Paying for 2018

[rebeccmeister]

Today I was finally able to finish repaying myself for expenses in 2018 - the costs of moving plus those 6 months of adjunct underemployment in Arizona. So that took 21 months, altogether. That's where I put the weird Covid money from the federal government, too.

Towards the end of last month, faculty at my college voted in support of an emergency financial measure to deal with our Covid-related spring budget shortfall. The emergency financial measure was to temporarily eliminate the college's contribution towards our retirement. That has been accompanied by a range of other measures, including temporary furloughs of employees who (supposedly) cannot do their jobs while students aren't present.

Our administrators are also putting procedures in place to allow pretenure faculty to opt to delay the tenure clock. On the one hand, that might be helpful, but on the other hand, that's a delay to a pay raise.

I feel fortunate to be among those who are currently still employed, and I feel like I have a reasonably comfortable income, all told. I might feel differently if I had children or ambitions of retiring in a timely fashion. The unemployment numbers at the moment are staggering and I remain furious about the state of wealth inequality in this country.

I guess perhaps this is how we find ourselves getting into politics as we get older.

2018 still wasn't as bad as 2011 because I did manage to build up a financial cushion as a postdoc and was even able to pay off all my student loans.

Comments

[annikusrex]

Sucks that academics are put through this sort of hardship generally, and cutting retirement contributions is probably like a 5% salary cut (though it doesn't feel that way immediately). But congrats on paying yourself back! I am currently quite comfortable salary-wise, and my job is relatively safe, but I think because of my generation (in combination with some natural tendencies) I am always a bit stressed out about money.

[rebeccmeister]

Yeah, I'm especially frustrated that cutting retirement contributions is so regressive for young, untenured faculty. Gah! You want us to stick around and keep the institution going, not feel long-term bitterness because the senior faculty only care about themselves.

And I hear you on always feeling uneasy about finances. I'm glad I developed the personal savings system that I developed as a grad student, where whenever I wanted to get something special, I put money in savings and divided the funds across tasks (at the time: student loans x 2, long-term savings, and fun things).

That's created enough of a cushion that I have at least bought myself time, if I need it.

[rainswolf]

I think they should give a one-year pay raise to people who delayed the tenure clock in their last year. I've never heard of a school doing that but IMO it makes sense.