Subject: Pulling the wool over my eyes!!! Dear Teacher's husband,, My wife and I detailed her salary after reading your blog response. I'll summerize it here, to the penny (unlike your pathetic "math"). She earns $32.50/hour as a project manager. That by the way equals $67,600.00/year. She gets paid weekly. In last weeks check, 40 hours (by the way she is a salaried employee) times $32.50/hour equals $1300.00. Here were her deductions. NJ Taxes total - $57.34. Federal Withholding - $245.00. Medicare and SS - $99.45. Health Insurance - 175.29. Grand total using real math...take home pay equals $722.92. Oh....by the way, she also puts $100.00/week into her retirement accounts and $50.00/week into a 529 plan for our kids college education. Total take home pay after that $572.92. Using real math, that amount is less than half of her original salary. Let's talk working hours. She works 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year minus 1 3 vacation days, 5 sick/personal days, and 8 paid holidays. Work hours vary from 8 to about 10 per day and sometimes she has to go out of town, overnight. She carries the health insurance because I am self-employed. The $175.29 that comes out of her check weekly is 3/4 of the cost of the family plan under her employer. The employer picks up 1/4 of the cost. We have a $30.00 copay on all Dr visits and prescriptions and if one of us has to go to the hospital we also have a one-time $1500.00 hospital copay. Everything after that is covered as long as we go to a plan approved hospital using plan approved doctors. There is no eye or dental coverage. Even if she stays with this employer until retirement age, we will have to rely on Medicare and Medicade, Social Security and our retirement savings to live. There will be no pension and no healthcare. She would like to take some more classes at her own expense, to further her education, but with 3 kids and a full-time job it is really hard to fit in. You can whine all you want but the fact remains that my wife's situation is the norm. As a matter of fact, I would tend to believe she is better paid then many. So, pardon the rest of us for not being more sympathetic to horrible reality of being a teacher. Pardon us for not wanting to pay more in taxes so that you can have a $5.00 copay. 83% of the rest of the America can't unionize and make any demand we want. Oh.....I forgot something, my wife's company has a really great Christmas party with open bar and great gift giveaways all night. I knew there was a reason why I shouldn't complain.

Subject: Teacher's Husband: Dear Teacher's Husband, I forgot the most important thing of all. Another perk with my wife's well paid position is that she gets the added bonus of having to worry on a daily basis if the overall economy will continue to sustain her job or will she ne in a layoff situation in the near future. Don't you worry yourself one bit. We will still continue to pay our property tax to sustain your wife's job and keep our home despite our misfortune.