Wife got a raise

[lucasrd]

My wife makes very good $$ ($44/hr). Just yesterday her employer sprung a $6/hr raise on her and her colleagues, which is a 13% increase and puts her at $50/hr.

That just blew my mind and I had to share and pose the question...

What is the average raise that everyone gets? Do you expect an annual raise or bonus? Has anyone ever asked for a raise and got it??? I'd love to hear any of your experiences with salary and getting raises.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by lucasrd

What is the average raise that everyone gets? Do you expect an annual raise or bonus? Has anyone ever asked for a raise and got it??? I'd love to hear any of your experiences with salary and getting raises.

Congrats to your wife. I don't think you'll find that a 13.6% raise is typical for most.

I don't expect an annual raise. If and when I get one, that's great. I got an indirect raise a year or so ago when I started getting paid for some prep time each day that I was already doing but wasn't being paid for. That was an extra 2 hours per week. I also started getting 4 weeks vacation instead of 3 weeks a couple of years ago. To me, that's worth more than extra money.

[rduell]

Congratulations!

I got a 3% increase this year plus a $1,000 merit pay raise.

[Budgeteer]

2-4% raises are pretty typical. Basically cost of living increases.

13% is awesome.

[tinapbeana]

last raise i 'got' was due to a promotion and would have been 12.5% before performance bonuses. the raise & promotion were put on hold when our company was bought, 6 months later we were all layed off so it was a moot point.

at any rate, i mention this because the change in salary was the normal rate for moving up one 'tier' on our corporate ladder, even though the basic job duties of the 'new postion' were essentially the same as the old one.

as for asking for a raise: nope, never have. when i was looking for a job, however, the salary i asked for was the non-existant promotion salary plus the expected performance bonus over the course of a year. i wound up getting that plus an additional 5%, for a total of a 39% raise over my previous base.

[PrincessPerky]

Way cool, congrats, not normal, but I can comment on asking....

My husband asked and recieved a very nice raise this last time (of course 13% of practically nuthin is..well practically nuthin, but that is besides the point)

practice your speil, make it honest, make it serious, and have an alternative if possible.

A friend asked for a raise, due to a jpob offer paying significantly more, he asked for a reasonable raise, it failed, he left...is good for buisness to lose some due to no raise, makes em more inclined to pay the next guy!

[rduell]

Just did the math to figure that my total increase of pay at the beginning of 2007 amounts to 8%.

[Fern]

1st year here i got 3%; 2nd year i got 5%.

This is the first company i've worked at which seems to pre-determine raises for everyone across the board at the same time of year, making all the effort i go to demonstrate my personal performance and achievements at performance reviews a moot point as it doesn't seen to matter. This, i think, sucks.

[Gruntina]

I was supposed to get a promoted raise because of increase in responsibilities. The director could not get an approval with the budget for a promoted raise so I kept my same title but they gave me a 2,000 salary increase. It was not much but it's better than nothing.

However, my end of year bonus went beyond my bonus limits. They gave me a really good additional bonus because my manager knows I took on so much more responsibilities and she wanted to know that I was valued.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by Fern

This is the first company i've worked at which seems to pre-determine raises for everyone across the board at the same time of year, making all the effort i go to demonstrate my personal performance and achievements at performance reviews a moot point as it doesn't seen to matter..

They may not do merit raises, but they may base promotions on merit. Plus, if the day comes when they need to downsize staff, performance comes into play there, too.

[vsjhoc]

Once I got a 6% raise and a bonus. The next day I was terminated.

[lucasrd]

speaking of raises and bonuses...check out what you got if you worked for Goldman Sachs

http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/13/news...ion=2006121313

[rduell]

Originally Posted by vsjhoc

Once I got a 6% raise and a bonus. The next day I was terminated.

[safari]

My company is giving raises every year. My raises ranged from 4% to 17%. There is also a yearly bonus, typically 3% of the salary. My compensation doubled in 7 years that I've been with the company.

[frugalmomof1]

The biggest raise I ever got was 50%...that was about 8 years ago for a position change from inventory and shipping to an engineering technician. I actually asked for 20% and was very surprised when I got more.

About 4 years ago I got a 22% raise because one of our customers (Boeing) was having a major problem with one of our parts and I worked with their engineering team every single day for about 5 months to solve it. That one was unexpected...it was not review time and there was a pay 'freeze' at the time.

But those were the good old days....now we get cost of living increases about every 15 months (longer if the owner decides to put it off). This year raises were capped at 4% and I got 3.8%

[aurielle]

3% cola in January, 5% merit increase also in January (assuming all goes well with my performance review in Jan, I'm not expecting any problems), 5% increase across all job classifications in July.

Normally we get just 5% merit increase/year (if you're not topped out). We finally got the 3% cola and the July 5% because we threatened to strike (gov't job, union organized). We haven't had a cola of any decent size in years, health insurance goes up every year and we are underpaid comparative to similar areas. So this 13% increase is a real blessing. I'll be able to fund my EF that much faster and start contributing to my Roth again!

[ren]

Well, our company does annual cost of living raises (3.5%) and calls them merit raises (so I guess those with no merit are punished by making less?). The real money is in promotions, which they're pretty generous about.

I did successfully ask for a raise. I was an Assistant/Jr. Examiner from 8/2005 - 8/2006, at which point my duties were changed so that I was a full time Jr. Examiner Initially, the company's argument was that I was already paid within the limits of a Jr. Examiner, but I made a case for myself. I pointed out that I may not have been promoted, but I'd had a significant increase in responsibility (70 claims to 230), listed various special projects I had worked on, and that I had completed two certifications since the promotion. Earning the minimum for my position when I was obviously doing more than minimum level work -- why else would they give me more responsibility? -- seemed unreasonable.

I actually asked for a bit less than what I got because I didn't think I had a snowball's chance of more without being technically promoted, but the office manager went to bat for me with corporate. I'm not quite making the maximum for my position now, but I will hit it in April if I get the full 3.5% for this year.

It was stressful and humiliating to ask (my immediate supervisor was not receptive to the idea at all and was very insulting about the whole thing -- we don't have a good relationship), but I'm glad that I did. I was really upset at the time and I think I would have become very bitter about everything if I hadn't gotten recognition/compensation for the fact that I'm doing more work.