Single Mum- Job offer in USA. Good move?

[chedda88]

Hi everyone,

I am a single mum of 2 and I have just been offered a job in South Carolina. That means I will be moving from Bristol to South Carolina Charleston, to be precise.

It has been a long time coming but I am happy that I have been given the opportunity. I haven't accepted yet. I said I will get back to them by the end of the week.

I will be working as a Case Manager with Children's Services. However, downside is the salary. $40,000 USD which is about £30,000 . Roughly about what I earn now. Note, a lot of American job sites do not put the salary there, which is very frustrating! So I went out on a whim.

I have been able to manage just fine on this. But bear in mind I am a single mum of 2 very young children. I get additional help from the government whilst in the UK such as child tax credit, 30 free hours funding for my oldest.

I have lots of friends in Charleston and I have lived there before (many years ago) when I was 19 and 20 and I am now 30. But now I am a lot older and wiser. Plus I have kids! $40,000 USD, is that a good starting salary for a single mum with kids. I would have to stop my benefits in England and I am not sure I would be able get any government assistance in the USA until I am properly settled and my legal status changes.

Children's father should ideally help financially but I can't factor his "payments" into the equation right now.

Any advice would be helpful.

I know I might sound crazy but why do you need insurance?
I go to the gp once or twice a year and I’ve only been in hospital to have my kids!
My kids rarely go to the gp
So why not just pay as you go?

This would not work for many reasons. Doctors often will not see uninsured patients and if there is an accident or sudden serious illness it WILL bankrupt you.

I live in the U.S. I’m not sure if you know that children start school later here. 1st grade starts at age 6-7. If this is a government job it comes with good health insurance. All employers pay health insurance to full time employees btw. I’m on the west coast and were I live you could survive on $40,000 but it is small rural towns around here. $40,000 is not much in most areas. I really can’t see how you can get a work visa for this job. I would not do it.

I have to add, my husband had an accident last month and was air lifted to the nearest hospital, which was 80 miles away. The helicopter flight alone was $100,000. That is not the kind of cash my husband keeps in his back pocket, but luckily we have good insurance.

All said and done, I’m much rather live in the U.S. than the U.K. though.

gosh these costs are outrageous!

What was Obama care about? Was he trying to give reduced health care

Op

I wouldn’t move here! Your quality of life would not be good judging by the posts here!

I bet you are glad you posted

Mellie Obamacare is a huge reason behind getting Trump elected. Healthcare costs rocketed under Obamacare and those on lower incomes have been hit very hard.

I've spent the last few years as an auditor for a big4 accounting firm. I've looked at a lot of payroll data from around the country. Very very few people are making $40k a year in urban areas in non unionized roles or where there isn't overtime available at 1.5x pay and excellent benefits at little to no cost.

That said please decline this offer. You are not better off here on that salary as a single parent. If I were you I'd be looking to move to somewhere like the Wirral in the NW. You won't take a big cut in pay but schools are good and cost of living is relatively low.

God I'm shocked at the cost of healthcare in the US ! How do people pay those copay bills , can you get insurance for those?

People make more. If lower income benefits are normally much better.

Incomes here are much higher though.

ggirl - it's swings and roundabouts in some ways. My tax and NI equivalent deductions from my US salary were much lower than in the UK, in part because there isn't a chunk of money going to pay for the NHS. So, along with higher basic salaries, I had more money in my pocket which in theory would make me better able to meet co-pays (which vary significantly BTW, depending on the scheme that the employer provides - we had a maximum $8000 co-pay per year for the family . All my prescriptions were $12 co-pay; visit to the GP $25 but for an appointment that lasted as long as I needed plus annual health checks, bloodwork and vaccinations were covered by insurance)

The controversial part of Obamacare was requiring people to have insurance, but that was a key component to expanding the risk pool. It also provided subsidies to low income people to help them pay for insurance. Obamacare is actually still in place, though seriously watered down. It was a good beginning on the road to universal healthcare in the US, but we have had major setbacks under the present administration.

Women don't tend to work unless they are high wage earners.

I actually sort of agree with this. Across our friendship group it is usually the case once the 2nd child comes along the woman gives up work. In our city daycare is $2500 per month for an infant, dropping to about $1800 for pre-K and children start school a year later than in the UK. It is tax deductible but that doesn’t help that much because the tax rate is quite low anyway. So most of the women I know becomes SAHMs once they have their second unless they are very high earners who can afford a nanny or two lots of daycare fees. Or they have a big age gap. We do live in a particularly expensive part of the US though.

Across our friendship group it is usually the case once the 2nd child comes along the woman gives up work.

I think you are looking at a small sampling of a relatively privileged group. For vast numbers of women in the US, especially those earning a low income, becoming a SAHM is just not a viable option. This is true especially if they are single mothers, but is also true for many women who have a partner who is also a low or even middle income earner. She has to continue to work just so the family can eat and have a roof over their heads.

I'm not sure if it's okay to ask (so sorry if it isn't) but would your children miss not seeing their Dad or do they not see him anyway?

I wouldn't move to the US if you paid me.

I doubt anyone will.

Nearly all of the women in my community earn more than enough to cover childcare. Those that decide to stay home are making a choice and not many are SAHPs. As you go out to the burbs where housing is cheaper there are significantly more SAHPs but they aren't the majority. Most keep their hand in doing something.

Without crunching lots of figures, and also without knowing anything about the cost of living in Charleston, I would not move to the US on that salary, especially bearing in mind you'll need to pay for childcare for two small children.

I know some people could manage but I think it would be a struggle.

If you think in real terms about what your tax credits and free childcare are worth in pre-tax income, you need to at least add that on to the salary you'll need in the US.

You also need to find out what your health insurance premiums and copays will be - they are wildly variable depending on who you work for. Many state and large-company employees get a good subsidised deal which helps make up for the fact that their salary is lower, but there will still be a premium to pay, and copays. In my last job I paid $4k per year for my family, but that was a spectacularly good deal. On DH's current plan we spend about about $12-18k a year depending on the year. Once you can estimate what your costs will be in a bad year, add that on to what you require in your salary. Those costs usually come out of pre-tax income.

As a single parent on a low income you'll pay little federal tax. I'm not sure what South Carolina's state and city taxes are like.

There's a lot of number-crunching you can do, but honestly I think you'd struggle in a city on $40k. I think you can negotiate a lot on salary, sometimes a bit on benefits (I know in DH's company they will happily give you more paid time off if you're the right person for the job) and not at all on health insurance.

The mums of my DC's friends fell into three categories:

1. super high earners who could easily afford decent childcare (though large gaps between DC are common, to help ease that burden)

2. expats who had weighed up the cost of living in the USA and what their DP's could earn and decided to take time out of their careers to be a SAHM (usually had DC close together to get the most expensive bit of childcare out of the way asap)

3. single mums or mums with DPs earning more modest amounts, who worked multiple part-time jobs between them in order to come up with a patchwork of childcare covering the out of school hours (remembering that school finishes at 2pm M-Th and 1pm on F....!). The lucky ones had family members living nearby who could also help out with a few hours here and there

@chedda88 What did you decide?

I wouldn't move to the US if you paid me.

I wouldn’t move to the UK if you paid me

How is the children's Dad ok with just the idea of them moving to the other side of the Atlantic?

I wouldn't move to the UK if you paid me either. And I lived there 36 years. Op wasn't asking for an America bashing thread, wind your sodding neck in.