Ballpark salary equivalent today of “healthcare benefits” in the US?
"As a contractor, I have done this exact calculation many times so I can compare full time employment offers when they come. The answer varies greatly depending on your situation, but here's how to calculate it: So, subtracting the two and you get I've run many different scenarios with multiple plans and employers, and in my situation with a spouse and 1 child, the employer plans usually ended up saving me approximately $5k per year. So then, to answer your question: ...salary is ""100k"", ""with healthcare"", or then ""X"" ""with no healthcare"" - what do we reckon? I reckon I would want to be paid $5K more, or $105K. This is purely hypothetical though and assumes there are no other differences except for with or without health insurance. In reality, contractor vs employee will have quite a few other differences. But in general, the calculation varies by company and the more generous the employer's health benefits, the more you need to be compensated to make up for not having it. Note: the above numbers are very rough, and there are many other factors that come into play, some of which are: As a side note, many years ago, during salary talks with a company, I was able to negotiate $2K in additional yearly salary by agreeing not to take the health insurance since I had better insurance through my spouse. Health insurance in the US was much cheaper back then so I think closer to $5K today would be about right and is consistent with my above ballpark calculation. I always wondered what would have happened if I turned around and enrolled the following year. I suspect had I done that they could not have legally lowered my salary due to my breaking my promise, but I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't get a raise that year either." As others have said, it depends entirely on what benefits are provided, and how much of the cost of those benefits is paid by the employer and how much is paid by the employee, and compare that to what it would cost to obtain the necessary/equivalent coverage without employer assistance. In my case, my employer pays more than $10,000 per year toward the cost of medical, dental, vision, disability, and life insurance for myself and my family. That's almost 20% of the average total household income in my state, so it is not an insignificant amount at all. "While the other answers try to quantify the value of health care the question you ask is about employee vs contractor. The delta between those regarding benefits goes way beyond health care. In fact because almost every full time employee must have health care offered by their employer the option of  ""you can have X with healthcare, or Y with no healthcare"" is no longer an option. I have seen situations in the last few years where employees who had no need for healthcare coverage (retired military) were offered additional vacation days to compensate for their lower cost to the employer. For employee vs contractor what is different isn't just healthcare. It also includes holidays, vacation days, sick days, employer portion of social security, education benefits, and 401k. Insurance benefits include not just healthcare but also dental, vision, short term and long term disability, and life insurance. The rule of thumb to cover all these benefits that are lost when you are a contractor is an amount equal to your income. Of course some of these benefits  depend on single vs married and kids or not. But unless the rate they are paying the contractors is approaching twice the rate they are paying employees the contractor will be hard pressed to cover the missing benefits." "Equation: (M x 12) + MOOP = Worst case scenario cost Where M equals the monthly cost and MOOP is the maximum out of pocket amount.  So, if a plan costs $500 a month and the maximum out of pocket amount is $12,000 - which in a worst case scenario you would pay (it's almost always over the deductible) ... ($500 x 12) + 12,000 = $18,000 Most people look at the deductible, but be aware this is incorrect in a worst case.  The last one (maximum out of pocket) really hurts most people because they overlook it: Deductible vs. out-of-pocket maximum The difference between your deductible and an out-of-pocket maximum is   subtle but important. The out-of-pocket maximum is typically higher   than your deductible to account for things like co-pays and   co-insurance. For example, if you hit your deductible of $2,500 but   continue to go for office visits with a $25 co-pay, you’ll still have   to pay that co-pay until you’ve spent your out-of-pocket maximum, at   which time your insurance would take over and cover everything. New in   2016: embedded out-of-pocket maximums One change in 2016 is that, even   with an aggregate deductible, one person cannot pay more than the   individual out-of-pocket maximum within a family plan, even if the   aggregate deductible is more than the individual out-of-pocket   maximum, which is $6,850 for 2016. For instance, even if the overall   aggregate deductible was $10,000, a single person in that family plan   could not incur more than $6,850 in out-of-pocket expenses. (In 2017,   the out-of-pocket maximum will increase to $7,150.) After they hit   that number, insurance covers everything for that person, even as the   rest of the family is still subject to the deductible. From your question: Thanks - not sure I totally follow you. My question is, essentially:   ""Say a typical large employer X gives you 'healthcare' as a benefit on   top of your salary. In fact, how much does that cost corporation X   each year?"" ie, meaning, in the US, about how much does that typically   cost a corporation X each year? That's a good question because they may qualify for tax advantages by offering to a number of employees and there may be other benefits if they encourage certain tests (like blood work and they waive the monthly fee).  More than likely, using the above equation may be the maximum that they'll pay each year per employee and it might be less depending on the tax qualifications.  You can read this answer of the question and it appears they are paying within the range of these premiums listed above this." "For the person being hired this is a tricky situation. Specially with the new laws. There is no real magic number that can be applied as a lot will depend on what benefits you want, and what is actually available. This will really shift the spectrum quite a bit.  Under the affordibal care act, everyone has to have insurance or pay a ?fine? (were really not sure what to call this yet) but there are two provisions that really mess with the numbers you look at as an employee.  First, the cost of heath care has skyrocketed. So the same benefits that you had 5 years ago now cost maybe 10-15 times as much as they used to. This gets swept under the rug a bit because the ""main costs"" of insurance has only increased a tiny amount. What this actually comes down to is does your new ACA approved heath plan cover exactly the benefits you need, or does it cut corners.  Sorry this is complicated, and I don't mean it to come off as a speech against the ACA so I will give an example. My wife has RA, she really has it under control with the help of her RA doctor. This is not something she ever wants to change. Because she has had RA from the age of 15, and because it's degenerative, she doesn't want to spend 5 years working with a new doctor to get to the same place she is with her current doctor.  In addition, the main drugs she takes for RA are not covered under any ACA plan, nor are the ""substitutions"" that her doctor makes (we are trying to have kids so she has to be off the main meds, and a couple of the things this doctor has tried has been meds that reduce inflammation, are pregnancy safe, but are not for the treatment of RA) You now have to take into effect rather the cost of health insurance + the cost of the things now not covered by the heath insurance + the out of pocket expenses is worth the insurance.  Second the ACA has set up provisions to straight up trick those people that have lower income and are not paying close attention. When shopping for insurance, they get quotes like ""$50 a month"" or ""$100 a month"". The truth is that the remainder of the actual cost is deducted from their tax returns. This takes consideration, because if you thing your paying $50 a month for insurance but your really paying $650 then you need to make sure your doing your math right. Finally, you need to understand how messed up things are right now in the US with heath care. Largely this goes unreported. I'm not really sure why. But in order to do this I will have to give examples.  For my wife to see a specialist (her RA doctor) the co-pay is $75. So she goes to the doctor, he charges her $75 and bills the insurance $200. The insurance pays the doctor $50. With out insurance, the visit costs $50.  At first you want to blame the doctor for cheating the system, but the doctor has to pay for hours of labor to get the $50 back from the insurance company. From the doctors perspective it's cheaper to take the $50 then it is to charge the insurance company. And by charging the insurance company he has no control over the cost of the co pay. He essentially has to charge more to make the same money and the patient gets the shaft in the process. Another example, I got strep throat last year. I went to the walk in clinic, paid $75, saw the doctor got my Z-Pack for $15, went home crawled in bed and got better. My wife (who still had separate insurance from before the marriage) got strep throat (imagen that) went to the same clinic, they charged her $200 for the visit ($50 co-pay) and $250 for the z-pack ($3 co-pay). The insurance paid the clinic $90 for the visit and $3 for the drugs. Again the patient is left out in this scenario. In this case it worked better for my wife, unless you account for the fact that to get that coverage she had to pay $650/month.  My point is that when comparing costs of heathcare with insurance, and without out insurance, its often times much cheaper for the practices to have you self pay then it is for them to go through the loops of trying to insurance to make them whole. This creates two rates. Self pay rates and Insured rates. When your trying to figure out the cost of not having insurance then you need to use the self pay rates. These can be vastly different.  So as an employee you need to figure out your cost of heath care with insurance, and your cost of heath care without insurance. Then user those numbers when your trying to negotiate a salary. The problem is that there is no magic number to use for this because the cost will very a lot. For us, it was cheaper to not have insurance. Even with a pre-existing condition that takes constant attention, it's just better if we set aside $500 a month then it is to try to pay $750 a month. That might not hold true for everyone. For some people or conditions it may be better to pay the $750 then to try to handle it themselves.  So for my negotiations I would go with x+$6,000 without insurance or x+$4,500 with insurance.  Now as an employer it's a lot simpler. Usually you have a ""group plan"" that offers you a pretty straight $x per year per person or $y per year per family. So you can offer exactly that. Salary - $x or Salary - $y. AS a starting point. However this is where negotiations start.  If your offering me $50,500 and insurance, I would rather just have $57,000 and no insurance. Of course your real cost is only $55,000 cause you don't care about my heath care costs only about insurance costs. So you try to negotiate down towards $55,000 and no insurance. But that's not good enough for me. So I either go else where and you loose talent, or I accept $50,500 and insurance (or somewhere in between)." You could probably see prices at one of the Obamacare websites.  I'm on Obamacare in Massachusetts, and the premiums for me ranged from about $300-600 per month.  For a couple, you just multiply by two (couples don't get any discounts over single people).  So for a couple, the cost is about $600-$1200 per month. I never looked at family prices because I don't have kids, but I think the family plans are not that much more than the plans for a couple. "Many answers here have given what look to be useful perspectives on your question.  I want to point out an interesting technical issue. If an employer contracts with an insurer, it agrees to cover all employees (or all that fill some pre-specified definition and no one else), and to offer only a limited range of options. If you buy insurance directly, you obviously have a huge range of choices, including the (technically illegal) one of no insurance at all. Your first thought is probably, ""Hey, that's great! More options, more chances to pick the plan that's right for me."" Sorry, no.  Yes, you have more options, but so does everyone else. If you are working for some large company, you get insurance, period. If you suspect you have an expensive health condition, you cannot buy more insurance; if you believe yourself to be healthy as a horse, you cannot get skimpier insurance and pocket the difference.  Healthy people and sick people are all in the same predictable pool. If you buy insurance freely, the insurer knows that the sicker you are, the more likely you are buy insurance, a phenomenon called adverse selection.  As a result, the premiums (fees) a person buying his own insurance pays are much higher, because most of his fellow policy-holders are sickly -- even if he himself is just risk-averse. On the other hand, if you are risk-neutral, if you can survive a $10,000 bill if it happens to arise, you can save big by finding the skimpiest imaginable insurance, where all your fellow policy-holders will be hale and healthy people like yourself." There is some magic involved in that calculation, because what health insurance is worth to you is not necessarily the same it is worth for the employer. Two examples that illustrate the extreme ends of the spectrum: let's say you or a family member have a chronic or a serious illness, especially if it is a preexisting condition - for instance, cancer. In that case, health insurance can be worth literally millions of dollars to you. Even if you are a diabetic, the value of health insurance can be substantial. Sometimes, it could even make financial sense in that case to accept a very low-paying job. On the other extreme of the scale, if you are very young and healthy, many people decide to forego insurance. In that case, the value of health insurance can be as little as the penalty (usually, 2% of your taxable income, I believe). Healthcare for the employee is more valuable to the employer than is providing healthcare for the rest of the family members.  Depending on the family situation, you're going to see significant differences in price between out of pocket costs for insurance of just the employee, vs cost for insuring the entire family.  This is because in the first instance the insurance is more subsidized by the company (as a percentage of the total cost).   The costs to the company for insuring just the individual (mid-career) are in the neighborhood of $5000 per year.  If this is all that's being negotiated (single person coverage) then I would use that amount as a baseline.
Last week, Barack Obama went to Osawatomie, Kansas, to kick off a more populist phase in his 2012 re-election bid. “This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class,” declared the US president, who chose the same venue that Teddy Roosevelt used in 1910 to call for a new progressive era. “I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot.”  Saying everyone should get a “fair shot” always makes political sense – particularly at a time when US income inequality rivals that of Mark Twain’s “Gilded Age”. But it might have been a stretch for Mr Obama to suggest the American middle class is facing a unique “make-or-break” moment. In reality, the labour force has been polarising for most of the past generation in a trend that has sharply accelerated since 2000.  America used to be exceptional. Postwar, it maintained lower unemployment than the Europeans and a higher rate of jobs turnover, enabling it to get away with more meagre benefits; “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay” was within the grasp of most. That gave America a booming middle class that until recently was the most important engine of global demand.  No longer. Today, somewhat remarkably, US joblessness is higher than in much of Europe. And the US consumer is mired in high personal debt. As the jobs crisis deepens, so too does US political polarisation. Allegations of “class warfare” are a staple of Washington debate. In contrast to the 1960s, dominated by protests for peace and civil rights, today’s battles are economic. Yet there are few signs that either policymakers or economists are closer to finding answers. Nothing Mr Obama has been able to accomplish since 2008 – including staving off a second Great Depression and pushing through an overhaul of the healthcare system – appears to have resolved that underlying structural challenge. Indeed, the signs are that the problem is intensifying. In the words of David Autor, a leading labour economist at Harvard University, the labour force is suffering from a growing “missing middle”.  In short, the middle-skilled jobs that once formed the ballast of the world’s wealthiest middle class are disappearing. They are being supplanted by relatively low-skilled (and low-paid) jobs that cannot be replaced either by new technology or by offshoring – such as home nursing and landscape gardening. Jobs are also being created for the highly skilled, notably in science, engineering and management. For the remainder of the workforce, including college graduates, it is both increasingly hard to find a secure job and tougher for those who do find jobs to be paid in line with inflation. Most people know that median US income has declined sharply since the late 1990s. Fewer are aware that real incomes also fell sharply in the same period for those with degrees. Only those with postgraduate qualifications, particularly PhDs, saw net gains (for some spectacular).  The jobs crisis has many worrying manifestations, of which three are worth highlighting. Perhaps the most troublesome is the waning dynamism of the market. People used to describe the US labour market as Schumpeterian, after the Austrian neoclassical economist who depicted the cycle of “creative destruction”. Jobs might be lost rapidly in a downturn but were swiftly reallocated to more productive sectors when economic growth resumed. That is not now the case. So ensuring retiree health benefits by investing in them is fraud? How is not passing a massive healthcare pension on to future generations to pay fraud? If the benefits aren't affordable maybe they shouldn't exist? My employer doesn't give me benefits they can't afford! "I think Feral Oink said it well here when someone asked if they should negotiate for additional benefits in lieu of a portion of salary. ""You never want to take a lower salary, especially not in exchange for something that is conditional e.g. benefits. Your salary is the only thing that is guaranteed as a condition of employment. Other things can be changed by the employer at a future point in time."" Does it make sense to take a lower salary so I can still contribute to a Roth IRA?" "&gt;Really? I kinda thought it had something to do with losing 2.6 million jobs in 2008. Now that's a lot of revenue gone! Oh also the bush tax cuts  All the more reason to keep increase spending by 5-10% a year, right? How about we create an envionment that yields more jobs rather than increasing the taxes of those left? Because that worked so well for social security originally supported by 5-10 employees per 1 receiving benefits, now it's only supported by 2 employees per 1 receiving benefits-- ultra sustainable!  &gt;So almost 10% of our deficit? I'd say that's a good start.   10% of our deficit, so 1/4th the amount of DEBT INTEREST we'll pay this year? A drop in the bucket either way. Spending is the real culprit.  &gt;I do agree we spend way too much on the pentagon, but pretty sure that went up a lot without our two unfunded republican wars.   And now we're in a half dozen active and secret conflicts; Afganistan, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, Eygpt. All the more reason for Obama to IMMEDIATELY remove us from those wars. But he hasn't he has expanded them. And our military costs keep going up. It's not about ""this isn't the right time to withdrawl"" it's about his corporate masters being the same as the Bush corporate masters telling him to continue. It's about oil/gas and the pipelines and projection of power that comes with it. Obama has continued and expanded the same policies as Bush, he cannot hide behind, ""Well Bush was worse"", he can't say that because it isnt true. Infact we're killing more peasants in other countries than ever before--- just with military industrial complex built drones.  &gt;There's also the unfunded Bush Medicare prescription drug plan.   Yep, that prevents the government from negotiating prices on prescriptions for a token  $10 Billion rebate, but which will yield $10 Trillion in revenues over the next 15 years. Sounds like a great ROI while the costs of drugs is skyhigh in the US.  So what did Obama do? He fed that industry another 30 million new customers without so much as any discount. The government purposely stays out of the negotiation of price. Why? Because the bill was written by insurance industry and healthcare industry executives like most bills are. Healthcare is nice, but its the COST of healthcare that is the issue. If the cost was more reasonable, you wouldnt even need insurance, but because they can charge $70 for a single pair of rubber gloves, when the market price on a BOX is $5-10 we can plainly see the cost of medical care in the US is bloated and we get much less than comparative countries.   Obama is just like Bush, he has enriched the various industries. The only difference between bush and Obama are which industries are enriched. You'll notice I didn't mention enrichment of citizens because they are an afterthought. Obama only needs to SELL the program to citizens, he sold it we bought it.  &gt;You can't seriously think putting those people back in charge will lead to good things.  No I don't think republicans or people like Bush or Romney are necessarily good for us either. The thing I have a problem with is that people like you think Obama is any different. He's not, new president, same as the old president. New speech writer, new cabinet (stuffed with corporate cronies and former lobbyists), but business as usual and marching orders from corporate and private masters." I think the biggest issue here is why are employees still dependent on their jobs to order to receive health care? Why should businesses be responsible for providing this?   What needs to happen in order for us to free businesses from this burdensome requirement? Single payer? Insurance sales across state lines? The number one problem here is cost of medical plans, how can that be lowered? I don't see this as an issue with obamacare, but an issue with employers that have profits-above-all mentality.   Healthcare as a means of compensation was invented back to attract talent in the 30s when salary and wage were frozen during the depression. Now employer tied healthcare has outlived its usefulness and become an impediment to people who want to find better employment but can't afford to lose medical coverage.   While obamacare is no single player, i think it's a step in the right direction. not to mention that single player was a political DoA that no congressman who hopes to be reelected for another term would support. It's disheartening but healthcare form to the likes of single payer will be unsettling for many powerful, wealthy industries that would fight it with tooth and nail. "Like most forms of insurance, health insurance is regulated at the state level. So what is available to you will depend greatly upon which state you live in. You can probably find a list of insurance companies from your state's official website. Many states now provide ""insurance of last resort"" for individuals who can't get insurance through private insurance companies. You can try looking into professional and trade associations. Some offer group insurance plans comparable with COBRA coverage, meaning you'd get a group discount and benefits but without the benefit of an employer paying 30-80% of your premiums. As a software developer you may qualify for membership in the IEEE or ACM, which both offer several forms of insurance to members. The ASP also offers insurance, though they don't provide much information about it on the public portions of their website. These organization offer other benefits besides insurance so you may want to take that in to consideration. The National Federation of Independent Business also offers insurance to members. You may find other associations in your specific area. Credit Unions, Coops and the local chamber of commerce are all possible avenues of finding lower cost insurance options. If you are religious there are even some faith based non-insurance organizations that provide medical cost sharing services. They depend upon the generosity and sense of fairness and obligation of their members to share the burden of medical expenses so their definitely not for everyone." "As best as I can understand, your payout is based on your AIME, which   is also capped at that same $118,500, so Trump's payout should also be   equivalently small, exactly proportional to this cap Not sure what you want from Bernie here, but that is correct. Is it accurate to say that Trump will be paid by social security as   though his actual income was $118,500, rather than his full income? Assuming Trump does pay that much (depends on how much of his income is actually subject to the FICA/SE tax), yes, it is accurate. However I believe what confuses you is the point Bernie Sanders made about people getting the same benefit while being rich. Bernie's point was that Trump and the likes don't need the social security income, while they're still getting it. Social Security is designed (at least theoretically) to be the safety net for people of age who cannot provide for themselves, thus it is not supposed to be ""you get what you paid"" system. This is a political discussion though. Social Security system, by definition, is based on a major principle of any socialist society: we as a group should support those who cannot support themselves. Thus, Bernie's point is that we shouldn't support Trump (and the likes) at all since they don't need that money. But they should still pay the tax to allow supporting those who do need, but cannot pay in."