Work-life balance

[MonkeyMama]

I just had to add... I would think that two part-time jobs would be safer/better on some level versus relying on one full-time income. I am curious how many who advised against that route would also advise against having one full-time income. I am guessing most?

IT seems to me if you both worked 25-30 hours per week you could gross more in the end, anyway. Then you have a job to fall back on if one of you loses your job. Which is another reason I like the 2-part-time job thing better.

[TBH]

I agree with MM completely about the greater security of having two part time workers rather than one full time worker. Honestly it makes me nervous to think of the whole family relying on one job. Between my freelance work, my part time job, and his job, we have so many sources of income. It would be pretty devastating if he lost his job, but we'd still have half our household income safely in place through my work. Because I'm self employed we do keep a pretty robust emergency fund, but it is nice to know that we would only have to cover a portion of our expenses with an emergency fund in case of job loss, not our entire household budget.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I think two part time is also better than 1 income. It makes for better job security.

[~bs]

I'm actually pretty surprised that most people think than 2 part time jobs is a better option than a single full time job. If the intention is 2 part time jobs to have both parents spending more quality time with their young child, good luck with that. Part timers, unless in an office 8-5 setting, are considered "filler" employees. Generally you get weird shifts, short shifts (get sent home if there's no work), need to be available upon short demand, etc. What happens to your child when you find out both parents need to come in for a morning shift the next day? What happens to your plans when the employer calls you in to work that afternoon? Etc. Seems far more disruptive than simply having a traditional stay at home mommy/daddy + 1 parent that sees the child nights/weekends.

A dual full time income will provide more security than a single full time income if the household is living on 1 income because their finances won't be thrown in the red upon job loss. Now we're talking about a single full time income versus 2 part time incomes - not really sure if 2 part time incomes are better than 1 full time income as loss of 1 part time job will also put the household in the negative, and there's twice the chance of 1 party losing a job. And that's not taking into consideration the lower status of part timers as I mentioned above and lower pay due to lack of career movement. A single full time worker on unemployment is likely equivalent to 1 person working part time at a high rate of pay at $20-30/hour or 2 people working part time at a $10-15 range. If I lost my full time job today, I'd be able to collect $2200/month (I checked).

Part time benefits generally never was equivalent to full time status, not even 10 or 20 years ago. Now, even more-so than before because there seems to be a shift where companies do not want to deal with the obamacare, where they want their labor force to become more "flexible" (read: easier to cut hours, benefits, and layoff). Companies are increasingly turning to temp hires, contract workers, and 1099 employees. And this seems to be a trend that's going on nationwide, and across industries. An example: instead of hiring 1 full time employee with full benefits, they'll hire 2 workers on a 90 day contract, continuously roll over the contract as needed, and provide little or no benefits. When the project is complete or the business slows, they simply don't renew the contract.

[riverwed070707]

I'm actually pretty surprised that most people think than 2 part time jobs is a better option than a single full time job. If the intention is 2 part time jobs to have both parents spending more quality time with their young child, good luck with that. Part timers, unless in an office 8-5 setting, are considered "filler" employees. Generally you get weird shifts, short shifts (get sent home if there's no work), need to be available upon short demand, etc. What happens to your child when you find out both parents need to come in for a morning shift the next day? What happens to your plans when the employer calls you in to work that afternoon? Etc. Seems far more disruptive than simply having a traditional stay at home mommy/daddy + 1 parent that sees the child nights/weekends.

A dual full time income will provide more security than a single full time income if the household is living on 1 income because their finances won't be thrown in the red upon job loss. Now we're talking about a single full time income versus 2 part time incomes - not really sure if 2 part time incomes are better than 1 full time income as loss of 1 part time job will also put the household in the negative, and there's twice the chance of 1 party losing a job. And that's not taking into consideration the lower status of part timers as I mentioned above and lower pay due to lack of career movement. A single full time worker on unemployment is likely equivalent to 1 person working part time at a high rate of pay at $20-30/hour or 2 people working part time at a $10-15 range. If I lost my full time job today, I'd be able to collect $2200/month (I checked).

Part time benefits generally never was equivalent to full time status, not even 10 or 20 years ago. Now, even more-so than before because there seems to be a shift where companies do not want to deal with the obamacare, where they want their labor force to become more "flexible" (read: easier to cut hours, benefits, and layoff). Companies are increasingly turning to temp hires, contract workers, and 1099 employees. And this seems to be a trend that's going on nationwide, and across industries. An example: instead of hiring 1 full time employee with full benefits, they'll hire 2 workers on a 90 day contract, continuously roll over the contract as needed, and provide little or no benefits. When the project is complete or the business slows, they simply don't renew the contract.

I don't plan to go get a job at McDonalds. People can still have respectable jobs working less than 40 hours a week. One I applied for last week is 32 hours a week and works 9 months a year -- its a program facilitator position at a private college. Your comments reflect a very narrow scope of part time work that is available. Not everyone works for 1/2 the pay in an on call situation with low job security.

I don't disagree that in the case of budget cuts a PTer might get cut before a FTer but we woudl still have an emergency fund in place and unless we were doing the same work, it seems highly unlikely both people would lose jobs at the same time -- so it would only be half income loss rather than full... although job security is in no way a factor in my decision, I do see it as less of a risk rather than a greater risk.

[~bs]

^

Seems like you have your mind made up. Best of luck to you.

[MonkeyMama]

I don't plan to go get a job at McDonalds. People can still have respectable jobs working less than 40 hours a week.

Yeah, I think BS is talking about different type jobs than we are thinking of. I know a lot of people who do this, but they tend to have high-paying professional jobs. I've worked with a lot of part-timers. In my industry all it means is less hours. (Not worse shifts or anything like that).

On the unemployment thing, the thing is as a sole breadwinner if I lose my job I only get $2k-ish per month benefits (the max). If we were both working part-time I would get $2k-ish a month benefits and we would still have one job. That two part-time scenario sounds WAY better to me. At my current pay rate I would have to work less than 20 hours per week to be paid less than the maximum unemployment benefits. My spouse was furloughed a decade ago, for a while before being laid off, and even back then received max benefits based on a much lower part-time income.

I am talking about how two $60,000 salaries would be a LOT more beneficial to us than one $80k salary. Something along those lines. For reference, we *Shrugged* when my spouse was furloughed and laid off about a decade ago. We banked $18,000-ish of unemployment benefits over the course of a year (Didn't need to touch a penny of it for bills). That was losing a full-time job. Just to maybe share my perspective. Doing the part-time thing could easily increase our household income by 50%. We would absolutely *shrug* if we lost one part-time income. Worst case is we would pull in $4,000/month unemployment benefits combined, if we were both unemployed. That is more than enough to pay all of our obligations.

Full-time, worst case is $2,000/month unemployment benefits. That would be a catastrophe over the long run. & obviously I am not able to save near as much with only $80k income versus $100k+. That means less saved to help in times of under-employment.

[TBH]

I think it's pretty hard to generalize about whether part time jobs are more vulnerable. At my part time job, it's a union shop and I have nearly 10 years of seniority. Of course something could happen and I could lose it, but it's unlikely. I work very few hours because I like my freelance work better, but if my freelance work started to slide I could add hours at my part time job.

It's true that we sometimes have situations where we both have meetings and need childcare. It was hard when our son was little. Now that he's 9, it's not as bad. This morning, for example, I had a phone meeting. He played Lego in his room. No big deal.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

It's always dependent on what career your moving part time to. Some you do work more and others you really are part-time. And benefits depend on employer. Even full time employees aren't given benefits sometimes. It's sometimes minimal.