# Is 3% a good raise?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-3-a-good-raise/455214>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [July 3, 2008, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-3-a-good-raise/455214 "2008-07-03T18:30:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-3-a-good-raise/455214/61 "2008-07-07T18:36:36Z")

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I’m in a union, and somehow they are able to sell the party line that 3% is a decent raise.

It doesn’t even cover cost of living, so if you like your current job and position then you are stuck with ever-shrinking adjusted income for your term.

The side effect is that the only way to get decent raises internally is to position-hop. Level 1, level 2, level 3, then change to a separate business unit and repeat the cycle.

I’m currently peaked in my current position and, even though I love my job and my bosses think I’m a valuable kick-ass employee, I’ll be forced to say goodbye and pretend that the next business-unit-du-jour is the career path I really really want.

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**Author:** ![mazinger\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mazinger\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazinger_z)\
**Post date:** [July 7, 2008, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-3-a-good-raise/455214/62 "2008-07-07T18:53:13Z")

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If you work for a large, publicly traded company, successful or not, standard raise should be historical inflation indexed for the last 15-20 years (or is it 12-15?). I got this figure from my new friend in HR. I have no idea where this methodology came from. It averages out to a base of 2.3-2.5%. Assuming there were no layoffs, the absolute bottom line raise in my company is then “gracefully rounded” (as my CFO puts it) to 3%. Success and failures of the company will modify it. We have one struggling division pay out 1.5%, some meager bonuses, mostly stock. On the other hand, the successful divisions were paying out 8-15%, with bonuses (if it’s like mine, then it’s 15-25%), and restricted stock units. Since I work for the parent and all money goes to us, but we also have a declining stock price, I’m going to guess that we’re going to be somewhere between 3.5-10% (but no one will get 10%, I’m sure), with bonuses (which were good last year at 25%), and some of us will get RSUs. The worst year we’ve had was 3-5% raise, no stock, 3-5% bonus, on average throughout the company. The sales and business development teams I work with made out like bandits if they hit their comp plan.

So, overall, imo, if it’s just 3% and nothing else, with a somewhat successful company (i.e. they operated according to plan), then that raise both sucks and blows.

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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2008, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-3-a-good-raise/455214/63 "2008-07-12T04:50:30Z")

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And yet companies wonder why people change jobs every 2 years. Maybe because they get sick of new hires making more than them?

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