What that group wants to know, of course, is what he will do when the golden handcuffs come off at the end of next year.

Company pensions were the golden handcuffs which chained staff to a company.

John Steinbeck claimed the city was "a golden handcuff with the key thrown away."

You have nothing to lose but your golden handcuffs.

This provision, known as golden handcuffs, is routinely included in executives' contracts to give them incentives to stay.

Other businesses are also using deferred-compensation plans to create "golden handcuffs."

"It was much easier to leave because I didn't have the golden handcuffs," he said of Barnesandnoble.com.

"We also push stock down through the organization to create golden handcuffs," he said.

"There isn't usually a mass exodus of employees leaving from the acquiring company so that golden handcuffs are needed to keep them around."

The mortgage, the twins, the car payments: All these turned his paycheck into golden handcuffs.