How to ask for a raise in 2025 🤑

Hey! Hannah here. 👋 One of my highlights this year? Interviewing one of the country’s first female linemen at the IBEW International Women’s Conference (full interviews here). 

She started 40 years ago at $7.95 an hour. Can you guess how much she earns now? (Hint: It’s nearly eight times more.) Keep reading to find out! ⚡

3 Things to Know in 2025

New Year, new possibilities - and that includes your paycheck! As everyone starts mapping out their 2025 goals, let's put “getting the bag” at the top of the list. Here are 3 things you need to know to level up your salary game in the new year:

1. Your Market Rate

In 2024 survey, only 37% of people with a salary feel that it has kept up with inflation and 41% believe they are currently underpaid. The corporate and salary landscape is constantly changing, so why shouldn’t you? That starts with your market rate.

What is a “market rate” you ask? Finding the average salary data for your position in your area coupled with your experience and skill level. If you just paused to wonder how much you should or could be making, download our free Market Research Guide.

Maybe you see some potential in a current gig or the timing isn't quite right for a company switch and you want to stick it out. Our free “Are you Underpaid” quiz walks you through a series of questions from latest performance review evaluations to changes in job responsibilities and the market. Find out where you should be and ways to make that $$ jump!

2. How to Negotiate

Negotiations aren't just for new jobs - it’s a year round skill and there are so many ways you can quantify your worth outside of your base salary. Whether it’s benefits, flexible hours, PTO or that title you’ve always wanted, we got some tips to help get started and nail those conversations:

• Free Salary Negotiation Guide

• How to negotiate

• Negotiation myths

3. Your Rights in the Workplace

Knowledge is power, and knowing your workplace rights is your secret weapon for 2025. First things first: discussing your salary with coworkers isn't just allowed, it's legally protected under the National Labor Relations Act. Yes, even if your boss tries to tell you otherwise! 👀

• Talking about Pay in the Office

The only ones who benefit from salary secrecy and salary history questions are your employers. But don't worry we’ve got you covered on the latest pay transparency laws and the dos and don'ts when talking about pay in the workplace: 

• How to Talk Salary in the Office 

• Pay Transparency Laws by State 

Should healthcare CEOs without medical training make 70x what their highest paid doctors make? 🤔

We covered this in last week’s episode of Two Cents, breaking down how pay inequity is tied to the recent murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO. 

James got personal and shared what it was like to navigate dental pain without insurance, and Hannah shared her research into what skillsets are needed to make $20M+/year.

What are your two cents on pay in the healthcare industry? Listen or watch this week’s episode, and let us know in the comments! 

• Labor Unions on the Rise📈 Labor unions are all the rage. In fact, petitions for union representation elections have doubled since 2021, according to data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and for good reason.

• Senate Passes Social Security Fairness Act: 📜The United States Senate made history on December 21, 2024, by passing the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 (H.R. 82), a landmark victory for Public Sector Workers now awaiting President Joe Biden’s signature to become law.

• The TikTok ban just got real. 📵 A federal court upheld the ruling that TikTok owner ByteDance must sell TikTok by January 2025 or be banned nationwide. Millions of creators (just like us) and small businesses will be majorly impacted. If you follow us on TikTok, be sure to follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook so you don’t lose us. 

• Overdraft fees are getting slashed. 💸 The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will limit how much banks can charge for overdraft fees starting in 2025. Considering this move will save the average American household $225 a year, we call this a win.

Thanks for reading! We won’t be in your inbox next Tuesday. Enjoy the holidays and we’ll see you in two weeks! 💚

Oh, and that female lineman’s salary today? A cool base rate of $68.49 an hour (which can be closer to $100 an hour once you factor in benefits). Now that’s electrifying.