Posted on 08/10/2010 6:10:35 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Why I'm Not Hiring
When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits.
By MICHAEL P. FLEISCHER
With unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it's going to be later—much later. Here's why.
Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy). Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings. She's been with us for over 15 years. She's a high school graduate with some specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.
Before that money hits her bank, it is reduced by the $2,376 she pays as her share of the medical and dental insurance that my company provides. And then the government takes its due. She pays $126 for state unemployment insurance, $149 for disability insurance and $856 for Medicare. That's the small stuff. New Jersey takes $1,893 in income taxes. The federal government gets $3,661 for Social Security and another $6,250 for income tax withholding. The roughly $13,000 taken from her by various government entities means that some 22% of her gross pay goes to Washington or Trenton....
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
For a little history lesson...
New Jersey up to the late 1970s was a ZERO income tax state and had a sales tax of 4%...
And things workes pretty well.
Could use a warning that following the wsj link requires subscription.
Is that $74,000 in addition to what he pays her or a total price for her labor including her wages? Going to be citing this article and want to make sure I get it right.
darn...would have loved to finish this story but held captive by the subscription link.
no kidding. What more does it say?
I am a seasonal construction worker in Alaska, my season typically exists only from april till novemeber, there is NO other work available in the winter exept Walmart.
My company laid off everyone except for myself and another driver, only my unique skills is keeping me a job right now but my reduced hours are cutting back my pay, the company won’t deliver concrete on saturday anymore because most orders are small home owner jobs and they won’t pay my overtime.
We all keep hoping Obama will abdicate his throne, just a figure of speech but we actually believe that if Obama was removed the economy would improve.
Ping for reading again.
The FR search engine is our friend:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2567317/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2567601/posts
Yep and the company can find a probably better educated worker worker in China that will do the same job for 24K $ vs the 74K $ it costs to hire her for 44 K$.
Democrats solution to this problem?? Run that 74 K $ cost up to 100 K$ so she is completely unaffordable because that will somehow ‘stimulate’ our economy they say.
I saw those other two. I like this one gooder.
Excellent article. And this administration is only making things 100 times worse.
mark my words, unemployment will skyrocket next year when the Bush tax cuts expire. There will be less disposable income in the pockets of Americans, and the cost of doing business will only accelerate.
This administration only supports the big bussinesses and unions that it bailed out, wall st and the auto unions in particular
How long before Mr. Fleisher and his company get an IRS audit?
Maybe you’ll like the next one best of all!
Maybe. It’ll be all shiny and new. Everybody done spilled coffee all over this one.
Thanks for posting the full story. Now there’s a story that deserves to be told to the maroons who keep saying the govt needs to tax business and the rich. Businesses can’t afford to grow when one step forward means two steps backward.
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