The Employees' 2006 Bill of Slights

Last year, Jeronimo, her husband and her son moved to Houston to be near her parents for support and for the lower cost of living. In looking for a job as a legal secretary, Jeronimo considered three offers. Two of the firms wanted $600 a month for health care. Jeronimo knew that would not be possible, so she took the job where health insurance for her family cost $223.60 per month for medical and $25 per month for dental. When she was in Washington, she paid $80 per month for medical, dental and vision for herself and Brian, her 3-year-old. Her husband, Edvin, paid about $25 per month for individual coverage.

And now her brand-name medications are $40 while generics cost her $25. Just two or three years ago, she said, it cost her $25 for brand-name medications and $10 for generic.

She is a college graduate who makes about $54,000 a year, and her husband is a trained chef. They thought they were solidly middle class. But it doesn't feel that way anymore.

First, they moved the week Katrina hit. A job as a chef became a rarity when hundreds of thousands of people were looking for work. And so Jeronimo's husband signed up for truck-driving school. While he was working through class, they lived on Jeronimo's salary and benefits. But then she got sick. In addition, her son is an asthmatic. She now spends $360 a month for prescriptions for them both and had to pay $3,000 for her own medical bills this year, despite having health coverage.

"I was reading these people's comments on this survey who were saying, 'We have great jobs but we're just one tragedy away from disaster,' " she said. And she felt that was what had happened to her family. One sickness, and she was barely able to make ends meet. Together, she and her husband now earn about $75,000.

According to another Labor Day report, this one a scientific random-sample survey released last week by the Pew Research Center, about a quarter of all workers are unhappy with health insurance benefits (27 percent), their retirement plan (28 percent), the amount of money they earn (24 percent) and the level of their job stress (27 percent).

The reason so many are unhappy with health coverage is because, as is the case with Jeronimo, it has become unaffordable for many. Premiums increased an average of 9.2 percent in 2005, down from the 11.2 percent average in 2004, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The 2005 increase ended four consecutive years of double-digit increases, but the rate of growth is still more than three times the growth in workers' earnings (2.7 percent), the report said. Since 2000, premiums have gone up 73 percent.

That Jeronimo's husband is now a driver also means he is on the road most days, so she has to take time off when her son is sick.

Still, she considers herself "lucky" because her employer allowed her, in her first year of service, to use vacation and sick leave so she could stay home when her son was sick or go to her own doctor's appointments.

"They've been nothing but supportive," she said.

Well, it's all something that the 42 percent of you who expect to be at work this holiday, according to the Kronos survey, can ponder on Monday.

Happy Labor Day.

Join Amy from 11 a.m. to noon Tuesday athttp://washingtonpost.comto discuss your life at work. You can e-mail her atlifeatwork@washpost.com. Listen to Amy every Monday at 12:50 p.m. on Washington Post Radio, 107.7 FM/1500 AM.