G-man is a federal government employee. Without going into a long explanation of how the pay system works, basically he gets an "in-step" raise (about $1000) every three years. Yep....every THREE years. However, on an annual basis he gets a cost of living (COLA) raise, and locality pay. The COLA usually covers the increase in insurance, and that is about it. Locality maybe adds a few bucks, but not much.
Obama has announced a proposed freeze (get the title of the post now????) on federal employee pay for 2 years. So, there went COLA. Not sure about locality. And we aren't due for an in-step raise for another year.
Plus, they just altered work schedules a bit, and we are losing 2 hours of night differential a week.
Health insurance is going up about $40 a month. And we didn't take out enough for our FSA (we did $3750, and will bump it to $4000). So all the changes are going to amount to about $100 a month (and that is being liberal). While that isn't HUGE, every little bit counts.
This blows.
Oh, and our $738 "surprise" check???? Well, we found out that it wasn't our car insurance...it was our home insurance that was paid incorrectly. So $678 has to be forwarded to the new insurance company for our home insurance. Which leaves us with $60 "extra" for whatever. (Glad we didn't spend it!!!)
All of this is altering my bottom line. GRRRR.
I'm sorry to hear about this. Hopefully it turns out better than you thought!
ReplyDeleteUgh.. I'm a government employee and they've freezed our raises for the last THREE YEARS. It's terrible. :(
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry. I think the general public just assumes that a wage freeze = the same pay as always. They don't take into consideration that the there isn't a freeze in benefit cost to accompany the wage freeze. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about this! I'm glad you published your family's side of the wage freeze story. Most people are all, "Hoorah! It's about time they cut them off!" They don't understand that these people have to pay for insurance hikes the same as we do.
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, we don't get "raises" the way that private corporations do, and when it is every three years, it works out to about $300 a year, plus COLA.
As for insurance...just to give you an idea....we will be paying $200 a paycheck for insurance, plus $154 for FSA. That's $354, just for insurance stuff, and that won't even cover some of it. It works out to $9,200 for the year.....just for our medical. Pre-tax, this is about 15% of his gross income....