WOMEN’S ECONOMIC SECURITY
Should I Marry My Boyfriend For The Financial Benefits?
All signs point to yes.
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Being a woman sucks. It just does. My entire life has been controlled by my quest for a living wage and health insurance. Two things that men don’t think twice about and just assume comes with every job.
Being a single woman working in the pink ghetto is a one-way trip to destitution and poverty. We make everything possible for the people we work for, and often have more experience in our field and know as much (or more) than they do, but get nothing in return in the way of benefits such as retirement, PTO, or health insurance.
After 30 years, I still make under the median income for a family of my size in the county in which I reside (this is legal-speak). I can easily file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy with no questions asked.
What that means is, I’m poor and I can’t pay back my debts.
Being a legal secretary is a prime example of a pink-ghetto job.
No attorneys in my area offer health insurance to their secretaries. They count on them being young women with husbands who have good jobs who will cover them under their employer-sponsored plans.
My blood pressure goes up just thinking about it. Excuse me while I tie on an apron and fix a martini for the man of the house. One olive or two, honey?
An attorney friend was looking for a new secretary, but the candidate I had in mind for him needed health insurance. I mentioned it to my boss, who doesn’t provide me with health insurance, and he said (and I’m not kidding):
“Geez, why can’t he just give her health insurance?”
OMFG, as the kids say.
The other problem is Social Security. Assuming it’s still around in 10 years, I might get $1,400 a month (that’s $16,800 a year. Yes, a year.)
But if I were married (to the same person, LOL) for more than ten years, and then divorced him, I could claim Social Security on my husband’s work record which the system correctly assumes will reflect a lifetime of vastly greater income than mine.
