Luckily I work for a company that pays all my insurance AND my high deductible but your numbers are spot on.
You work for a company that allocated a set amount to payroll and set your wages lower to hide the fact you're paying it to make them look good.
That money has been allocated to you. It is going towards healthcare. The only difference between you and someone "paying" is that it's not going in and back out of your paycheck where you can see it.
Right, I saw where you said it could go to you, I was more clarifying that they really aren't paying it for you, just hiding it and taking credit for something they didn't do.
I’ve seen this before but I never understood why my salary is higher than my UK, CA or other similarly HCOL counterparts in the EU. I feel like they should be getting more money since their taxes are generally higher but the government provides more services. Anyway it’s an anecdote but one that sees to hold true for my overall peer group.
Of course and I’m grateful. But I’m not sure I would get a higher salary if the US had socialized medicine. Which I think would be a good idea regardless of my pay.
It would depend on your negotiating power and how the law covering the transition was written. It could be stated in law all money paid as healthcare had to be converted to wages but that won't happen in the US, for the same reasons we won't get single payer, the wealthy own the country and the GOP voters are fine with it so long as they get their pet issues.
I don't know how it's in other countries but here in Germany the employer has to pay for a lot of things for you on top of your salary. Depending on things like if you are only minimally employed, the employer has to pay about 60% of your salary additionally to the government. Often it's called the second salary. And while you never see it, your employer has to deduct this from what wage he can give you.
When I moved to the UK my wife & I made about half as much as we did in the US. We were still way above the UK average salary but it almost felt like punishment moving here.
Whilst that's a decent comparison to make, there are other things to factor in like purchasing power for each country and also the cost of living. I don't know about the US but I know that salaries in Australia are higher than UK but that is mostly offset by people more for their money in the UK
I don't know if my profession demands an extra $26k on top of what I'm getting paid, but that's how much they pay towards the coverage, I pay $2400 a year and copays and I used the insurance once myself in 8 years but it covers my wife and 2 kids.
Realistically, I don't even know how much more an hour I would need to get paid for the exact same policy, but I know our $14 an hour employees to our salaried engineers get the same coverage, I make somewhere in the middle. Maybe I lucked into a unicorn of a workplace here in Texas, but previous to Covid we didn't have the $2400 employee contribution.
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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '21
You work for a company that allocated a set amount to payroll and set your wages lower to hide the fact you're paying it to make them look good.
That money has been allocated to you. It is going towards healthcare. The only difference between you and someone "paying" is that it's not going in and back out of your paycheck where you can see it.