I just finally had time to read this post in full. What ********************ing Bull$hit. Since you posted after me, I will quote for you from my previous post (before your post):
"Is 13% 30% higher than 10%? Yes. But the 3% number is clearly in reference to a 3% salary match...."
There is no doubt that on a PERCENTAGE COMPARISON basis, we are 30% (or more) behind on retirement.
My original post regarding 3% vs. 30% was in response to this (note the underlined):
"Bluejet says you are only 3% behind your peers because you get a 5% match plus 5% profit sharing for a total of 10%. (For those of you that are math challenged, that makes us 30% short of our peers... not 3%)."
The problem is that the 3% number and the 30% number are NOT interchangable. You cannot simply say that the 3% number is incorrect, and should be changed to 30%. They are in entirely different contexts and used in two DIFFERENT math formulas.
The 3% figure is used in a unit comparison, where 1 unit=1% of salary matching. This is THE standard unit of evaluating 401k retirement matching. Jetblue deposits 10% of your salary into your 401k. That is 10 units of 1% salary match. Industry average is 13%, or 13 units of 1% salary match.
13-10= a deficit of 3 units of 1% salary matching. (note the addition/subtraction math operation and the context of unit comparison)
The other method is to compare our retirement match on a percentage basis. This method has you compare 10% to 13% as the percentage of increase required to raise our retirememt contribution to standard.
This formula is a multiplication/division formula.
10%*1.3=13% which is an increase of 30%
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For the stupid knuckle dragging Apes on here, I have NO problem with either way of representing the numbers. Both are 100% mathematically valid.
However, I have a problem with trying to interchange the numbers by saying 3% is wrong, and should simply be replaced by 30%.
They are to different mathematical formulas, using two different orders of operation and are used in two different contexts.
Period.
We are 3% behind on a unit basis, and 30% behind on a percentage basis.
Period.