Yesterday,I found out how much my pay raise was. I’m not going to say exactly how much of an increase I received, but I will say that it was what the company considered an “average” raise. The “average” employee, according to my company, rates a pay raise ranging from 1% to 4%. A sub-standard performer gets a zero percent raise, and an outstanding performer gets a respectable bump of 6% - 9%. Furthermore, the company says that a maximum of 20% of the employees in the pool can be “outstanding” performers. This means that 80% of the employees in my company received a raise from zero to four percent… except for the “highly compensated executives” who are probably on a different pay model.
Fast forward to today, where I ran across the rate of inflation for 2005 … for all of 2005, wholesale prices rose by 5.4 percent. That was the biggest increase since a 5.7 percent increase in 1990, and another year in which surging oil costs pushed inflation higher. However, core inflation, excluding energy and food, was up a more moderate 1.7 percent in 2005 …
What this means is that my merit increase didn’t even keep up with inflation; in the end I essentially took a net pay cut for the privilege of continuing to work for my employer. If I chose to not eat (or feed my family) or consume any energy – no gas for my car, no natural gas to heat my house, no electricity to light my home – I would get a raise. Apparently my company has determined that food, transportation to and from my job, electricity (which ironically enough allows me to work from home), and natural gas are not necessities. Statistically speaking, 80% of the people in my company are in the same boat.
I can’t speak with any certainty, but I suspect that many other employees working for many other companies are experiencing the same phenomenon. I wonder how long the workforce will continue taking this before Corporate America experiences another political upheaval from its work force. I wonder just how long we will allow the rich to keep getting richer… or maybe I’m just a malcontent who should shut up and go back to work.
Fast forward to today, where I ran across the rate of inflation for 2005 … for all of 2005, wholesale prices rose by 5.4 percent. That was the biggest increase since a 5.7 percent increase in 1990, and another year in which surging oil costs pushed inflation higher. However, core inflation, excluding energy and food, was up a more moderate 1.7 percent in 2005 …
What this means is that my merit increase didn’t even keep up with inflation; in the end I essentially took a net pay cut for the privilege of continuing to work for my employer. If I chose to not eat (or feed my family) or consume any energy – no gas for my car, no natural gas to heat my house, no electricity to light my home – I would get a raise. Apparently my company has determined that food, transportation to and from my job, electricity (which ironically enough allows me to work from home), and natural gas are not necessities. Statistically speaking, 80% of the people in my company are in the same boat.
I can’t speak with any certainty, but I suspect that many other employees working for many other companies are experiencing the same phenomenon. I wonder how long the workforce will continue taking this before Corporate America experiences another political upheaval from its work force. I wonder just how long we will allow the rich to keep getting richer… or maybe I’m just a malcontent who should shut up and go back to work.
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