I have to turn down my raise at work

[guitar man]

Yep, I worked hard, I earned it and now I have to say thanks but no thanks. Unless something changes radically before November this will be the last year my family has health coverage, they've raised and raised the premiums and I almost didn't re-enroll this year.

My daughter qualifies for Sooner Care (SCHIPS) but if our gross income goes up any at all, she doesn't, we're right under the income limit by a razor-thin margin and any raise at all will put us over.

In the meantime we have a nest of scheming bastards that couldn't agree on the color of shite dithering about instead of growing a spine and doing the right thing.

Welcome to America, greatest country in the world :eyes:

[StarfarerBill]

1. I'm sorry to hear that, GM.

Yes, there's something intrinsically wrong with a country and an economy when a worker has to turn down a raise in order to continue to provide his child with health insurance.

It's fucking insane...

[guitar man]

3. beyond insane

I started at the bottom rung of the ladder here in 2000. I had to make a change from the physical work I had done all my life because I was just getting too beat up and old to keep it up. I knew I'd have to start at the bottom so I suffered the pay loss and worked my ass off until I was promoted to a management position in '05.

My daughter came along in '06 and I signed on to family medical coverage which was IIRC $252 a month at the time. This year its climbed all the way up to $524 from there and there's no indication it's going to do anything but go up from here. I make $34k a year and my wife makes about $7k a year working weekends. It's just too big of a bite they are taking :(

[StarfarerBill]

10. I hear you, my friend.

I've been mostly unemployed since September of 2008. Since moving back to Tennessee, I've been able to get a few hours a week for the past couple of months drafting for an architect, but that's been it despite having sent out over a hundred resumes and applications...

Luckily, I only have two cats to take care of so I'm not in your situation, with a family. My very best wishes to you. :)

[daa]

2. It is a shame we have to live like this

I know what you are going through because my job went to India and I have been waiting patiently going broke waiting to get on Medicare. Republicans would never have dreamed of giving this kind of money to the insurance companies and now the dems want to cut Medicare. If they think there is fraud then they can cut it now they don't need a bill to do it. The fraud is them lying and saying it won't affect anybody, whether you don't get the tests you need or doctors don't get paid and so they don't take new Medicare patients.

Can you hear us now?

[guitar man]

7. sorry to hear about your job

I know a lot of people in the same boat. It just doesn't make any sense, it's like we have thrown away everything our previous generations fought so hard to get for us. My father and grandfather were both staunch union men and they got dirty and bloody to try and improve the lives of their children and grandchildren...and now look what's happened to all of it :(

[daa]

Thanks, it really does make no sense eom

[SoCalDem]

13. Thom Hartmann said something a while back that really hit home

He said that we are entering a period of history that will have the largest transfer of mass wealth...ever..

how?

Boomers will be transferring a lifetime's worth of wealth , lock,stock & barrel ..not to their heirs..but to health care facilities, insurance companies & pharma.. all to buy a few more years of life & possibly healthier years, but surely poorer years.

Millions will die hopelessly in debt, and leaving nada..zip...zilch to their heirs.

These are people who missed out on the pension plans, had their 401-ks skinned to the bone, when there was no time to recoup losses, and then many were laid off, fired, downsized, outsourced, whatever ..at a time when they were too old to ever have another "good job".

There will be slim pickin's for their heirs..and those are the young people (now) who leave college already saddled with the equivalent of a big mortgage-payment's worth of school debt.

Each generation builds on what the previous one left behind, but from here on out, be prepared to start all over..every generation.. unless you are very rich to start with

[guitar man]

16. yep

first generation in US history to do worse than our parents...I seem to be living proof of that, along with a bunch of my friends who are in the same boat

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truedelphi]

18. yet those of us who comment that the USA may become a Haiti like

Environment over the next twenty years are scoffed at.

As though that possibility has no basis in fact.

Geithner wants the national debt limit to go above the current twelve or thirteen trillion dollar mark. Although ten to seventeen percent of us are unemployed, in part because of the banks' failure to extend credit to anyone, yet we are still to allow the Banksters more dough.

What is wrong with this picture?

[SoCalDem]

25. Haiti is a republican dream..low taxes..small government

It's amazing how many of us "nervous nellies" "doom & gloomers" have had our "prophesies" come true.. We "elders" have been around long enough to know how these things play our...longterm.. and of course, the younger folks are full of hopes (like we once were), but they lack the hindsight to guide them through the minefield.

[truedelphi]

64. the younger people also are not often given courses on logic and

Critical thinking. Thus they accept such nonsensical phrases as "Of course Single Payer Universal Health Care is the best and most logical solution to our health care crisis. But since we already have a system in place, we must work within that system," from the President.

Having a whole population of "under age 40" people, who couldn't parse logic if they were offered a spot on American Idol as the reward, surely doesn't offer us old timers much hope.

When my son was in high school, (circa 1980's) neither he nor his friends knew the word "gestalt." Neither the actual meaning of the word, or how to apply that line of thought to book reviews or movies.

All four of his closest friends ended up in Ivy League schools, despite that lack of training. Whereas my father, with his "inferior" education of the 1920's, could have knocked the illogic out of that slogan from here to eternity.

[bobbolink]

46. Maybe it will finally make people angry enough to get past their Rugged Individualism

and COME TOGETHER to build what is right, once again.

A big part of this is that affluent and comfortable people got too fat and happy and forgot about others.

It was only about them.

Maybe now they will hurt enough to begin to come together again, and care about ALL of us.

Sad that it comes to that, but it has.

[laughingliberal]

48. That's pretty much our life in a nutshell

Husband's business failed with the housing market. My job lost the next year. No pensions. 401k pulled to buy necessities. House on verge of foreclosure. Snowball's chance in hell of ever finding a good job, again. SS benefit going down the longer we don't work.

Thomm has it exactly right. This is not how I expected to wind up after working myself to exhaustion taking care of other people for 25 years. If I had known I wouldn't have worked as hard. Hell, I could have been where I am now without putting out 1/5 the effort I did.

[earthboundmisfit]

23. We were driving in downtown & west T-Town yesterday

(tryin' to find a way back on 75 past the construction detours) - and I commented to my S.O. about all the closed up businesses... empty buildings where family-run businesses thrived for decades. It makes you sick, imagining the families those businesses supported, probably generations of workers in some cases, now gone. The grandkids of the people who made their living at these businesses probably work two or three part-time jobs to barely get by. Of course for Tulsa it started with the oil bust in the '80s, and it's never really gotten better.

[guitar man]

35. yep

I live on the west side of Tulsa, actually a wee bit into Creek County just south of the Turner Turnpike gate. I know exactly where you're talking about, over off Southwest Blvd and surrounding area. Used to be a thriving community....gone to waste :(

[earthboundmisfit]

36. Damn, yeah

that was exactly the area. Repeated all over town of course, but especially poignant there... it's like if you squinted your eyes you could see what it once was like...

[unblock]

4. ask for perks, benes, options, etc. instead

and be proud of the greatest health care system on the planet!

[guitar man]

8. thanks

great idea, I'll bring it up with them, don't know if it will do any good but it's worth a shot :hi:

[HughMoran]

5. After last night, I had to read up extensively on Cobra as it's cheaper than company coverage

Apparently the new company coverage can't use pre-existing or other biases as long as I'm (& my kids) covered continuously (HIPPA). Cobra is cheaper that subsidized coverage here so I'm sticking with that :( (Cobra for me & kids = $8400//yr, new small company = $26k/yr, $13k after subsidy)

[truedelphi]

6. Maybe it could come to you as a bonus?

Don't know how programs look at bonuses, but the tax code often allows you to not pay taxes on it.

[guitar man]

9. thanks

I'll look into it :hi:

[StatGirl]

24. Or just extra time off!

Cut back to 95% time, 90% time, whatever offsets the raise in your hourly/monthly rate. But take the raise!

[Jim Lane]

34. Tax query (unrelated to the health-care issue)

You write that "the tax code often allows you to not pay taxes on" a bonus.

Under what circumstances does that apply? If you receive a cash bonus from your employer and it's because of work that you did, the money would be earned income and fully subject to taxation. Otherwise, that would be a huge loophole.

I have a vague recollection that there are some tax loopholes for employee stock ownership plans. There might be some finagling possible when an employee of a publicly held corporation receives company stock, or a share in a trust that owns company stock. The finagling may take the form of deferral of a tax obligation. Putting that aside, however, if the OP were to receive a cash bonus from his or her employer, I don't see how it could possibly NOT be taxable income.

[treestar]

11. Tell Brown about it?

That seriously does not make sense. Perhaps the raise can be the coverage rather than cash?

In fact I recall the whole reason work is how we get our insurance was that there was a wage ceiling at some point far back in history and so the employers started giving health insurance as a raise rather than cash.

[guitar man]

14. I'd love to tell Brown about it

But I live in Oklahoma, the state with the two worst senators in the senate :(

[Javaman]

12. I hear your plight.

but at least you can say you were offered a raise. :)

Me, none of us have gotten a raise for the past 4 years.

In fact we only have gotten raises twice in the last 10.

so if you don't want it, I'll take it. :\

[guitar man]

15. I hear ya

I've been here 10 years and we've gone through some years with no raises, 2009 being one of them.

Want it? Sure, I want it, but like everything else in my life lately, "want" always takes a back seat to "have to".

:(

[Javaman]

17. I know, it sucks.

The system is gamed to those who rule, not to those who do the actual work.

Perhaps this year something will change and you can take that raise next time if offered.

As for myself, I keep thinking, maybe this year there will be raises. Sadly, I have a feeling it will be 5 years in a row. :/

We do without more, we try to cut more, we go with less heat, we use less water (water metering time you know), we eat a little less, we have a lot less perks, we try and grow more of what we can, I drive less, we got out a lot less. We can still cut back more, but that's for the "bracing for impact" situation. If things don't improve this year, we will be facing just that.

Life for those above the line is improving, but for the rest of us, not so much.

I hope for you and your family.

Peace. :)

[guitar man]

21. same here

I ditched cable tv and internet at home, cancelled all the magazine subscriptions and got rid of my 4x4 truck for one I could afford the payments on. A friend gave me his old iphone when he upgraded to the new one and I got my wife an iphone for christmas so we can be connected to the net in some way, it's just become a vital link in this modern world, but we've cut back in every way possible and we just keep getting slammed at every turn.

I'm thinking about going back to playing music and recording full time next year and just forgetting about the job. One of the most attractive things about it was the health benefts and sans that, I might as well go back to doing what I want if I'm going to be poor and uninsured anyway.

[SammyWinstonJack]

19. And yet Congress critters vote themselves pay raises yearly and have excellent health care benefits.

Nice, eh? x(

Welcome to America, run by greedy bloodsucking corporations/politicians.

[guitar man]

22. exactly

they have no concept of what "can not afford" means x(

[Xenotime]

20. So sorry that the politics of the evil right have come between you and your health.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BlueDemKev]

27. Absolutely Disgusting....

...of course, you'd be judged as "lazy" and "unwilling to work" by today's standards.

[Dappleganger]

28. Sorry to hear that, it's an unfortunate sign of the times.

It's not fair that hard-working Americans have to make those kinds of choices. I wish that you would write your federal and state reps or even the president and share your story, because it probably has happened to a lot of people.

[guitar man]

31. I have written

But I'm not holding my breath for Inhofe, Coburn and Lucas to get a clue :(

[justanaverageguy]

29. Dude, take the raise

They way I see it is that you and your wife make 41K per year (according to your post #3) and your family insurance is $524 per month (again if I understood your post correctly). That leaves your pre-tax income at about 35K per year before the raise. After taxes that's gonna give you a "bring home" paycheck of just over $500 per week. I admit that is no king's ransom, but that is exactly the income my wife and I were living on 8 years ago when my first child was born. Granted we didn't live like royalty but we were able to have a little 920sqft house with 2 bedrooms in a working class neighborhood. It was nice.

On top of all that you throw in a raise. Even at $1 per hour that equates to $2000 more dollars a year in you gross income.

I'm sorry, unless I misunderstood the numbers I don't understand the dilemma. Take the raise.

[guitar man]

30. The dilema is

That next year, it won't be $524 a month for insurance, if it follows the percentage pattern it's been following it will probably be north of $700 a month for health insurance.And probably $900 the year after if something doesn't change. I know that my wife and I can fuck off and die as far as getting any help with coverage, but at least I can keep my daughter insured through the SCHIPS program. Better than nothing.

[justanaverageguy]

37. I understand what you are saying

and I feel for you. I would still take the raise though. Even if the raise is only $1 per hour, that's still $173 dollars a month (you've been hit with about a 25% increase each year. That means you can expect a $131 per month increase next year to $655 per month). Even if the insurance goes to $700 per month that would be a wash and doesn't worsen your situation any. Here's what I can see happening maybe. Something is going to happen in your family's life where you are presented with an opportunity to make more money (maybe some opportunity happens with your wife's weekend deal). This opportunity will clearly take you over and above the threshold for SoonerCare. Which up until this point you haven't actually needed since you have coverage. This opportunity will take you far enough above the SoonerCare threshold that you can't say no to the opportunity. Then you are going to be left wishing you had taken the raise(s). I'm not sure how nice your employer is, but I'm willing to bet they aren't going to let you just walk in one day and say "hey, you know all those raises I turned down?...I'd like them now please". I own my own business with employees and I'd tell you no, and I consider myself a pretty good guy to work for. That's going to leave you lagging behind in what you should be making for as long as you work for that employer.

If you must work it so that the family income doesn't increase, is it possible to decrease your wife's income in lieu of you turning down a raise? Even if your total family income is, by your own design, not increasing, I think you are better off to have at least one of you going in the up direction rather than both of your remaining stagnant.

[guitar man]

51. She would have to quit

They are already pressing her to go full time and it's not worth it. The simple mathematics show that she makes more working weekends and not paying daycare than she would working full time and paying for daycare. She doesn't make much at what she does

I am actually right now working on going back to work for myself but it is going to take time to get all the pieces in place and I have to make damn sure it's going to fly before I leave my job to pursue it full time . I damn sure can't just throw some pixie dust in the air, click my heels and " create my own job" out of thin air.it's going to take a lot of networking and making the right connections or it's a no go.

[justanaverageguy]

53. I wish you the best of luck

I understand, my wife didn't work while my two kids were young because she couldn't make enough at her chosen profession to justify the daycare. Fortunately for us, with some minor lifestyle changes were were able to make it thru pretty easily until she was able to return to work.

I hope nothing I said came across the wrong way, I was merely trying to add something constructive to the conversation. Unlike some a-hole up thread. (create your own job!! LOL!! What an idiot)

Anyway, I would still take the raise. But that's why they say reasonable people can disagree. I'm sure everything will work out for you.

Take care

[guitar man]

54. Thanks

I may go ahead and take it. Sooner care has been picking up the tab for my daughters medicine that my $524 a month insurance doesn't cover, so it will probably be a wash, but maybe it will look better on the resume should I ever need to get a job in tv again.

It just shouldn't be this hard for people wh get up and go to work every day to be able to meet basic needs.

[truedelphi]

67. If you give up the raise, pls take a moment to call your

Local representative. Ask the staff when he or she is back from Washington D.C.

Then schedule a meeting.

Most of our reps need to hear stories like this. They really do.

[WilliamPitt]

32. "nest of scheming bastards that couldn't agree on the color of shite"

:toast:

[guitar man]

33. Exactly!!

I just about rolled in the floor the first time I heard that line, probably the most apt description of politicians ever. :toast:

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Vickers]

39. Dude, America suX0rs...don't you know that's how ALL liberals feel?

:eyes:

Welcome to DU yadda yadda yadda...

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Vickers]

41. Can't we blame that goddam muslin son-of-a-bitch Barry HUSSEIN Obama?

:shrug:

[Bucky]

42. I mostly agree with that. The problem with that philosophy is...

that too many people use the fact that you're responsible for your own situation to be an excuse to keep people from cooperating to make things better. Sure I'm responsible for my own situation, just tell the insurance agencies to quit using the power of government to keep me from cooperating with others to get better healthcare coverage.

America's always done best when, instead of just looking out for ourselves, we also looked out for our neighbors too.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bobbolink]

58. "America" and "looking out for our neighbors" together in the same sentence?

~~scratchin' head~~

Yeah, I guess it still exists somewhere, in some circumstances, but as a whole.... it went the way of the proverbial Dodo.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

55. Wow, everybody lives in perfect isolation?

Nobody can help or hinder anybody else?

Nobody is able to make a difference in anyone else's life?

What a weird country you live in. It's not the America I visited, that's for sure.

[Sparkly]

45. I got one for ya...

Someone I love is in great need of drug rehab. It's now at the point that a court has mandated it. She was referred to the county facility, which has a sliding scale based on income; it can slide down to virtually nothing, and she has a low income. However, she also has health insurance through her father. The county tosses out the sliding scale for anyone who has insurance, charging 100%. But the insurance company won't pay for it. And the cost of paying 100% is impossible.

So it's a mess of red tape, she's required to be in treatment, but can't get the treatment she needs. Meanwhile, every day is Russian roulette...

[bobbolink]

47. Those of us on fixed incomes had our COLAs taken away from us for two years...

Now I'm hearing its THREE YEARS.

As if it wasn't bad enough before...not gettting enough for even housing, unless you can find the rare subsidized housing.

Yet, where is the outcry?

Where are "progressives", fighting for us on this issue?

....

....

......

~~crickets~~

[TicketyBoo]

49. Whatever happened to Obama's

proposal to hand out $250 this year to Social Security recipients to make up for the loss of the COLA? I haven't heard anything about it since the first of the year.

[bobbolink]

50. Where was the outspoken support for that from "progressives"?

No, it was killed.....

Nada.

BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE SUPPORT IN OUR CORNER.

Did you write and call about it?

Hmmmmm?

[TicketyBoo]

59. I actually thought

it was a done deal.

I'd have called if I'd known the call was necessary. You bet.

[bobbolink]

60. I know.. people assumed, because Obama was poor that all was a given.

BTW, you still can call, and write, and beg others to do the same.

We are going be suffering HUGELY.... I am already feeling it, deeply...

Please help us with this!

Thanks...

[TicketyBoo]

61. I've been

a-Googling, and I can't find out anything about any Congressional action on it, only news stories about Obama proposing it back in October.

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/4394686
http://www.newser.com/story/71776/obamas-stealth-stimulus-250-checks-to-seniors.html
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/obama-wants-another-year-of-250-stimulus-payments-to-seniors-vets-disabled.php
http://www.four-pillars.ca/2009/10/15/250-stimulus-check-in-2010-for-social-security-recipients/

Where did you see that it was killed? (I'll keep hunting.)

[TicketyBoo]

62. One site I found has

anecdotal information that the stimulus checks are on the way.

http://www.four-pillars.ca/2009/12/16/250-stimulus-check-for-2010-is-it-enough/

[bobbolink]

65. That article is about a PROPOSAL for another stimulus check.

Someone saying they "heard" it is on the way is bogus.

Anyone can say anything on the 'net.

Obama himself, if I remember right, took it out of the bill to make the bill more "palatable".

So, here's the deal... you can call your congresscritters and get actual information, and lobby on our behalf, or you can *assume* and forget all about us.

What usually happens is that we aren't believed until it is too late, and then we are ignored.

[TicketyBoo]

66. However, the comment which I quoted

was posted on January 9 of this year, and the poster said a friend of hers has already received a check.

Obama himself, if I remember right, took it out of the bill to make the bill more "palatable".

Out of what bill? I thought that it was a proposal that stood on its own? Do you have a link to an article about that? Because, after, all "Anyone can say anything on the 'net."

I have been looking on Social Security's own website, and the last thing I found on it is this:

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pressoffice/pr/2010cola-pr.htm

you can call your congresscritters and get actual information, and lobby on our behalf, or you can *assume* and forget all about us.

Hey, I am one of "us," but I like to know a little bit about what I'm talking about before I call my "congresscritters." If you have a link where the status of this proposed payment has been updated, I would appreciate that link, and I'll go from there.

(What have your "congresscritters" told YOU?)

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[winninghand]

56. If the raise comes with more responsibility, take it.

You will be better off in the long run.

[deaniac21]

57. I hate seeing an ambitious man curbed by the corpocracy.

[PATRICK]

63. If only

you could lower the limit with a charitable donation that would benefit everyone and only give you the benefit of advancement at work, but gross income is gross income under the simple rules that apply to simple people. The borderline problems affect a lot of such situations, some beyond all choice. Maybe you an expert here or on the other professional boards could help?

[TheKentuckian]

68. Bad situation. People are going into the Army just for benefits.

Good vibes to you.