The average employee returning to the office spends $561 per month–that's the average two-person household’s grocery bill in the U.S. for the entire month.
Are people forgetting that the salaries were high in high cost of living areas to account for this cost. In the new normal, should employees expect pay cuts, or should employees that opt in to in office expect higher pay or stipends?
Also, curious about tax advantaged commuter benefits. Sure sticker cost is a months groceries, but if you are commuting and able to pay that pre tax for Metro or rail passes, it’s only 66 percent of the sticker cost.
Also I think the pet and childcare costs are interesting. For child care, is that assuming like 1 or 2 extra hours of childcare per day?
This article is saying the average is ~$500 a month. Imagine pre pandemic work norms. If your employer offered you $500 less a month, but the trade off was you got to work fully remote, would you take it?
Many large companies that support wfh, set pay scales based on where you live, not where they are. If you live in a low cost of living area you get paid less. Live in a high cost of living area get paid more.
Before you start jabbering about how companies don’t do that… They do. Just because you don’t work for one, or don’t know about your own companies policies you should look it up. Most companies are pretty discreet about it and people don’t talk about taking pay cuts to move to low cost of living area but it is common.
Yep. The way I’ve heard of it actually happening to folks where I work is when they moved during the pandemic their pay didn’t immediately change. But when they got their promotion, they got a 0% percent increase because that was when they recalculated the cost of living adjustment. So maybe they got a 12% raise, but moved to a place with a 15% lower cost of living. So they weren’t going to piss off the employee by rewarding with a pay cut, but use that as the time to reset compensation leveling.
It’s more having your cake and eating it too. When pandemic hit and you got to keep your salary and work remote, maybe move to a cheaper area, no one complained that they kept all the benefit of the in office pay. But now that you got to keep the same pay, and are asked to come back into the office, you aren’t suddenly making less money. You’re just paying for the cost that was always expected as an employee that was hopefully accounted for in giving you a reasonable salary.
And some of these costs that add up to “a month of groceries” can be mitigated by having flexible in office policy. It’s not that transport takes a month of groceries. The cost is transport + childcare + pet care. For some childless and petless workers the cost of in office transport isnt that bad, and might be tax free if you have programs for it. And child care and pet care can be reduced with flexible in office requirements. Some companies used to let people bring their dogs to the office, for example.
Are people forgetting that the salaries were high in high cost of living areas to account for this cost. In the new normal, should employees expect pay cuts, or should employees that opt in to in office expect higher pay or stipends?
Also, curious about tax advantaged commuter benefits. Sure sticker cost is a months groceries, but if you are commuting and able to pay that pre tax for Metro or rail passes, it’s only 66 percent of the sticker cost.
Also I think the pet and childcare costs are interesting. For child care, is that assuming like 1 or 2 extra hours of childcare per day?
Seems like everyone in this thread is okay with pay cuts as it is less than the benefit.
This article is saying the average is ~$500 a month. Imagine pre pandemic work norms. If your employer offered you $500 less a month, but the trade off was you got to work fully remote, would you take it?
Yep. I took a larger one because I changed industries and location too.
Many large companies that support wfh, set pay scales based on where you live, not where they are. If you live in a low cost of living area you get paid less. Live in a high cost of living area get paid more.
Before you start jabbering about how companies don’t do that… They do. Just because you don’t work for one, or don’t know about your own companies policies you should look it up. Most companies are pretty discreet about it and people don’t talk about taking pay cuts to move to low cost of living area but it is common.
Yep. The way I’ve heard of it actually happening to folks where I work is when they moved during the pandemic their pay didn’t immediately change. But when they got their promotion, they got a 0% percent increase because that was when they recalculated the cost of living adjustment. So maybe they got a 12% raise, but moved to a place with a 15% lower cost of living. So they weren’t going to piss off the employee by rewarding with a pay cut, but use that as the time to reset compensation leveling.
So you’re saying people should take a paycut because they are more productive?
It’s more having your cake and eating it too. When pandemic hit and you got to keep your salary and work remote, maybe move to a cheaper area, no one complained that they kept all the benefit of the in office pay. But now that you got to keep the same pay, and are asked to come back into the office, you aren’t suddenly making less money. You’re just paying for the cost that was always expected as an employee that was hopefully accounted for in giving you a reasonable salary.
And some of these costs that add up to “a month of groceries” can be mitigated by having flexible in office policy. It’s not that transport takes a month of groceries. The cost is transport + childcare + pet care. For some childless and petless workers the cost of in office transport isnt that bad, and might be tax free if you have programs for it. And child care and pet care can be reduced with flexible in office requirements. Some companies used to let people bring their dogs to the office, for example.