i’m not sure if this is the right community to post this in.
for context:
my boyfriend and i graduated college last year. we both got associates degrees in graphic design. he found a local, small web design company to intern with before he graduated and was hired into a full-time position shortly before his internship ended, which was fantastic. he is a salaried employee, and was technically hired in at $14 an hour. he brought up how he felt that pay was a little low, but his employers told him that the benefits are good which = why the pay is low.
fast forward a year later and the company experienced multiple people (aka entire departments) leaving all within about a month and a half, which left him and the ONLY 2 other coworkers picking up a good chunk of work they were unfamiliar with. about a month ago, he finally got fed up with it and asked for a raise. enough people had left, the company wasn’t trying to actively hire anyone else at the time (even though they DESPERATELY need to), and he was tired of having all of this work put on him that he did not have the knowledge to complete (in addition to his normal jobs).
through this, he learned that his coworker, who has been with the company for nearly a decade, has not gotten a raise since he started. that dude has been getting paid $19 an hour for almost a decade!!! he also learned that another coworker who was planning on leaving (and has since left as well) asked for a raise once and was put off for several months. she was looking to get a mortgage for a home, but no bank would accept her as she wasn’t being paid enough.
after my boyfriend learned about that, he was panicking and becoming paranoid that they do not handle raises very well, and will do whatever it takes to ignore it.
today he told me that he finally met with his manager and they offered him a $2 raise (which i’m guessing would put him at $16 hourly but i’m not sure how salary works honestly). he was hoping for a more substantial pay increase, but his manager explained that he is “technically getting paid more than that as there are good benefits”. but his ordeal was that even though they offer decent benefits, he wanted to see a good pay increase on his paycheck.
so, my question…
is it normal for companies to provide a low pay rate in exchange for good benefits?
please keep in mind that we are young and JUST starting in “life”.