Is health insurance a compelling enough reason to stay in a 9-to-5 job you hate?

I was just reading this story in the Wall Street Journal on author Marci Alboher’s “slash” career concept (what some call “portfolio careers”). You know, successful, well-paid Fortune 500 CPA who scales back her hours by 40 percent a week so she can start an after-school arts program for disadvantaged kids or perhaps launch her own clothing line. The article is an inspiring read for anyone who’s thinking of scaling back on the day job to pursue an anti 9-to-5 gig on the side.

But I chuckled when I read this line:

Despite the benefits of workplace flexibility and increased job satisfaction, pursing a portfolio career can have drawbacks, including stalled earning power and trouble maintaining company-sponsored health insurance.

That’s like saying, You could go into non-profit work/the arts/teaching if you really wanted to, but you’d give up all that money that you could have made had you stayed in the corporate gig you found unrewarding.*

That’s why they call ‘em tradeoffs, WSJ! Get your life and happiness back, or get $20,000, $30,000, or however much more a year in benefits and/or pay.

People have been choosing quality of life over guaranteed cash for decades. And besides, if you’re working 80 hours a week at your corporate job (as one of the subjects of this article was), are you really making that $100K salary? I would argue that your salary shrinks to $50K, since once upon a less-overworked time, salaries were based on a 40-hour workweek.

I’ve interviewed a lot of people in the last two years who feel beholden to a 9-to-5 career they hate because it affords them health insurance. For those with kids, the choice is easy; they suck it up because they don’t want to worry about how they’ll pay for a pediatrician visit. I can certainly appreciate that.

But what about those with no humanoid dependents? Is a few thousand bucks a year (how much individual healthcare costs) really worth staying for? I’m not convinced.

Thanks to a milestone birthday and a new insurance law in Washington state, my health plan recently went up by 33 percent. To shave some money off the premium, I raised my deductible am now shopping around for a new plan, though from what I’ve learned so far, unless I want catastrophic insurance only, this is probably the best deal I’ll get. Still, it’s not enough to send me back to the cube working for an industry that doesn’t thrill me. And if I were to work on staff for an industry that does thrill me — say, social service or the media, as many of my 9-to-5 friends do — unless I landed a government gig, I probably wouldn’t fare much better in the insurance department. I would probably have a partially subsidized plan that costs me a little bit more out of pocket each year.

So what about you? Is the health insurance worth staying in a job you’ve grown to resent — yes or no? As always, inquiring minds want to know.

*Before you write in to say that you love your corporate gig and you’re deeply offended by this post, or that your boss doesn’t work you 80 hours a week at your corporate gig, let me be clear: I’m not saying all corporate gigs are unrewarding, OK? I’m well aware that many people like their jobs.

11 comments February 5th, 2008