WSJ Your Money Briefing - If You Can’t Get a Big Raise, Here’s How to Get More From Benefits

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

The cost of employer-provided health insurance, which rose 7% in 2024 for the second straight year, is expected to rise again next year and outpace less-generous raises. Wall Street Journal reporter Ray A. Smith joins host J.R. Whalen to discuss questions to ask about your benefits package to potentially lessen the squeeze on your paycheck. Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom. Hold my hand. You hold my hand? Learn about adopting a teen from foster care at adoptUSkids.org. You can't imagine the reward. Brought to you by AdoptUSkids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Here's your money briefing for Wednesday, October 16th. I'm JR Whalen for The Wall Street Journal.

October 16th, I'm JR Whalen for the Wall Street Journal. Rays are expected to be flat next year and the cost of health benefits up. And that means workers hoping to get a pay bump at a new job or asking for a raise at their current one need to ask the right questions about their benefits package to get their numbers in order. Basic questions like what does the plan cover, what it doesn't cover, how much is it going to cost me, not just bi-weekly but overall, even annually. Even if they want to drill down to the level of their own personal status, whether they're single or married or have children, they can even ask to sort of have breakdowns in that

manner. We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter Ray Smith after the break. Workers' paychecks are set to feel the squeeze from higher health care costs and less generous raises. Wall Street Journal reporter Ray Smith joins me. Ray, for several years, switching jobs has often been a path toward a substantial pay increase. Wouldn't that balance out higher benefits costs that might come out of someone's check? You would think so, but the pay bump for switching jobs has collapsed to its lowest level in years.

The gap has narrowed between the pay bump that job stayers get and the pay bump that job switchers get. The payoff is just not as quite as robust as it used to be and so you're not seeing that advantage that you might have had in the past where the pay bump you got would automatically sort of cover any expenses or increase in expenses that you have. So if it's getting harder to negotiate higher pay, what else can job seekers do? One thing they often don't think about are the benefits. And mainly people should really think about when they're negotiating or they're interviewing

the total compensation, not just the pay or the dollar amount, the salary, but the whole total compensation package, and that includes benefits. We talked to a number of experts and they told us that especially younger people often forget to or don't think about asking about health plans and benefit costs. They're so focused on the dollar amount and making more money. And so that's one thing that people neglect and to their detriment. So what kinds of questions do recruiters suggest that candidates ask about benefits beyond just what will be the bi-weekly deduction from my check?

They should really ask what seemingly are like basic questions like what does the plan cover, what it doesn't cover, how much is it going to cost me not just bi-weekly but overall, even annually. If there's anything to say about what kinds of options do I have in terms of choosing whatever healthcare plan is going to benefit me the most, and they could really make an effort to try to request an interview or a discussion with a human resources official to go over details of the

plans and how it's going to affect them, even if they want to drill down to the level of their own personal status, whether they're single or married or have children, they can even ask to sort of have breakdowns in that manner. If people don't ask these specific questions about benefits, what types of perks could they miss out on? They could miss out, especially on sort of additional perks besides health benefits, they could miss out on things like knowing they can have Fridays off or additional PTO or tuition reimbursement if they're doing some kind of continuing education or even

tuition assistance for childhood education if they have a child that's in private school and has special needs, for example. tuition assistance for childhood education, if they have a child that's in private school and has special needs, for example. And so there are just these things that I talked with one woman who told me she learned that a colleague of hers had actually asked for a stipend for his home office for days that he was working from home, and she never knew you could even ask for things like that. So it doesn't hurt to ask not only during the interview stage, but also ask people who work at the company if you have access to them, like what sorts of other benefits are

available that I can ask for. That worker you spoke with, she now makes a point to ask detailed questions about benefits. How did she realize this? Yeah, she told me that she basically had a wake-up call when she realized, A, how quickly out-of-pocket calls could add up, especially with unexpected medical expenses. So that was one thing that she learned. It made her more diligent about asking about the full scope of benefits. But in another situation, she told me know when she transitioned over into HR she

got to actually witness candidates asking for things like stipends to set up a home office or things like a tuition reimbursement and then she ended up asking for those kinds of things later in her career after failing to do so earlier in her career. Now what if healthcare costs wind up being high, but the company won't budge on salary to offset them? What should a candidate do then? It's a really tough position to be in, but a candidate, it's worth asking. A candidate should try to ask for maybe some kind of sign on bonus to offset the

costs, especially if they're leaving another job to join this company. They, that's one request that one expert told us that people can make. What types of benefits are typically not negotiable? Typically medical benefits and things like 401k plans are not negotiable because those policy options and terms are usually uniform for all employees. It's gonna be sort of unfair if you try to get some kind of additional healthcare benefit that others aren't getting.

It's usually a company-wide plan. These higher benefit costs can hamper employees' potential pay. But in terms of the companies, how is it affecting the competition for workers? During the labor shortages of recent years, companies were really boasting about their benefits and beefing up their benefit plans because they really

used them to attract workers to show how generous they were. And now they are nervous about passing on higher cost to employees because it can affect their ability to attract and retain employees. And so they're really in a bind and they're really wary about having employees shoulder more cost because it really does affect how attractive that employer looks in the eyes of job seekers and even current employees. That's WSJ reporter Ray Smith. And that's it for your money briefing. This episode was produced by Ariana Asparu with supervising producer Melanie Roy and deputy editor Chris Zinsley. I'm JR Whalen for the Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening. you