one in the industry offered that.

      Cue surprised Pikachu face when I told them that’s what I had already.

  30. NottheBoomer*

    I feel this LW. My small company fully paid my benefits (and domestic partnership bennies too) and then got bought out by larger company.
    Large company bennies are appr $200 per pay period. Im now making less for doing the same job.
    Thanks, large company I hate working for….

  31. Anon in Canada*

    The fact that whether a child can have health insurance or not is at the discretion of the parents’ employer is bonkers, and shows to the world how the US is a very, very backwards country.

    Same with the fact that employers have a say in their employees’ access to birth control (see Hobby Lobby v Burwell).

    Tying health insurance to employment is an accident of history, that has had so many horrible effects on Americans since, and is out of step with how the rest of the world treats its people. It’s time for the US to join the 21st century, hmmm, the 1960s, and have single-payer health insurance for all, regardless of employment status.

    1. Awkward Interviewee*

      As I also commented below, can we please not do this every time health insurance is discussed? We know our system is bad.

    2. Adult ADHDer*

      I see these comments every time benefits come up and I’m not sure what people are hoping to accomplish by making them. I mean, do you think you’re telling us something we don’t already know? Believe me, we do already know that employer-linked insurance is a bad system, but what exactly do you expect us to do about it? I feel fairly confident in saying that nobody in this comment section has the power to induce the U.S. government into passing single-payer, or paid parental leave, or any of the other public benefits that people in other countries have. So what’s the point of your comment?

    3. Excel Gardener*

      Nitpick: a lot of wealthy countries don’t have single-payer healthcare either, though they do have universal healthcare unlike the US.

  32. AnotherLibrarian*

    Also, bare in mind, you can call the HR and the insurance company directly for more information. When I was debating accepting my current position, I ended up telephoning HR to ask some very specific questions about the insurance, because the hiring committee didn’t have the answers. HR didn’t know, but they could give me the plan and group number and with that information, I could get what I needed from the insurance provider. It’s okay to reach out to HR and to the insurance company directly- in fact, I would argue its a good idea to do so if you know you are taking a specific medication or you need specific coverage. Yeah, it does take leg work, but it is very very worth it.

  33. TS*

    Yet another day where having healthcare through our employers makes no sense. Navigating this when you’re on your partner’s insurance is a HEADACHE. See also, not being invited to meetings concerning your insurance since you don’t work there. It’s such an illogical set up. I’m glad you were able to get a look at that beforehand, LW!

  34. Throwaway Account*

    I’ve not had “upper level” jobs so I don’t know how it always works, but I have not been able to see the actual numbers for benefits for any job I have ever had!

    I ask, but they don’t have numbers for insurance costs until the onboarding process. Fortunately, my spouse’s job has been our main insurance so it has not mattered too much. Has anyone else had this happen?

    1. Angry socialist*

      This constantly happens to me. They won’t give me the formulary before I onboard, plus the health insurance companies change the formularies all the time so it’s useless anyway. Health insurance plans also change what doctors they cover all the time, so somebody who’s in-network when you start might be out-of-network in 2 months.

      IT’S THE WORST EVER.

    2. Bitte Meddler*

      Even when I worked full-time retail, I was able to get a copy of the Summary of Benefits from HR or the store manager.

      And the entry-level office positions I’ve worked also provided a Summary of Benefits.

      I’ve usually had to ask for them, though.

    1. TS*

      This isn’t helpful unless you’re offering us and our families jobs and visas? Or at least for the LW since that is who this letter is about.

  36. Anonymous for this*

    I can’t speak for most governmental entities but Missouri’s state government has a calculator that allows you to truly see your total compensation (I don’t know about discovering the health plan in advance though).

    https://mosers.org/news/calculating-your-total-compensation

    If you go there, there’s a link to the “total compensation calculator” which is an excel spreadsheet you can download.

  37. LW Here*

    Hey all, I wrote this letter and wanted to give an update:

    So I reached out to the hiring folks and let them know that in order for me to accept the offer they would need to give me a salary of $15k more than what was offered. As I said in the letter, if it did not work out I was okay with that. Well, it worked out! I have officially accepted the job and feel great!

    3. Llama face!*

      Congratulations! Glad you were able to successfully advocate for what you needed from them!

  38. Artemesia*

    And the benefits will always be described as ‘competitive’ when they are weak. You have to have the exact policies to make the judgment.

    1. Anon in Canada*

      “Competitive” pay, “competitive” vacation time, “competitive” benefits.

      If those are indeed that great, why not state it upfront in the job ad?

      Many states and provinces are starting to mandate that all job ads include salary. If highly variable benefits are going to remain a thing in the US and Canada, companies should also be required to make this information available to applicants BEFORE applying.

    2. Llama face!*

      Perhaps they secretly mean the competition between employers to cut their benefits costs the most by offering the least to employees? It’s competitive… from one pov.

  39. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

    I can relate. Spouse applied for a job that, on paper, seemed like a step up. Big increase in pay and more room for advancement. Then I crunched the numbers on insurance premiums. His current job pays 100% (employee only) while the new one paid 50%. The increase in the premium would negate half the pay increase. On top of it, his higher salary would have made me ineligible for marketplace insurance and that would have wiped out the remaining salary increase. Plus I would have higher student loan payments. Despite the new job having more potential for market pay step increases and promotions, we weren’t comfortable gambling on something that wasn’t a certainty.

      1. Bitte Meddler*

        That’s a common misunderstanding. Only the pay in the next tax bracket gets taxed at the higher rate, not all of your pay.

        For instance, if the tax brackets are in $10,000 chunks, with each chunk being assessed a tax rate 5% higher than the last one, your tax burden would look like this:

        The first $10,000 you earned is taxed at 5%. So you owe $500 in tax on it.

        The 2nd $10,000 you earned (i.e., an annual salary of $20k) is taxed at 10%. So you owe $1000 on that additional $10,000.

        The 3rd $10,000 you earned (i.e., an annual salary of $30k) is taxed at 15%. So you owe $1500 on *that* additional $10,000.

        Add those three up and, in total, you would owe $3000 in tax on your $30,000 salary (which is an effective tax rate of 10%).

        If you were charged 15% on everything you earned (the rate for the highest bracket in this example), you would owe $4500 in tax. That’s a difference of $1500.

        1. MassMatt*

          Thanks for explaining this, I often see the “but higher tax bracket” argument made and usually the case has to be pretty convoluted for it to hold much water. In a case where you are earning more $ but have much higher expenses you can’t deduct it MIGHT be true, but not usually.

          More money is more money, don’t turn it down because of a tax bracket.

      2. AL*

        Being in a higher tax bracket should not decrease your take-home pay; only the money above the bracket threshold is taxed at the higher rate.

        For example, if tax brackets are;
        $0-10,000 at 10%
        $10,001-50,000 at 20%
        $50,001-$100,000 at 30%

        If you make $50,000, then you would pay $9,000 in taxes (first 10,000 at 10%, next 40,000 at 20%) – take home pay is $41,000.
        If you get a raise to $50,001, then you would pay $9,000.30 in taxes (first $10k at 10%, next $40k at 20%, last $1 at 30%) – take home pay is $41,000.70.

        Uncle Sam keeps more of that last dollar, but you still end up with more money.

  40. Bikirl*

    I would also look at pension as part of your evaluation of job offer. At my employer, a public library, anyone earning a specific salary or under, or who is in a union position, is required to be a part of the state pension system, and for new hires contribute 3-6 percent of their earnings (depending on salary) to the system for all your years of public service in that system, according to what I read currently. Our organization does not match 403(b) contributions but we can also participate in a couple of retirement plans that are offered. Membership in the union entails contributing mandatory dues. I’m not weighing in pro or con on pension or union, just that these things are something to consider when looking at your overall compensation and package. As someone with over two decades of service, I am well versed in the ins and outs of our retirement benefits, and I understand our union to some degree. I can imagine that all of this would seem overwhelming to someone just coming in. It’s important to understand this stuff though because it has an impact on your future.

    1. Bikirl*

      I would add to the above that you might also want to look at when you would be eligible for retirement, and what your possible benefit would be (the system has a lot of info available online, as well as a quick benefit estimate calculator).

  41. AndersonDarling*

    I was offered a job where the health insurance premiums were as much as my COBRA coverage! I asked about the premiums and the coverage beforehand and I ended up accepting the offer. I was able to make it work by moving my spouse to their own employers program and adjusting some other things. But I would have had to leave the job if I didn’t know about the expense before accepting.
    Don’t assume anything. Always ask to see the numbers.

  42. Kaligule*

    Everybody is all about their benefits here. I worked in European IT companies and found that the benefits are mostly worth nothing for me. 0€. Just give me money, I will decide myself what I spend it on.

    Company car? I already have one and I don’t like to drive anyway.
    Additional insurance? I know best what insurance will work for me and my family. (Insurances work differently here than in America anyway)
    Cheaper gym memberships? I don’t want to go to your gym, I can go running outside just fine.

    Benefits have never convinced me to take one job over another.

    Do I miss something?

    1. I Pay Taxes, Too*

      Benefits in the US are very, very different. We do not have public health insurance for the population at large, and insurance is usually tied to your employer (buying an individual plan is incredibly expensive). There is no statutory time off, so paid time off – or even the freedom to take unpaid time off! – is also considered a “benefit.” We do have Social Security as a “pension” sort of thing, but it is based on your lifetime contributions, inadequate to survive on for most seniors, and constantly a political target. Therefore, many supplemental retirement plans are also tied to employment; individually, you can have an IRA, for example, which is an Individual Retirement Arrangement, but the annual contribution limit to that is like $6000 or $7000, while a 401k (or equivalent) is $23,000 per year. Some employers also offer a 401k and another option – like a 457 b, if the employer is a non profit – and those contribution maximums apply to both.

      I don’t think most people are thinking about “cheaper gym memberships” or a company car when they’re talking about fringe benefits at work.

      1. MassMatt*

        One correction–a major difference between 457 plans (mostly for government employees, and there are some for nonprofits) and 401k’s and 403b’s (mostly for teachers and some nonprofits, esp. hospitals) is that the contribution limit for the 457 is calculated separately. This means someone under age 50 eligible for both a 457 and a 401k or 403b could contribute $23,000 to EACH plan this year, for a total of $46k. Someone age 50 or over can contribute $61,000 combined.

        This is a very useful perk not just for the few high-earning government employees, but for many rank and file people that collect bonuses or unused sick leave when they separate from service.

        And now back to our previous programming….

        1. I Pay Taxes, Too*

          Right, that’s what I meant by “those maximums apply to both.” If you have a 401k and a 457b (I’ve seen this combo in non-profit hospitals) OR a 403b and a 457b or 457f (government employers, including my own), then the $23,000 limit applies to each one individually, not combined. So, like you said, you could theoretically put away $46,000 (pre-tax or Roth or some combination of both) in a tax sheltered account for retirement. My employer does not offer any supplemental contributions because we already have a pension, so I don’t know how employer contributions factor into annual maximums.

          Sorry if that was not clear!

          Another advantage of a 457b, which is the plan my employer offers, is there is no minimum age for penalty-free distributions like there is with 403b and 401k. The only requirement is that you are separated from your employer. If I get laid off, or I have to leave without something lined up for whatever reason, while it is in my best interest to leave my 457 alone and let it grow, I have the option to dip into it as an emergency fund, paying the expected income taxes with no additional early distribution penalties. That’s a benefit that no other tax-sheltered investment account offers, and it’s hard to quantify the sense of security it gives me.

    2. Flor*

      In the US, it’s not additional insurance. It’s the ONLY insurance; if you don’t have health insurance and have a medical emergency (or even a relatively routine medical event, like a hospital birth) you can be on the hook for five or six figure bills. And that insurance is often prohibitively expensive if you’re paying for it entirely for yourself; even employer-funded health insurance often costs the employee hundreds of dollars a month.

      The other benefit people tend to care about is PTO, which stands for paid time off, and includes things like annual leave and sick days. I’m not sure about where you are in Europe, but when I lived in the UK we had no concept of sick days for salaried staff; you just didn’t work if you were ill and that was that. But in the US and Canada, often you have a fixed number of days you’re allowed to be sick, and there’s either low or no annual leave requirements. There’s a big difference in quality of life between having 5 sick days and 10 days of annual leave versus having 10 sick days and 20 days of annual leave, particularly if you have children and have to use sick days for THEIR illnesses (and then again when they inevitably infect you).

      1. MsSolo (UK)*

        The UK does have sick days – if you’re in a low paid job, like retail, it’s usually just statutory sick leave, which is £116ish per week for a max of 28 weeks, but if you’re in a higher paid job it’s usually your full salary for a certain number of weeks, then half salary, then statutory. There’s a bunch of additional rules around how long you’ve worked somewhere, what you earn, whether you’ve been on ESA etc. It’s written into your employment contract what you get, and is definitely the sort of thing you can ask about before accepting.

        (it’s much tougher if you’re on a zero hours contract, which is pretty standard in low paid jobs now, but if you’re working basically full time you usually qualify, even if the employer will tell you otherwise)

        1. Flor*

          Sorry, I wasn’t super clear there. I’m not talking about statutory sick leave, which kicks in after a certain number of days of illness, I’m talking about taking a day off here or there for the flu or a migraine. At my US-based employer, I get 10 of those days in the year (which is considered generous). They’re in the same system as my annual leave and I have to submit them for approval.

          When I worked in the UK, though, there was no sick leave “bank” in the HR portal, just annual leave. If I had a one-day migraine, I would alert my manager and stay home for the day, but there wasn’t a tally and I didn’t have to worry that my three days of flu in January would knock out my sick days for a November migraine. I know this is different for people paid hourly (and perhaps for those where coverage is a requirement), but my impression was that this kind of scorekeeping isn’t standard in salaried office jobs in the UK.

    3. Adam*

      The main thing is that there is no governmental health coverage, your employer’s health insurance plan is generally your only medical plan. (Having moved from the US to the UK, people here are often aghast that the US works that way.) Buying private insurance coverage is generally prohibitively expensive, so having a good insurance plan via your employer is usually the only way you can reasonably get good health coverage.

    4. MassMatt*

      Sorry, but yes you are missing something. No one is talking about “additional insurance” or gym memberships here. We are talking about health and disability insurance, period, as well as number of vacation days, retirement benefits, etc. All these are employment benefits in the US, with the exception of people on disability (who generally must be unable to work in order to qualify) not government programs.

      I have only ever known one person who was not an actual driver that ever had a “company car”, including C-suite executives.

  43. I Pay Taxes, Too*

    100% I agree and practice “review the whole package before taking a job.” Working in a government role, benefits really have become my “golden handcuffs.” Whenever I have gotten another offer, even when the pay is 20% and one time almost 50% more (don’t get it twisted – my current salary is a pittance and 50% more brings me to the local area’s median per capita income), the:

    + health insurance (biggest network in my state, 0 deductible, and has never had me fighting to get care or medication covered nor denied a claim)
    + paid holidays (13 – all the federal ones and a couple(?) more)
    + paid vacation (20 days per year on my next anniversary)
    + paid sick time (15 days earned a year, indefinite rollover)
    + paid personal time (4 days per year)
    + hours (contractually 35 on-the-clock hours a week)

    … make it a downgrade to leave. Nobody has ever met or even approached all of these bullets. As somebody with chronic health issues, the thought of leaving a bank that would carry me beyond FMLA’s 12 weeks, and the “Cadillac plan” health insurance that costs me very little each month, to go somewhere that pays me almost six figures BUT only has one combined bank of 80 hours of all PTO and the best health insurance plan has a $400 premium with a $2500 deductible per person…

    Now my benefits may sound like a great deal, and on paper it is, but my current environment is toxic, there is no growth, the pay is insulting, increasingly every day I see something that has me asking myself “is this legal” or otherwise “is this ethical,” I am completely burnt out… I have been looking for something new for almost three years now. I’ve had some success with a handful of offers, but when evaluating not just the salary but all the fringe, it has never been worth it to leave, to the point I’m worried that I’m damaging potential professional relationships and connections by seeing interviews through to the end stage and then turning it down. The benefits are literally the only things “chaining” me to this desk, but they are strong chains.

  44. meep*

    Yep. I had the opposite case by going from private sector to government – took a slight cut on base salary, but when I added in insurance, 401k match, pension, etc, I was effectively getting a raise of around $30,000.

  45. the cat ears*

    how do you actually do this comparison? any guides to making that spreadsheet? Especially for those of us who have consistent medical costs e.g. a prescription drug we will take for the forseeable future or a medical device like a CPAP.

    1. ScruffyInternHerder*

      During open enrollment, our HR provides a side-by-side comparison of option A, option B, option C. If I were in the position where I’m thinking of taking a job with differing benefits, I’d probably copy the entirety of my options column, and fill in with the new.

      Its set up as a matrix with things like “premium costs weekly”, “deductible”, “co-pay after deductible”, “max out of pocket”, etc. so its fairly easy to read. And as others have mentioned upthread, its probably going to be quite a bit of legwork. Its necessary though.

  46. Constance Lloyd*

    One thing I forgot to confirm: Whether I was covered by FMLA. I knew the company had over 300 employees. I knew they were based in my state. I did not realize these employees were too scattered for us to be covered by FMLA. I really don’t love losing one of the few worker protections the US offers.

  47. Katie*

    Many years ago my work was outsourced to another company. My job too went to that other company. My salary did not change but geeze, the benefits were soooooooo much better. The insurance cost decreased, I got 8 more days of PTO, they actually matched my 401K, the pay for medical leave was for longer (and it wasn’t an insurance that I had to pay for!) and better and a few other things.

    The whole changing companies burned far less with that.

  48. Queen of the World*

    This is so true. When I was offered a new job doing work I was excited to do, I almost accepted the offer over the phone but forced myself to stop and ask for a couple days. I’m glad I did as the benefits are posted online so I could see how much the insurance payments were. While the benefits package overall was good, the insurance premiums were high and would have more than offset the pay raise I’d be receiving. I also would have a commute whereas I don’t right now. Once I put the pros and cons of each job, the pay, and the benefits package side by side I realized I would not be taking the step forward that I thought I was doing.

  49. ForestHag*

    One thing I learned during my recent job search was to be very clear about my base pay expectations. I was coming from higher education, where bonuses or any kind of additional comp are the stuff of dreams. I had a few interviews where I’d specify a number thinking it was implied that it was base salary, but then the hiring manager came back with something that was way below my current monthly salary, but had the *potential* to make up to $x in annual salary. No thanks! At this point in my life, I can’t budget against potential earnings.

  50. Mgguy*

    I could tell almost the opposite story about my current position.

    The initial offer they made me was an almost 10% pay cut from the job I was leaving. I was able negotiate an offer higher than their initial, but still about 5% below what I was currently making on paper.

    There were a few deciding factors, though.

    First of all, the insurance employee contribution was about half what I was currently making, and copays were similar to or in some cases less than the insurance I had at the time(for the first several years at my current employer, I had $0 copays on all but one of my medications-that was a big deal).

    Second, they actually had a really good, well funded state retirement system that was in place before social security. The combination of it being an older system that provided better benefits to retirees from social security meant that this employer was exempt from social security and I’d not have that taken out of my check(and my per-paycheck retirement contribution is lower that what I previously played for social security+mandatory 401K match).

    Third, I was told that due to the way things were structured, extra pay stipends were normal and although not guaranteed, I could reasonably expect them.

    What sealed the deal for me, though, was that the union negotiated raises several years at a time, and I knew what the COLs would be for the next several years(and our last few since then have been even better). Further, there were clearly defined timelines for promotions, the requirements for those, and the raises that would come with those.

    All of that put together meant that my immediate starting take-home pay was within a few dollars of what I was making, and within a few months of starting one of those extra pay stipends kicked in to give me about a 3% lift over take-home at my previous job.

    Even better, though, I’ve been able to secure one promotion(with two additional available down the road). Between COL and promotion, I’m about to see an almost 20% raise this year in base pay. My gross pay last year was about 40% higher than my best year at my previous employer, and this year is on track to be about 60% higher. Meanwhile, my previous employer has given a single 3% COL in the 5 years since I left, and I had almost no opportunity for promotion there. So, that small short term loss has paid big since.

  51. Wendy Darling*

    Early in my career, I made the mistake of believing a prospective employer when they said their benefits were “great”. Only once.

    I negotiated a salary that should have allowed me to be perfectly comfortable, only to find myself constantly struggling with money because their crummy high-deductible health plan and minimal contribution toward the premium meant I was paying like 4x as much for healthcare as I had at my previous job. It. Was. Rough.

    1. NotRealAnonForThis*

      Once upon a time at an OldJob, the insurance costs weren’t awful.

      Until.

      I was no longer single, my spouse had taken a new job and wasn’t eligible for insurance for 6 months probation, and there wasn’t a “employee + spouse” option, just “employee + family” option that literally ate up 45% of my post-tax check. The employee only option had been around 10%.

  52. Tess of the D'atabases*

    I’m not excited to leave my company because of benefits either. Pay is average but having 40 days of PTO, sick days, and floating holidays is pretty good. Thats two full months off with pay!

  53. Quinalla*

    We had someone put in his 2 weeks (no big deal, folks change jobs) and come and ask for his $$ he paid into his health insurance. Boss had to remind him that the company fully covered health insurance, so there was no $$ to reimburse. I’m like, dude probably just took a pay cut and doesn’t know it :(

      1. Zach*

        Yeah I’m confused by what this means too. Maybe they meant their HSA/FSA money? Which you don’t need to have reimbursed anyway- you always have access to it. So that doesn’t make sense either.

  54. A nony mouse*

    I had this same situation, but as the hiring manager, and I can confirm that it’s very stressful to be unable to hire the top candidate because your company’s benefits aren’t even close to what they have at their current employer.

  55. Lurker*

    It goes the other way, too. My spouse applied for a job that would have covered 100% of our whole family’s health insurance, but I have better job security and my insurance is adequate for our needs, so spouse was able to go back to them and ask, since he wasn’t going to be taking advantage of their insurance benefit, would there be any room to move up on salary? He ended up getting offered a large pay bump because he was declining the benefits.

  56. NurseThis*

    Benefits are everything! My last job payed competitively but had superior benefits which covered dental, medical, mental health care better than any previous employer. Also, they matched all savings and added a very large % to the 401K plan in addition to the match. I was able to retire based on my enormously boosted savings.

  57. Joron Twiner*

    Definitely check benefits, even outside the US. Last time I switched jobs I was very impressed by the benefits package, which included lots of individually specified days off for birthdays and pet emergencies. But it turns out that most of those are unpaid, and you only got 10 days PTO to use as you please (sick and vacation combined). It was the right move for other reasons, but I wish I had negotiated that part!

  58. Mary Me*

    My mother is obsessed with my husband and I moving back closer to home and him transitioning from federal government to contractor. Even though he would be paid more he would probably have to work a bunch of unpaid overtime, have less flexibility, way worse health insurance and less vacation time. She worked for a government contractor for decades and it was a nightmare. His job pays REALLY well for what he does and is cushy as hell. Plus to buy a similar house in that area would cost 3x at least what ours cost for an amazing location and the taxes would be huge.

  59. Mary Me*

    I’ve learned to be absolutely demand the details of the health plan offered because many companies like to hand wave it. One small business told me they offered health insurance pre-ACA, but when I arrived it was AFLAC catastrophic insurance that only covered major events like being hit by a car or cancer. No routine care whatsoever. It also cost as much as regular health insurance and they wouldn’t pay a dime towards it. When I pushed back I was told it was “good enough for the owner and good enough for me.” I later found out he had insurance through his wife. Unfortunately I graduated into a recession and was flat broke and in debt from moving for this job with a wild non-compete so I couldn’t just jump ship.

  60. GroovyChick*

    Yes – I took a job last year which was a step down and a pay cut on paper, but I’m saving several hundred in transport costs and food (free lunch!) every year. Coupled with the fact that I’m spending two hours less commuting each day, this one came out ahead, and hopefully there’s room for promotion here while I had reached as far as I could in my previous post. My biggest noticeable loss has actually been the reduction in holiday, which I’m hoping I can negotiate for instead of a pay rise once I’ve been here a bit longer.

  61. mbs001*

    Most employers do not cover insurance for spouses and dependents so that could be a huge consideration for some people. I actually don’t consider it fair for employers to cover the cost of medical insurance for an employee’s entire family as that compensates employees differently and actually benefits those that have more children.

  62. LuckyDuck*

    Yeah…my current job is at a pediatric health system and nearly all of their services are covered 100% if your child is on your employer sponsored insurance. Never mind all the usual childhood stuff, my child also has a chronic orthopedic condition requiring regular visits and the possibility of surgery. While it helps that I am also well compensated and like my boss and team, there’s almost nothing that could pry me away from that benefit for the next 6-8 years or so.

  63. SpaceCadet*

    I have to hand it to the HR person I worked with for my current job. Once he realized how cheap my benefits were at the job I was moving from, and that I would be paying a lot more for them here, he went back and had my pay increased to compensate (after he’s already had my pay increased by upping me to a higher pay band because he felt my education and experience warranted it). Of course now this company has a separate group that does compensation and they suck :p

  64. ijustworkhere*

    And yet many employers are surprised when you want more information about their insurance plan–what the copays are, what drugs are covered, what is the deductible. Same with retirement plans.

  65. Clementine*

    Also consider the pre/post-tax implications of any differences. For example, Company A offers a 401K match for $X, but that is tax-free money, which means I’d have to earn $X+Y at Company B to be equivalent.

  66. MBK*

    I work at a large university, and one of the benefits is a reciprocal dependent tuition benefit – they cover a large portion of the out of pocket cost of my kids’ college tuition wherever they go (as long as it’s a FAFSA-eligible institution).

    I’ve had cold calls from private sector recruiters who ask what it would take to make me consider leaving my current position. They never have a great response.

  67. Elizabeth West*

    Yep, I turned down a job once because it was county and had mandatory insurance — which would have left me with about $14 at the end of the month. They also said the position was very contingent on who was in office at any given time.
    That was too tight for me. Since I was still okay financially at that point, and I had something else pending, I let it go.

  68. iglwif*

    So I actually had the opposite thing happen this week: I got a job offer (YAY!!!!!!!) that pays less than I wanted, but it’s a time-limited contract that doesn’t include the supplemental health plan because, which means I will actually get to keep more of my paycheque than previously.

    Which is fine for my situation because when I lost my last job, we put me on my spouse’s supplemental health plan (this is dental, vision, prescription drugs, physiotherapy, etc., all the stuff that isn’t covered by provincial health plans). If that were not the case, I would have different feelings about accepting this job.

  69. Anon Just ‘Cause*

    I’m debating between 2 right now with a $5k pay difference, commute distance equally far away from home. The higher pay is in office or the field 5 days a week, 40hr work week, part management part carrying a caseload. The lower pay is hybrid – in office/field 1-3 days a week, 35hr work week, and while not management it gives experience in a whole new area of the work I don’t currently have including paying for a hugely useful certification. I would really prefer to get the lower paid position, all things considered.

  70. Elio*

    This is good advice. I don’t have a spouse or kids so I’m the only one on my insurance but it is extremely good insurance. I’m a heavy user too so if a company didn’t have good insurance then the wage has to be higher to make up for it. I used to pay $50 for a month of one of my medications and now it is $30 for a 3 months supply. So of you take anything then drug costs are a consideration too.

Comments are closed.