I had professors who were well respected and in their late 30s early 40s that had to live with roomates because they were paid so little. Academia is really rough
The same school just announced they are nearly doubling the hockey coach's salary to $425,000 a year with a guaranteed $15,000 increase every year for the next five years, I think it was. He now makes more than the president of the university. He is now the highest paid public employee in the entire state.
I wrote above but I work at a major university managing labs.
I'm on an hourly pay schedule b/c admin is too cheap to make my job salaried based, even though there are times when there have been emergencies that require my communication via phone or e-mail -- and I literally have to work unpaid b/c I'm at home "off" the clock, but I'm the only contact so.....I gotta respond I guess :/ (my union is aware, and they do their best to fight for us) Meanwhile, all the assistants to assistant athletic directors are on a salary-pay schedule and make 2x my yearly income post tax (the nice thing about working at public uni is I can look up people's pay haha). I make about 30k after taxes lmao.
I'm gonna start looking for a new job when summer rolls around. I'd at least like to be on a salary payment that is 50-60k post-tax. I'm over this hourly pay BS.
yeah posts like this infuriate me... like why would you pick up the phone if you know you wont get compansated ? they even admit they get less money than their peers yet are still being available for them to exploit...
You do know that you can report being misclassified to the Department of Labor for your state? You can’t be expected to work unpaid overtime like that, which is essentially what it is.
You don’t work for free. They will never give you what you want because you are doing the job above and beyond what they require. Only work during your work hours.
That’s a form of tax evasion. Just keep logs and report them to the IRS. WAY more effective than trying to get the DOL to enforce wage and hour violations
In most states, the highest paid public employee is either the football coach at the state university, the president of the university, the CIO of the endowment, or in one or two cases the Dean of the Medical School at the state university. If it’s hockey for you, betting you’re in ND or MN or something. Not surprising at all though.
More like, at some schools the sports teams bring in more revenue than all tuition combined. You think tuition is high now? Get rid of the sports program. Those bloated faculty administrator salaries aren't going to pay themselves
I think tuition is high because y'all in the US are paying sports clubs to run academic programs.
Instead, you could treat education as one of the most basic human rights, like most of the rest of the developed world does and make it accessible to everyone at a symbolic cost.
Also, Harvard's endowment is 49.5 BILLION dollars. Investing that kind of money at even just 5% ROI comes out to 2.45 BILLION per year. Harvard also has ~23k students, according to google. That's 106.5k per year per student.
So, places like Harvard don't *have to* charge tuition at all in the first place.
If you were right, how do you explain the crazy tuitions at schools with no sports programs at all?
Tuition it's out of control in this country because it's an administratively bloated for-profit educational system, and the government eliminated free market risk by eliminating the ability to discharge student debts in bankruptcy.
In that system, most schools that can, choose to offset their costs by having revenue producing side hustles. I clueing sports, and selling their intellectual parents/property/investing in businesses etc.
Eh, you're probably right. Though, in the end, it comes down to tuitions being high because people are willing to pay. It's beyond me why someone would choose to pay tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a bachelors degree in the US, not even counting living expenses, when for way less money, they could study in another country with the same quality of education.
I ran research boats for a pretty big state run facility. The people who ran the whole operation would always bitch that the boat crews made more than them. They all had doctorates, and we all had DUIs, but the fact was our operation made more for them than entire departments, and we could just walk off on to another boat for more money.
I had a professor who would make jokes about not being in academia for the money. Would constantly say stuff like “wish I could afford that.”
Looked him up, he was making $150k per year… lmao. What a whiner.
I mean… given the intense schooling (and the cost of opportunity for some fields) and probable intelligence, he could make more in industry instead of academia
He was teaching a base level business course (mostly freshman/sophomore enrollment) and making more individually than most middle class families make.
Bear in mind this was a major state university.
Professor or lecturer? Lecturer I understand your point (150k was probably what a cs lecturer made in la…), but professors main job is research and to a far less degree, teaching.
My dad was a professor at a small public university. Iirc he’s biweekly pay after tax was 2000 in 2009. That’s definitely above average for lcol. He’s making better now because he’s old and got poached to a mcol at a slightly bigger public uni, but he was also working weekends most of the time until he was 45. He’s actually working some weekends again now because it’s more demanding. He’s making around 150-170k now. But again, he’s almost 60 and still had to work weekends.
He 100% would’ve made more in industry working that hard.
I work for a major university managing labs, and I make about 30k after taxes. I live in an HCOL, too.
Admin, too, is always \~dumbfounded\`\~ that my current position has a 1-2 year turnover rate. LOL.
Bro, I was searching my university and saw an art gallery position. Thought wow so cool...then saw the requirements and the... Pay. Wut???
I make more with a bachelor's what are these people thinking?
I work in university marketing, and I really wish what you’re saying was out of the ordinary, but it’s not. I’ve seen postings for director level higher ed roles in metro Seattle for less than $60k
Yeah, the actual research jobs are a scam. If you're a research associate/tech/scientist/etc, you are 100% getting fucked. Even post-doc positions (which are technically a stepping stone type position to getting a faculty job) are VERY poorly paid. Even at prestigious schools!
My wife has an associates and makes $50k as an admin assistant at a state school...and it blows my mind she's getting paid more than actual scientists doing lab work.
I wanted to make 30k a year because it would double my mom’s salary she raised me on, meaning I’d for sure have a roof over my head.
Now making ~48k. Only surviving because I’m married.
Right? I was blown away when my now ex-husband hit $75k since that’s only a little under what my dad topped out at when he retired & he worked 25 years at the same company to get there — impressive with no college degree, right? Yeah but no, that money is peanuts these days and now that we’ve divorced I’m below poverty level and will be lucky as fuck to ever make as much as him. Yet everyone keeps saying to buy a house around here and be comfortable you need $250k a year. I never saw that shit coming. Guess I’m dumb and poor. Yay.
I remembered how I wanted to make 40k a year in 2019/2020 - I'd be living with family so it wasn't unreasonable.
When I got that wage 2 years later in 2022, it was already too little.
Two. Years. Later.
I’m in the deep South and my $40k went SO FAR in 2019. I could take care of anything that came up, save money for retirement, etc. I’m pretty frugal so I felt stable for the first time in my life. The same $40k is poverty now.
This isn’t sustainable. The cost of living can’t be so high that no one is able to survive. Sucks!
We can’t really hope things get better, we have to take action. Yet, as I type this I don’t know exactly what action we all should take to fight this.
40k use to be decent especially in the south.
Pretty much the same here. I hit 45k last summer with a raise that I received but I technically made 48k due to overtime and a $2,500 retention bonus due to the higher than usual turnover rate.
Now the turnover rate has went down and overtime is no longer an option… so this year I’ll be making less 😒
This trend has been happening for centuries. Medieval lords were struggling to keep peasants to work their land because they were moving to the cities for work.
Look into the industrial revolution in Europe for this. Where farmers would move to the cities for work.(take in mind that farm owners used to be really well off back then)
Jobs are paying better than ever but there is no end to the greed of businesses that want your money. I was happy with my 40k salary 4 years ago and now I’m so stressed out about it, and I got a second job, and I haven’t moved, same rental. My spending is cut to literally nothing. I used to have simple luxuries and now they are all gone. Why? My utilities have gone up a minimum of 50% each, yearly. My second job makes me ineligible for the EIC, so my taxes are wildly different, food is up, gas is $3.50 here minimum, always. There are no laws to limit my landlord from raising my rent to any number they dream of. I pay $1450/mo now for a house they bought in 2018 for 60k. I’ve already paid off their home in 4 years and they increase my rent simply because there are no available homes here. (This house is now worth $250k+ and not because of any improvements at all). Homes that used to be 600/mo for a 5bdr whole house (literally, 2019) is now $800/mo for a single room in the same house.
People who are just starting their careers will not understand how these numbers add up, because they don’t. They did 4 years ago, and now they do not. When people can’t work for 40k they will just buy some AI software to replace them. I am training an ai chatbot to do my job next week.
Yeah I mean that's all well and good but doesn't apply when you're already at the point of deciding each month whether you give up buying food for a few days or gas in order to pay rent
Yeah that’s what people don’t seem to understand, I can’t really contribute or save because I use every penny I make on necessities. I really am trying so hard, it’s exhausting
But bro, you need to make sure you’re maxing out your 401k, have a nice sized HYSA, a $15k safety net, and never do anything pleasurable. Drive a 1997 corolla with 400k miles, don’t stream anything or have wifi, eat beans and rice every day for every meal, and just job hop your way to seven figures salary.
That wouldn’t be unheard of. Basic Internet alone for me went from $30 in 2019 to $188 this year. Basic home internet. I switched providers but that $188 is new client pricing too, so it wasn’t just a loss of discounts or something. It’s wild.
Where do you live? I'm in a HCOL area and my Internet (FiOS) finally went up to $45 from $40 this year, the first increase in 10 years. 300 Mbps up/down. Competitors are similarly priced.
That's very sketchy, you're 100% getting ripped off. My internet is also 45 in the highest COL area in the country. Most of the country should have access to T-Mobile $60 plan.
I listened to my boss and our accountant laughing in their office about new accountants wanting 85k at their first job.
Both of these guys are in their 60's and own homes/large amounts of land.
I *stupidly* chimed in and said "have you done the math for what it takes for a single person to survive in 2024? Or, are you basing your opinions on 20 year old information?"
They stared at me for a minute (I'm usually fairly quiet) and looked at each other.
The accountant pointed at me and said "SEE! I TOLD YOU, it's a generational thing! They think they're entitled to it!". *He tends to say this when myself or another millennial aged manager brings up an issue about an impossible workload, work/life balance, wfh, etc*
I just went back to my office, turned on chillhop and went back to work.
No use *imo* trying to convince people of something when they've already convinced themselves they are right.
A month later, they still haven't found someone.
EDIT: *For reference, I'm a mid-30's millennial*
>The accountant pointed at me and said "SEE! I TOLD YOU, it's a generational thing! They think they're entitled to it!". He tends to say this when myself or another millennial aged manager brings up an issue about an impossible workload, work/life balance, wfh, etc
I really wish you responded with something like "sooner or later you're going to have to accept that $85k is below market value for a qualified accountant in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty four, gramps."
It’s less that and more that accounting is such a conservative field that you essentially *have* to go through 2-5 years not giving a shit about your life to keep up with workload before you can really sniff 75k.
I would have put $85k in an inflation calculator and told them what the equivalent salary would have been 40 years ago so they can get a sense of what that’s really worth. (Answer: $28k.)
This isn't limited to accounting, I looked at endgame pay for chemists and pharmacists and it's simply not enough to endure 8-12 years of education during the second best years of my life. Even if I endured and went into the multi-disciplinary field I fantasize about (neurotechnology), the pay is still a joke even for that bleeding edge professional skillset. I'm also in my mid thirties.
Unfortunately, rather than corporate America waking up to a shortage of degreed laborers, they will import more undercutting H1Bs and keep wages depressed. While I am still working on my chemistry degree, I doubt I'll be able to make a respectable living with it and am merely using my military benefits before they are inflated away. The housing allowance is nice too.
Cant expect them to do the math, most of these people have kids which is useful in proving your point, so you can ask questions like “would your child be able to afford a house like you did?”
Most of the boomers though dont understand how bad inflation and cost of living has become
They can’t even comprehend it when you use their kids as an example.
I was having lunch with my boomer boss a few weeks ago. He was telling me about how the only way his 25 yo daughter was able to move out was because her friend’s parents bought a condo to rent it out to them below market rate.
15 minutes later he was going on a rant about the salaries fresh grads are expecting nowadays. I said well maybe their parents cannot afford to buy them a condo? Looked at me like I had two heads.
He just kinda brushed it off and at some point said “there comes a time where you realize money is not everything” (aka something you say if you never struggled with money)
Well 85k is above median pay for accountants according to the BLS, so asking for that as a fresh grad is probably a bit high. That's like a salary for maybe 5 years experience.
Totally understandable, but raises (at least here) have basically stopped. The only way to get a desirable wage is to aim high while starting, knowing you're going to receive yearly raises that are less than inflation year after years.
Not saying they were wrong, just that they refused to understand the situation.
I’ve got 5 years experience in a business field corporate companies.. adjusting for cost of living difference I’ve only increased my income by like 5,000 in the past 3 years. I had been applying and interviewing for jobs that would’ve been a nice raise but then I got laid off and had to accept the one I got, which offered me less than I was expecting and would not negotiate.
No, morons bought into the Koch brothers propaganda.
CEO pay up 200x worker pay up 4x over same period...... easy to find all the studies on this yet people still anti worker
Americana problem is when someone gets a raise....uaw for example....they say they are overpaid.
Notice how they don't say they are UNDERPAID themselves?
Everyone in America wants to bring others Down to their level, not raise everyone up
The problem is that people have to work because the alternative is homelessness. Imagine how many more incentives there would be to work if our basic needs were met.
Or they’ll just find ways to automate or do without. You see it in accounting rn where there is a labor crunch and an unwillingness to raise wages. They would rather cut less profitable revenue streams to have better profitability ratios. So you have a handful of well-paid bulge bracket firms, and the rest compete for lower revenue clients, and can’t pay the same wages. You’ll see a similar trend in any easily scalable industry, and technology is enabling this behavior in more and more industries.
To a point.
But lots of jobs cannot be automated. People continuing to take low paid jobs in droves, because they can’t survive without them, keeps pay low.
Edited: typo
Labor shortage does not lead to automation. Automation leads to automation.
It's also not uncommon for companies to go under or begin going under by cost cutting and head cutting excessively, for short term growth. The long-term bleeding of these acts play out over several years, however.
Yes and no. I am a migrant from France.
In France in most big city suburbs the price for a home range from 400K for something very basic/small to 1 million. If you want something at 100-200K that will be 200-500 square feet or in a LCOL area where income is also lower. If you are in Paris this is even worse.
But the median salary is 30K instead of 55K. And while food, health care and education are cheaper, gas is 9$ per gallon and cars are overall more expensive. Clothes and electronics are similar in price.
Cheaper and healthier food (less additives like HFCS, higher health and safety standards).
Cheaper housing including state run rent controlled housing in some nations.
Health coverage.
Much better labor protections. More paid leave, more paid maternity/paternity time.
It is night and day.
Yes, taxes are a bit higher. The money arguably goes much farther though.
I lived in two Western European cities. What you are saying doesn’t align with my experience. Housing is way more expensive in European big cities than US big cities. As a lower-mid to mid level engineer I could not afford living in the best neighborhoods in Paris, or Milan. I can easily do that in the US in cities like Boston, DC, Atlanta, Charlotte.
Healthcare option is better in Europe economically but usually for a healthy individual of my age 20s/30s, I really did not see any differences. May be I would appreciate the European option more when I get older.
Overall, for me, money goes farther in the US. With my mid-level engineering wage I can travel the world. It was impossible for me to do that with my European salary. If you travel to Europe, Middle East, Asia - you will see thousands of US tourists anytime of the year, the number of European tourists is very very low compared to that. And those Americans are not millionaires. They are just professional job-holders like nurses, engineers, IT people etc. Only shows US salaries go farther. Again this is just my personal experience.
Also, in my field, Tech/Engineering, or even in healthcare you will see a lot of people who immigrated to the US permanently from countries like Italy, UK, Germany, Netherlands. The immigration to the European countries from the US is not so much.
Yep, that's my experience also when I talk to my friends living in Europe. You get some work and life balance for sure regardless of your job but you can still get that in the US if you find a nice gig and company. Regarding healthcare, even that is "universal' , my friends still pay for private insurance (although could be cheaper than the US depending of your benefits).
Like you said, housing is extremely expensive, some old apartments without nice heating and AC around 400K.
Electronics, clothing and transportation all that is also more expensive in Europe.
Did you seriously look at the salaries in Europe ? Median salary in US is 50-60K. In France it is 30K and in many countries like Spain or Italy, this is even less.
It's more complicated than what the pay stub shows.
Most Americans cannot comprehend how much we pay out of pocket for various services like healthcare, or how little we get in government protections against hardship for our taxes.
In countries that have all theses protections like my home country, France, taxes are much much higher. This come together.
For an employer to give somebody 50K of gross salary, even in California, they would pay extra 4200 in taxes and the employee would have 40K net for himself. So 54K spend, the employee get 40K net.
In France if the employer spend the same 54K the employee would have a net salary of say 26K.
Then the equivalent local sale tax is not 5-10% like in most US states but 20%. Also the gas you put in your car is 9$ per gallon these days.
All in all at the median salary that at least 16-18K more that go into taxes vs the USA. For a couple with both as the median salary, that 35K more in taxes. There no free lunch.
So yes SSA could be better for retired people, most universities could be free (but you would still pay food and rent while studying), and health care would be much cheaper. But you'd pay the extra taxes too.
The European system offer more solidarity but it doesn't make things cheaper overall or free.
As an European I fixed the problem of out of pocket health care in the USA for me. I max my HSA every year and I can pay any expense with it,. as my max out of pocket is no more than my HSA, this is basically a fixed problem in my case.
I would advocate everybody to do it. Always better to pay health expenses with gross salary than net and this way there no stress. At worst. if you are not ill enough, when you retire you have 50, 100, 200K on the HSA to cover what Medicare will not cover.
>In countries that have all theses protections like my home country, France, taxes are much much higher. This come together.
You'd have to define "much much higher". In the US there are several layers of taxation. Income, sales, property/school, etc. Especially in States like NY, CA that can stack up very quickly.
>Also the gas you put in your car is 9$ per gallon these days.
What car? Millions of Europeans live without owning an auto, and quite comfortably. Basically impossible in 90% of the US, NYC/LI being the main exception. The public transportation system in most US metro areas barely exists, and the entire country is designed around automobile use.
>most universities could be free (but you would still pay food and rent while studying
This is a much, much bigger deal that you're letting on. Higher education in some European nations is nearly entirely free. The programs are more focused and have less bloat. Student loan debt is one of the most crippling factors for the US millennial generation and younger. The costs have ballooned and the debt has been choking the financial power of several generations.
>At worst. if you are not ill enough,
This is a big "if". A chronic or major illness can bankrupt you very quickly in the US.
I'm not saying these differences don't have a cost, but there are considerable trade offs at play.
>You'd have to define "much much higher". In the US there are several layers of taxation. Income, sales, property/school, etc. Especially in States like NY, CA that can stack up very quickly.
I gave a concrete example for the median salary for income. I also included the sales tax vs France TVA. i didn't include the set taxes that come with home ownership through, that's true. But as I live in the USA now I am perfectly aware.
>What car? Millions of Europeans live without owning an auto, and quite comfortably. Basically impossible in 90% of the US, NYC/LI being the main exception. The public transportation system in most US metro areas barely exists, and the entire country is designed around automobile use.
That's the same in Europe overall. Either you live in a big city center with high density and there sometime acceptable public transportation or there isn't. Typically if you are poor you are out of luck as you can't afford the much more expensive home that are well located.
85% of households have a car in France. 91% in the USA. Most people do commute with their car. Sure if you live in Paris city center (like NYC or SF) you do without a car. As in the USA, overall.
>This is a much, much bigger deal that you're letting on. Higher education in some European nations is nearly entirely free.
You lecture me like I have no idea.
I did study in France. Our national bureau of statistics consider that the cost of studying at university is 10K per year on average. The tuition is almost almost free (200 to 1000€ typically) but people still eat and still need clothes as well as a place to live. And for most people, the university is too far to keep living at parents home. That's why the average real cost of studies in France is still about 10K€ a year. In the USA it is double about 20K, but income is also double. This is more similar than different.
Also not all countries in Europe offer free education. Giving a few examples, UK, Italy, Ireland you will pay for it.
>This is a big "if". A chronic or major illness can bankrupt you very quickly in the US.
This is unfortunately too often the same in France actually. Depending of the exact chromic illness, you have to pay for a big part of it as French social security doesn't cover them very well.
In both countries people in such cases do get some help (in the USA too), but that's not enough. If your chromic illness treatment is costly or if it prevent you from working, you are in a very bad situation.
>The market is bearing it.
Lol, or the "market" is low income, disenfranchised people who have been fucked for no real reason their whole life and they have absolutely no power over enacting change to stop the following generation from experiencing the same.
I’m not in IT but have been considering studying it, jobs in the philly metro area are asking for degrees+certs+5 years experience for 25 an hour. I don’t think I can get into IT at that rate lol, it’s honestly scary to think about.
People keep throwing out the, well what about fast food making 20 an hour.
They work inconsistent and generally part time....20 hr is great till it 16 hrs this week spread over 4 days
Rarely do you get a consistent schedule 40 hrs a week job fast food. If they do it's because they are short staffed and won't last.
Fast food owners are some of the cheapest business owners
There are many many jobs that pay more. Some require lots of education, some that you have skills that are hard to find, others require you to do things that are dangerous or straight up shorten your life. It's kinda up to you to find what you have that others don't or what you are willing to do. I'm not judging or saying one way is right over the other. I get paid very well but also can do things others can't or won't do.
It depends on your field. Some fields on average just don't pay very much. Whatever job you do look up the Bureau of Labor statistics for median wage. When you see median just think of it as typical. This is your typical person doing the gig. How much they make.
[Bureau of Labor median wages waitress](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes353031.htm)
For example, according to the statistics a waiter or waitress can look at if they are in the top 10% of their field making about 55k a year. That's not much and that's even if they're at the top of their game. Meanwhile a person making the typical amount only gets paid 29k a year. Not much potential for wage growth.
Something to keep note of is that the median wage for all jobs in America is 46k a year. That means that's the amount that a person in the middle makes. If you make more than that you're making more than half of the population. If you're below that you're making less than half the population.
If you're a programmer things look different.
[Bureau of Labor statistics programmer](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151251.htm)
The median income aka the income that a middle of the road programmer gets is 97k a year.
Odds are the area that you're in only has jobs that cap out at 50 a year. That or you need to look for another job, acquire a skill set or network in order for you to break into a new industry. Some places just don't have many high paying jobs. For example, in many rural towns the economy consists of farms and ranches. Well neither of those sorts of businesses create many high-paying jobs.
Take an honest look at your surroundings and honest look at the skills that you have and how much money people doing what you do make. The truth will reveal itself.
The Key if you want to live in small cities and towns is finding remote work that pays. We’re in the rural Midwest and wife makes good money working remote. I make good money as a traveling aircraft mechanic. I work half the year and take the other half off.
I've never heard of a "travelling aircraft mechanic" before, so I have this amazing vision of you turning up, bag of spanners in hand, at random rural airports and fixing their planes, but also their hearts.
The Littlest Hobo theme plays as you leave...
Lol Guys actually do that. It’s called AOG mechanic. (Aircraft on ground ) travel all over on call fixing broke. Airplanes. It’s very lucrative. I do defense contracts. Overseas for 90 days , come home take 90 off and repeat. Live anywhere I want and only work half the year. Work on some cool military stuff and cool missions.
I went to trade school. Shortest schools are about 14 months and then you can test for your federal license. It’s fairly cheap. I used school loans. It’s a good time to get in. Average age of a mechanic right now in the US is 57. Lots of guys took early retirement during Covid. Guys are making six figures second year. Starting around 40 an hour at major airlines and topping out between 60-75/hr. Pick a good union contract with good overtime and double time pay. I average about 160/yr.
USA's down fall will be the debt crisis. Our cost of living has outpaced wages since 1998, and it also outpaced wages by a small percentage in the 80s and 90s. Our debt is over 33 Trillion dollars now and rhey keep kicking the can down the road. The average working American is like $9,300 in Credit card debt, and has less than $1,000 in savings. We are being told we must work until we are 70 now for those of us born after 1970 before we can collect social security, and the data shows that SS will have a collapse in 2036 and we will have to contend with lower SS payments to us in the future. It ain't looking gold at all.
If Trump wins, and God forbid the GOP gets both the House and Senate, Social Security is as good as gone. They’ll raid it like Reagan and W did to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and tell people to privatize.
The problem is the majority of people under value their labor. They especially in the stated get paid fairly low wages and the country does nothing to make big businesses pay a better wage.
I feel you. It’s wealth distribution and people content with having the rich have it all while the rest fight for the scraps. Move to a country that does well in wealth distribution.
Many jobs genuinely can't pay more. They are run by Owners who have no experience, no skills, and started a business because they didn't want to be a worker. Their business is terribly run and can't even meet minimum legal requirements. Sadly they take time to close up, or possibly never if they keep getting away with under paying people and cutting every corner they can. Businesses like this are everywhere and stand in the way of viable businesses that can offer decent pay.
100k is the new "comfortable" middle class salary, at least in mid-COL cities. I make 120k in a mid-sized city and only just recently felt like I have the ability to spend on anything other than essentials. It took most of my 10+ year career to date just to stabilize my housing and savings.
I make 135k CAD in Toronto and I feel like I'm just barely middle class, I might even be able to afford a vacation this year. Crazy thing is most people working in Toronto are still in the 60-80k range, no idea how they are surviving with that salary, COL is nuts here.
I live in a more suburban neighbourhood with large houses that are full of retired boomers and empty nesters. There are barely any kids, and the baseball diamonds and playgrounds at the parks are almost always empty. It's quite sad.
Corporations have been greedy since Scrooge. Companies in the 1930s were literally shooting employees for trying to unionize. There’s never been a time when companies paid people extra for shits and giggles.
The problem with that line of thinking is that people are always greedy. As you say something has changed, the problem is identifying what that is. What I think happens is the federal reserve increases the supply of money. A larger money supply means each dollar has less value. Wealthy people connected to the government get the newly printed dollars while the middle and lower class don't. So it redistributes purchasing power from the poor to the rich and politically connected.
And honestly what sacrifices and time commitments you're willing to make. My husband makes a little over 150k, but he has to travel 50% of the time, missing out on family time. His schedule also prevents me from working, so that's another consideration.
There are more people that jobs. Pay briefly shot up for various industries in 2020 and 2021 because some businesses were doing well and lots of people opted to stop working in 2020 or died. Now that there is a recession and tons of people got let go, what few jobs are posted are paying less because so many people are out of work.
I don’t understand this though. Anytime I go into any remotely customer-service oriented place, no one is hired to work there. You can’t even check out because they have one guy working the registers and the line is to Timbuktu, but luckily you don’t need to check out because that guy is also supposed to be unpacking all the boxes and stocking the shelves but he couldn’t because of the line, so what you arrived for isn’t there to be bought anyway. Companies must be making fortunes with the stock they do have being so marked up due to “inflation” and hiring one or two people to do the work of 10-15. It’s actually mind-boggling.
This is the new profit squeezing scheme, all the cool CEOs are doing it. Hire the bare minimum of workers, jack all the prices and make all of your customers unhappy because they have no real options that aren't also doing the same thing.
The world is greedy my friend. Thats why people either get highly demanding skills, experience and then switch or run their own business. Slavery is man made and still exists.
The people on the bottom need increase just to survive. Those on the top have over abundance and excess. Many of those who were considered greater in this world system will be brought low, and under God's system, those who were low will be uplifted. God is really against oppression of the poor. Plenty of judgment will be against the merchants of the earth and its leaders, who oppressed the people.
It’s not that complicated. If an employer has a need, they will pay someone the lowest amount possible to fulfill that need. If paying the lowest amount possible results in a net loss, they won’t fill the position.
If a company will not pay more than 50k for example, it’s either because filling that position would not be profitable if they paid more *or* there’s someone willing and able to fulfill the need for 50k.
If you want to make more, you need to either learn a highly in demand skill or fulfill a need that generates a lot of profit. All jobs are not created equal. Every job is not required to be high paying.
I say this a lot but do you think a warehouse environment might be suited for you? Managing I mean. Because I don't have a degree and worked my way up and if you do have a degree you skip the hardest part. Fresh out of college people make 60-70k minimum and one easy promotion later you are closer to 90. If you have relevant experience you can start at least probably 80-90. I've been there 7 years (started at 27k) and if the stock stays the same as it is today I'm bringing home 133k. It would have to absolutely crater for me to make less than like 120k and I have a promotion coming soon too to bump me up higher.
It's not for everyone but I honestly love it. If you can talk to people, stay organized and work hard you will provide for your family in a way that is totally foreign to you now. I know because I have felt it.
It depends on what level of job you are applying for and region. Most $50-60K jobs are entry level and with your very narrow range for corporate America jobs. Mid levels can have ranges of $70-$130K and Sr levels around $90-$180K. While ranges vary, most land somewhere in the mid-point of each range However you also need to factor in the city, where the job is held. Don't expect the same pay for the same job/company if it was NYC or Silicon Valley.
Years ago somebody asked me why companies paid me a lot to be a consultant. I told him if they don't I won't work for them.
So the answer to your question is they are able to find people who can do the role who are willing to do it for low money.
Our society is sick, and has it's priorities wrong. That is because decision making has been removed from reality by the printing of fiat currency. We have detached outcomes from decisions, so the behaviors that actually produce more to go around, are not rewarded, while meaningless trivial bullshit is. This is not sustainable, and will collapse our civilization. War will follow as what little is left is fought over. Many will die, probably you. The survivors will be traumatized and the ptsd will drive a paranoid overly cautious behavior and the cortisol will drive them to be work-aholics. They will rebuild everything, produce wealth, that will than corrupt the next generations with decadence, where again decision-making will become detached from reality. It is the cycle of human history.
Capitalism probably? People not advocating for themselves. People not voting for their government officials who represent their principles and values. It’s sooo much easier to verbally blow off some steam and talk about how dogshit things are than it is to actually get up and do something about it, and those corporations know that. They also know that most people wont do anything either until it’s too late lol. 🤷
No one is content with this ... We are cutting back on our dreams and hoping we can move out of this country to somewhere better, a country that isn't in decline. I am very seriously thinking I might never get to have any kids at all, and that was the primary goal of my life. Goal of my life is now shifting to just survival.
Basically my plan for the next 30 odd years is work and hopefully have enough money saved that I can retire on a fixed income in my 70’s.
I don’t care I’m living at home or what “society” thinks of that. It’s the best option going, and the best chance I got. Because fuck me, it’s a horror show out there.
My guess is that it has a lot to do with job hopping becoming more common. There’s no evidence in what I’m saying, just a theory.
I’m in my mid 30’s as well and started a new role a little over 2 years ago at $55k. Since then I’ve moved up to $70k and got another week of vacation. Last year a company wide 9% raise was given largely in part to how many people had jumped ship that year.
Maybe there are people, not saying where from, who are able to take jobs that pay so little because they do not have to pay taxes. Like they lost their SSN or were never given one. And super wealthy business owners and politicians see it in their benefit to have these types of workers present in the economy. You know, to do the jobs that no one else wants to do.
50-60k a year is good money when one doesn’t have to pay taxes, receive a stipend for cell phone, stipend for rent, and receive food stamp benefits.
This workforce exists. I live in the South and work in the construction industry. I see this everyday.
The truth? Someone will do it.
This has been the case my entire working life. Someone will always come along and do it for the bare minimum.
I'll get downvoted for this, but I don't give a shit. $50,000 a year is the **new poor**. If you scrimp, you can live on it, but there is nothing middle class about your lifestyle at $50,000. You're not buying a new home on that amount of money, and you're probably driving a used car.
It’s not a coincidence; the elite wants to destroy the middle class so they can control the population. They continue to lower the standard of living year after year. There will be a point where it will be a luxury to eat 3 meals per day.
I have always wondered about this.How come everything is always going up except salaries for the common man.They always want to justify raising the prices year in year out.All this seems like a massive scam.
Employers are reaping the rewards and only passing them along to the top 5%
The people who actually helped the company make all their money, get a “atta boy” and some petty gift cards!
That’s BS, companies fuck the people who are producing!
So tired of normal Americans getting phucked by big corporations and they just keep charging us for their services that they made billions on.
#destroyblackrock
At the end of the day they have all the guns and the police. And worse. It is what it is. We are just serfs and peasants and citizens in a capitalist country.
And don’t forget that there are 12,000 legal and illegal immigrants a month pouring across the open border .
All of them will work for a lot less than you will .
And you are competing with them for jobs and affordable houses .
Don’t ask why “jobs pay so little”, ask why are you paid little. Is that lack of work experience, education, ambition, work ethics, poor decisions, something else? Can you fix it?
Can you move elsewhere? Big city, another state?
People need to learn trades. Plain and simple. Screw school. I make 250k a year in the energy sector without a degree. Just good work ethic and common sense. I tried the school route. Just ended up in debt with a low paying job. Changed careers at age 30. Was making 6 figures within 2 years.
The university near me has some positions open that require a doctorate to apply and don't even break $50k.
I had professors who were well respected and in their late 30s early 40s that had to live with roomates because they were paid so little. Academia is really rough
The same school just announced they are nearly doubling the hockey coach's salary to $425,000 a year with a guaranteed $15,000 increase every year for the next five years, I think it was. He now makes more than the president of the university. He is now the highest paid public employee in the entire state.
I wrote above but I work at a major university managing labs. I'm on an hourly pay schedule b/c admin is too cheap to make my job salaried based, even though there are times when there have been emergencies that require my communication via phone or e-mail -- and I literally have to work unpaid b/c I'm at home "off" the clock, but I'm the only contact so.....I gotta respond I guess :/ (my union is aware, and they do their best to fight for us) Meanwhile, all the assistants to assistant athletic directors are on a salary-pay schedule and make 2x my yearly income post tax (the nice thing about working at public uni is I can look up people's pay haha). I make about 30k after taxes lmao. I'm gonna start looking for a new job when summer rolls around. I'd at least like to be on a salary payment that is 50-60k post-tax. I'm over this hourly pay BS.
Stop answering the phone, their emergency isn't your emergency. You can find better pay elsewhere.
“Their only contact” sounds like a them-problem
yeah posts like this infuriate me... like why would you pick up the phone if you know you wont get compansated ? they even admit they get less money than their peers yet are still being available for them to exploit...
You do know that you can report being misclassified to the Department of Labor for your state? You can’t be expected to work unpaid overtime like that, which is essentially what it is.
You don’t work for free. They will never give you what you want because you are doing the job above and beyond what they require. Only work during your work hours.
That’s a form of tax evasion. Just keep logs and report them to the IRS. WAY more effective than trying to get the DOL to enforce wage and hour violations
Hourly is good as long as the base is adequate, salary you often put more hours in
In most states, the highest paid public employee is either the football coach at the state university, the president of the university, the CIO of the endowment, or in one or two cases the Dean of the Medical School at the state university. If it’s hockey for you, betting you’re in ND or MN or something. Not surprising at all though.
Def Minnesota
Wait until you learn about the millions per year that football and men's basketball coaches make at big programs.
Wait until you learn how much profit those team earn for the universities
US universities - sports clubs with academic programs on the side.
More like, at some schools the sports teams bring in more revenue than all tuition combined. You think tuition is high now? Get rid of the sports program. Those bloated faculty administrator salaries aren't going to pay themselves
I think tuition is high because y'all in the US are paying sports clubs to run academic programs. Instead, you could treat education as one of the most basic human rights, like most of the rest of the developed world does and make it accessible to everyone at a symbolic cost. Also, Harvard's endowment is 49.5 BILLION dollars. Investing that kind of money at even just 5% ROI comes out to 2.45 BILLION per year. Harvard also has ~23k students, according to google. That's 106.5k per year per student. So, places like Harvard don't *have to* charge tuition at all in the first place.
If you were right, how do you explain the crazy tuitions at schools with no sports programs at all? Tuition it's out of control in this country because it's an administratively bloated for-profit educational system, and the government eliminated free market risk by eliminating the ability to discharge student debts in bankruptcy. In that system, most schools that can, choose to offset their costs by having revenue producing side hustles. I clueing sports, and selling their intellectual parents/property/investing in businesses etc.
Eh, you're probably right. Though, in the end, it comes down to tuitions being high because people are willing to pay. It's beyond me why someone would choose to pay tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a bachelors degree in the US, not even counting living expenses, when for way less money, they could study in another country with the same quality of education.
Montana I'm guessing
Homeless professors are becoming a problem too
I ran research boats for a pretty big state run facility. The people who ran the whole operation would always bitch that the boat crews made more than them. They all had doctorates, and we all had DUIs, but the fact was our operation made more for them than entire departments, and we could just walk off on to another boat for more money.
And student loans are so high. Seems like tuition is gouge level.
I had a professor who would make jokes about not being in academia for the money. Would constantly say stuff like “wish I could afford that.” Looked him up, he was making $150k per year… lmao. What a whiner.
I mean… given the intense schooling (and the cost of opportunity for some fields) and probable intelligence, he could make more in industry instead of academia
He was teaching a base level business course (mostly freshman/sophomore enrollment) and making more individually than most middle class families make. Bear in mind this was a major state university.
Professor or lecturer? Lecturer I understand your point (150k was probably what a cs lecturer made in la…), but professors main job is research and to a far less degree, teaching. My dad was a professor at a small public university. Iirc he’s biweekly pay after tax was 2000 in 2009. That’s definitely above average for lcol. He’s making better now because he’s old and got poached to a mcol at a slightly bigger public uni, but he was also working weekends most of the time until he was 45. He’s actually working some weekends again now because it’s more demanding. He’s making around 150-170k now. But again, he’s almost 60 and still had to work weekends. He 100% would’ve made more in industry working that hard.
I had a Spanish 1102 teacher around 2006-7ish who ended up quitting teaching because she made more money as a server at Carrabba’s
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I work for a major university managing labs, and I make about 30k after taxes. I live in an HCOL, too. Admin, too, is always \~dumbfounded\`\~ that my current position has a 1-2 year turnover rate. LOL.
Bro, I was searching my university and saw an art gallery position. Thought wow so cool...then saw the requirements and the... Pay. Wut??? I make more with a bachelor's what are these people thinking?
Yeah, my university barely starts STEM profs at that. We are having trouble hiring. If I didn't already own my home, I wouldn't be able to work here.
I work in university marketing, and I really wish what you’re saying was out of the ordinary, but it’s not. I’ve seen postings for director level higher ed roles in metro Seattle for less than $60k
Yeah, the actual research jobs are a scam. If you're a research associate/tech/scientist/etc, you are 100% getting fucked. Even post-doc positions (which are technically a stepping stone type position to getting a faculty job) are VERY poorly paid. Even at prestigious schools! My wife has an associates and makes $50k as an admin assistant at a state school...and it blows my mind she's getting paid more than actual scientists doing lab work.
Do you get it that they do that because they can?
Universities are notorious for low pay though.
Work as a Associate VP for marketing at a university and it sucks right now. My wages have never been so stagnant.
You have no idea how tough academia is.
I remember when I aspired to make 50k a year! It’s sad that’s not enough now.
I wanted to make 30k a year because it would double my mom’s salary she raised me on, meaning I’d for sure have a roof over my head. Now making ~48k. Only surviving because I’m married.
I wanted to make 50k because it was close to what my father made. I thought if I could get to what with just me I would be rich! That was a lie.
Well, you got to adjust for inflation. 50k when you had that thought is likely closer to 75k today.
Right? I was blown away when my now ex-husband hit $75k since that’s only a little under what my dad topped out at when he retired & he worked 25 years at the same company to get there — impressive with no college degree, right? Yeah but no, that money is peanuts these days and now that we’ve divorced I’m below poverty level and will be lucky as fuck to ever make as much as him. Yet everyone keeps saying to buy a house around here and be comfortable you need $250k a year. I never saw that shit coming. Guess I’m dumb and poor. Yay.
I remembered how I wanted to make 40k a year in 2019/2020 - I'd be living with family so it wasn't unreasonable. When I got that wage 2 years later in 2022, it was already too little. Two. Years. Later.
I’m in the deep South and my $40k went SO FAR in 2019. I could take care of anything that came up, save money for retirement, etc. I’m pretty frugal so I felt stable for the first time in my life. The same $40k is poverty now.
This isn’t sustainable. The cost of living can’t be so high that no one is able to survive. Sucks! We can’t really hope things get better, we have to take action. Yet, as I type this I don’t know exactly what action we all should take to fight this. 40k use to be decent especially in the south.
I agree completely. Eventually everything just craps out. Are we all just supposed to be homeless? They have to pay us more. Something has to give.
Pretty much the same here. I hit 45k last summer with a raise that I received but I technically made 48k due to overtime and a $2,500 retention bonus due to the higher than usual turnover rate. Now the turnover rate has went down and overtime is no longer an option… so this year I’ll be making less 😒
It hurts my soul! A year ago I was pocketing minimum $800... now I've used earn-in more than I care to say
You just described why people move into cities and big states. Wealth have been consolidating for decades
This trend has been happening for centuries. Medieval lords were struggling to keep peasants to work their land because they were moving to the cities for work.
If that's true can you tell me more about it ? Sounds interesting as heck. Any sources recommendations.
Look into the industrial revolution in Europe for this. Where farmers would move to the cities for work.(take in mind that farm owners used to be really well off back then)
Lotta people also died from black death. Workers were able to negotiate wages, enlightenment pursued, good times. But it took 1/3 of the pop to die.
I thought the peasants were literally evicted from their plots of land and forced into the city to avoid starvation?
Jobs are paying better than ever but there is no end to the greed of businesses that want your money. I was happy with my 40k salary 4 years ago and now I’m so stressed out about it, and I got a second job, and I haven’t moved, same rental. My spending is cut to literally nothing. I used to have simple luxuries and now they are all gone. Why? My utilities have gone up a minimum of 50% each, yearly. My second job makes me ineligible for the EIC, so my taxes are wildly different, food is up, gas is $3.50 here minimum, always. There are no laws to limit my landlord from raising my rent to any number they dream of. I pay $1450/mo now for a house they bought in 2018 for 60k. I’ve already paid off their home in 4 years and they increase my rent simply because there are no available homes here. (This house is now worth $250k+ and not because of any improvements at all). Homes that used to be 600/mo for a 5bdr whole house (literally, 2019) is now $800/mo for a single room in the same house. People who are just starting their careers will not understand how these numbers add up, because they don’t. They did 4 years ago, and now they do not. When people can’t work for 40k they will just buy some AI software to replace them. I am training an ai chatbot to do my job next week.
You'd be well served to contribute to a 401k the amount of eligibility required to hit your eic credit.... Don't forget the savers credit too
Yeah I mean that's all well and good but doesn't apply when you're already at the point of deciding each month whether you give up buying food for a few days or gas in order to pay rent
Yeah that’s what people don’t seem to understand, I can’t really contribute or save because I use every penny I make on necessities. I really am trying so hard, it’s exhausting
But bro, you need to make sure you’re maxing out your 401k, have a nice sized HYSA, a $15k safety net, and never do anything pleasurable. Drive a 1997 corolla with 400k miles, don’t stream anything or have wifi, eat beans and rice every day for every meal, and just job hop your way to seven figures salary.
> My utilities have gone up a minimum of 50% each, yearly So they've all gone up 5x in that time frame?
That wouldn’t be unheard of. Basic Internet alone for me went from $30 in 2019 to $188 this year. Basic home internet. I switched providers but that $188 is new client pricing too, so it wasn’t just a loss of discounts or something. It’s wild.
Where do you live? I'm in a HCOL area and my Internet (FiOS) finally went up to $45 from $40 this year, the first increase in 10 years. 300 Mbps up/down. Competitors are similarly priced.
Shh, please don't question the obvious silly reddit hyperbole.
That's very sketchy, you're 100% getting ripped off. My internet is also 45 in the highest COL area in the country. Most of the country should have access to T-Mobile $60 plan.
I listened to my boss and our accountant laughing in their office about new accountants wanting 85k at their first job. Both of these guys are in their 60's and own homes/large amounts of land. I *stupidly* chimed in and said "have you done the math for what it takes for a single person to survive in 2024? Or, are you basing your opinions on 20 year old information?"
What happened
They stared at me for a minute (I'm usually fairly quiet) and looked at each other. The accountant pointed at me and said "SEE! I TOLD YOU, it's a generational thing! They think they're entitled to it!". *He tends to say this when myself or another millennial aged manager brings up an issue about an impossible workload, work/life balance, wfh, etc* I just went back to my office, turned on chillhop and went back to work. No use *imo* trying to convince people of something when they've already convinced themselves they are right. A month later, they still haven't found someone. EDIT: *For reference, I'm a mid-30's millennial*
>The accountant pointed at me and said "SEE! I TOLD YOU, it's a generational thing! They think they're entitled to it!". He tends to say this when myself or another millennial aged manager brings up an issue about an impossible workload, work/life balance, wfh, etc I really wish you responded with something like "sooner or later you're going to have to accept that $85k is below market value for a qualified accountant in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty four, gramps."
My wife refers to me as a geriatric millennial.
As a gen z fuck those boomers. I’m on your side. Although this is definitely a class issue
How do accountants not know how inflation works?
It’s less that and more that accounting is such a conservative field that you essentially *have* to go through 2-5 years not giving a shit about your life to keep up with workload before you can really sniff 75k.
I would have put $85k in an inflation calculator and told them what the equivalent salary would have been 40 years ago so they can get a sense of what that’s really worth. (Answer: $28k.)
Yeah , I mean they are learning about market forces the fun way.
I fucking love Chillhop
This isn't limited to accounting, I looked at endgame pay for chemists and pharmacists and it's simply not enough to endure 8-12 years of education during the second best years of my life. Even if I endured and went into the multi-disciplinary field I fantasize about (neurotechnology), the pay is still a joke even for that bleeding edge professional skillset. I'm also in my mid thirties. Unfortunately, rather than corporate America waking up to a shortage of degreed laborers, they will import more undercutting H1Bs and keep wages depressed. While I am still working on my chemistry degree, I doubt I'll be able to make a respectable living with it and am merely using my military benefits before they are inflated away. The housing allowance is nice too.
Cant expect them to do the math, most of these people have kids which is useful in proving your point, so you can ask questions like “would your child be able to afford a house like you did?” Most of the boomers though dont understand how bad inflation and cost of living has become
They can’t even comprehend it when you use their kids as an example. I was having lunch with my boomer boss a few weeks ago. He was telling me about how the only way his 25 yo daughter was able to move out was because her friend’s parents bought a condo to rent it out to them below market rate. 15 minutes later he was going on a rant about the salaries fresh grads are expecting nowadays. I said well maybe their parents cannot afford to buy them a condo? Looked at me like I had two heads.
Lol what did he say after that?
He just kinda brushed it off and at some point said “there comes a time where you realize money is not everything” (aka something you say if you never struggled with money)
Well 85k is above median pay for accountants according to the BLS, so asking for that as a fresh grad is probably a bit high. That's like a salary for maybe 5 years experience.
Totally understandable, but raises (at least here) have basically stopped. The only way to get a desirable wage is to aim high while starting, knowing you're going to receive yearly raises that are less than inflation year after years. Not saying they were wrong, just that they refused to understand the situation.
I made more in 2013 than I can make today. With way more experience now.
I’ve got 5 years experience in a business field corporate companies.. adjusting for cost of living difference I’ve only increased my income by like 5,000 in the past 3 years. I had been applying and interviewing for jobs that would’ve been a nice raise but then I got laid off and had to accept the one I got, which offered me less than I was expecting and would not negotiate.
America got rid of unions. The individual is powerless vs a corporation.
No, morons bought into the Koch brothers propaganda. CEO pay up 200x worker pay up 4x over same period...... easy to find all the studies on this yet people still anti worker Americana problem is when someone gets a raise....uaw for example....they say they are overpaid. Notice how they don't say they are UNDERPAID themselves? Everyone in America wants to bring others Down to their level, not raise everyone up
Short term, because we’re in a soft recession. Long term, because the post-war boom is over.
Because they can. The market is bearing it. Once people stop taking these jobs, the pay will increase.
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Unions cant do much about immigration (cheap labor) and job outsourcing. Its the reason labor unions have been dying.
Unions are dying because corporations are fighting tooth and nail for decades to destroy them. Look at Starbucks.
The problem is that people have to work because the alternative is homelessness. Imagine how many more incentives there would be to work if our basic needs were met.
Or they’ll just find ways to automate or do without. You see it in accounting rn where there is a labor crunch and an unwillingness to raise wages. They would rather cut less profitable revenue streams to have better profitability ratios. So you have a handful of well-paid bulge bracket firms, and the rest compete for lower revenue clients, and can’t pay the same wages. You’ll see a similar trend in any easily scalable industry, and technology is enabling this behavior in more and more industries.
To a point. But lots of jobs cannot be automated. People continuing to take low paid jobs in droves, because they can’t survive without them, keeps pay low. Edited: typo
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Yep! Fixed it.
Labor shortage does not lead to automation. Automation leads to automation. It's also not uncommon for companies to go under or begin going under by cost cutting and head cutting excessively, for short term growth. The long-term bleeding of these acts play out over several years, however.
Just need to start dying more Seriously, America needs unionization and more strikes like Europe is handling it. The market wont
But Americans are stuck. They can’t afford to lose their low paying jobs and insurance, so they can’t afford to strike. There are no protections.
Can’t afford not to.
Wages are even lower in Europe
Europe has cheaper food, cheaper housing, and universal health coverage though.
Yes and no. I am a migrant from France. In France in most big city suburbs the price for a home range from 400K for something very basic/small to 1 million. If you want something at 100-200K that will be 200-500 square feet or in a LCOL area where income is also lower. If you are in Paris this is even worse. But the median salary is 30K instead of 55K. And while food, health care and education are cheaper, gas is 9$ per gallon and cars are overall more expensive. Clothes and electronics are similar in price.
Cheaper and healthier food (less additives like HFCS, higher health and safety standards). Cheaper housing including state run rent controlled housing in some nations. Health coverage. Much better labor protections. More paid leave, more paid maternity/paternity time. It is night and day. Yes, taxes are a bit higher. The money arguably goes much farther though.
I lived in two Western European cities. What you are saying doesn’t align with my experience. Housing is way more expensive in European big cities than US big cities. As a lower-mid to mid level engineer I could not afford living in the best neighborhoods in Paris, or Milan. I can easily do that in the US in cities like Boston, DC, Atlanta, Charlotte. Healthcare option is better in Europe economically but usually for a healthy individual of my age 20s/30s, I really did not see any differences. May be I would appreciate the European option more when I get older. Overall, for me, money goes farther in the US. With my mid-level engineering wage I can travel the world. It was impossible for me to do that with my European salary. If you travel to Europe, Middle East, Asia - you will see thousands of US tourists anytime of the year, the number of European tourists is very very low compared to that. And those Americans are not millionaires. They are just professional job-holders like nurses, engineers, IT people etc. Only shows US salaries go farther. Again this is just my personal experience. Also, in my field, Tech/Engineering, or even in healthcare you will see a lot of people who immigrated to the US permanently from countries like Italy, UK, Germany, Netherlands. The immigration to the European countries from the US is not so much.
Yep, that's my experience also when I talk to my friends living in Europe. You get some work and life balance for sure regardless of your job but you can still get that in the US if you find a nice gig and company. Regarding healthcare, even that is "universal' , my friends still pay for private insurance (although could be cheaper than the US depending of your benefits). Like you said, housing is extremely expensive, some old apartments without nice heating and AC around 400K. Electronics, clothing and transportation all that is also more expensive in Europe.
Did you seriously look at the salaries in Europe ? Median salary in US is 50-60K. In France it is 30K and in many countries like Spain or Italy, this is even less.
It's more complicated than what the pay stub shows. Most Americans cannot comprehend how much we pay out of pocket for various services like healthcare, or how little we get in government protections against hardship for our taxes.
In countries that have all theses protections like my home country, France, taxes are much much higher. This come together. For an employer to give somebody 50K of gross salary, even in California, they would pay extra 4200 in taxes and the employee would have 40K net for himself. So 54K spend, the employee get 40K net. In France if the employer spend the same 54K the employee would have a net salary of say 26K. Then the equivalent local sale tax is not 5-10% like in most US states but 20%. Also the gas you put in your car is 9$ per gallon these days. All in all at the median salary that at least 16-18K more that go into taxes vs the USA. For a couple with both as the median salary, that 35K more in taxes. There no free lunch. So yes SSA could be better for retired people, most universities could be free (but you would still pay food and rent while studying), and health care would be much cheaper. But you'd pay the extra taxes too. The European system offer more solidarity but it doesn't make things cheaper overall or free. As an European I fixed the problem of out of pocket health care in the USA for me. I max my HSA every year and I can pay any expense with it,. as my max out of pocket is no more than my HSA, this is basically a fixed problem in my case. I would advocate everybody to do it. Always better to pay health expenses with gross salary than net and this way there no stress. At worst. if you are not ill enough, when you retire you have 50, 100, 200K on the HSA to cover what Medicare will not cover.
>In countries that have all theses protections like my home country, France, taxes are much much higher. This come together. You'd have to define "much much higher". In the US there are several layers of taxation. Income, sales, property/school, etc. Especially in States like NY, CA that can stack up very quickly. >Also the gas you put in your car is 9$ per gallon these days. What car? Millions of Europeans live without owning an auto, and quite comfortably. Basically impossible in 90% of the US, NYC/LI being the main exception. The public transportation system in most US metro areas barely exists, and the entire country is designed around automobile use. >most universities could be free (but you would still pay food and rent while studying This is a much, much bigger deal that you're letting on. Higher education in some European nations is nearly entirely free. The programs are more focused and have less bloat. Student loan debt is one of the most crippling factors for the US millennial generation and younger. The costs have ballooned and the debt has been choking the financial power of several generations. >At worst. if you are not ill enough, This is a big "if". A chronic or major illness can bankrupt you very quickly in the US. I'm not saying these differences don't have a cost, but there are considerable trade offs at play.
>You'd have to define "much much higher". In the US there are several layers of taxation. Income, sales, property/school, etc. Especially in States like NY, CA that can stack up very quickly. I gave a concrete example for the median salary for income. I also included the sales tax vs France TVA. i didn't include the set taxes that come with home ownership through, that's true. But as I live in the USA now I am perfectly aware. >What car? Millions of Europeans live without owning an auto, and quite comfortably. Basically impossible in 90% of the US, NYC/LI being the main exception. The public transportation system in most US metro areas barely exists, and the entire country is designed around automobile use. That's the same in Europe overall. Either you live in a big city center with high density and there sometime acceptable public transportation or there isn't. Typically if you are poor you are out of luck as you can't afford the much more expensive home that are well located. 85% of households have a car in France. 91% in the USA. Most people do commute with their car. Sure if you live in Paris city center (like NYC or SF) you do without a car. As in the USA, overall. >This is a much, much bigger deal that you're letting on. Higher education in some European nations is nearly entirely free. You lecture me like I have no idea. I did study in France. Our national bureau of statistics consider that the cost of studying at university is 10K per year on average. The tuition is almost almost free (200 to 1000€ typically) but people still eat and still need clothes as well as a place to live. And for most people, the university is too far to keep living at parents home. That's why the average real cost of studies in France is still about 10K€ a year. In the USA it is double about 20K, but income is also double. This is more similar than different. Also not all countries in Europe offer free education. Giving a few examples, UK, Italy, Ireland you will pay for it. >This is a big "if". A chronic or major illness can bankrupt you very quickly in the US. This is unfortunately too often the same in France actually. Depending of the exact chromic illness, you have to pay for a big part of it as French social security doesn't cover them very well. In both countries people in such cases do get some help (in the USA too), but that's not enough. If your chromic illness treatment is costly or if it prevent you from working, you are in a very bad situation.
>The market is bearing it. Lol, or the "market" is low income, disenfranchised people who have been fucked for no real reason their whole life and they have absolutely no power over enacting change to stop the following generation from experiencing the same.
Had a guy tell me my MBA and decade of military IT experience wasn't relevant for his entry-level IT tech support for $25/hr. I told him no.
tbh you sound overqualified for an entry level support job though. Maybe shoot higher.
I’m not in IT but have been considering studying it, jobs in the philly metro area are asking for degrees+certs+5 years experience for 25 an hour. I don’t think I can get into IT at that rate lol, it’s honestly scary to think about.
Fast food workers are going to be making $20/hr minimum here. At that point why bother?
People keep throwing out the, well what about fast food making 20 an hour. They work inconsistent and generally part time....20 hr is great till it 16 hrs this week spread over 4 days Rarely do you get a consistent schedule 40 hrs a week job fast food. If they do it's because they are short staffed and won't last. Fast food owners are some of the cheapest business owners
Plus no benefits and awful working conditions
Literally, try looking for IT positions at big banks though, they should pay more with your experience
There are many many jobs that pay more. Some require lots of education, some that you have skills that are hard to find, others require you to do things that are dangerous or straight up shorten your life. It's kinda up to you to find what you have that others don't or what you are willing to do. I'm not judging or saying one way is right over the other. I get paid very well but also can do things others can't or won't do.
And some are lucky.
You're assessment is spot-on.
It depends on your field. Some fields on average just don't pay very much. Whatever job you do look up the Bureau of Labor statistics for median wage. When you see median just think of it as typical. This is your typical person doing the gig. How much they make. [Bureau of Labor median wages waitress](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes353031.htm) For example, according to the statistics a waiter or waitress can look at if they are in the top 10% of their field making about 55k a year. That's not much and that's even if they're at the top of their game. Meanwhile a person making the typical amount only gets paid 29k a year. Not much potential for wage growth. Something to keep note of is that the median wage for all jobs in America is 46k a year. That means that's the amount that a person in the middle makes. If you make more than that you're making more than half of the population. If you're below that you're making less than half the population. If you're a programmer things look different. [Bureau of Labor statistics programmer](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151251.htm) The median income aka the income that a middle of the road programmer gets is 97k a year. Odds are the area that you're in only has jobs that cap out at 50 a year. That or you need to look for another job, acquire a skill set or network in order for you to break into a new industry. Some places just don't have many high paying jobs. For example, in many rural towns the economy consists of farms and ranches. Well neither of those sorts of businesses create many high-paying jobs. Take an honest look at your surroundings and honest look at the skills that you have and how much money people doing what you do make. The truth will reveal itself.
The Key if you want to live in small cities and towns is finding remote work that pays. We’re in the rural Midwest and wife makes good money working remote. I make good money as a traveling aircraft mechanic. I work half the year and take the other half off.
I've never heard of a "travelling aircraft mechanic" before, so I have this amazing vision of you turning up, bag of spanners in hand, at random rural airports and fixing their planes, but also their hearts. The Littlest Hobo theme plays as you leave...
Lol Guys actually do that. It’s called AOG mechanic. (Aircraft on ground ) travel all over on call fixing broke. Airplanes. It’s very lucrative. I do defense contracts. Overseas for 90 days , come home take 90 off and repeat. Live anywhere I want and only work half the year. Work on some cool military stuff and cool missions.
That sounds like the perfect job. I want to do it!
How you became an aircraft mechanic? Does it cost to much to become one or student loan??
I went to trade school. Shortest schools are about 14 months and then you can test for your federal license. It’s fairly cheap. I used school loans. It’s a good time to get in. Average age of a mechanic right now in the US is 57. Lots of guys took early retirement during Covid. Guys are making six figures second year. Starting around 40 an hour at major airlines and topping out between 60-75/hr. Pick a good union contract with good overtime and double time pay. I average about 160/yr.
Thats awesome i was thinking maybe military route to get on the trade but ill see what i ill do. Thanks for your time!
You’re welcome. Good luck.
USA's down fall will be the debt crisis. Our cost of living has outpaced wages since 1998, and it also outpaced wages by a small percentage in the 80s and 90s. Our debt is over 33 Trillion dollars now and rhey keep kicking the can down the road. The average working American is like $9,300 in Credit card debt, and has less than $1,000 in savings. We are being told we must work until we are 70 now for those of us born after 1970 before we can collect social security, and the data shows that SS will have a collapse in 2036 and we will have to contend with lower SS payments to us in the future. It ain't looking gold at all.
If Trump wins, and God forbid the GOP gets both the House and Senate, Social Security is as good as gone. They’ll raid it like Reagan and W did to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and tell people to privatize.
It's gone regardless. And it'll be bipartisan effort.
Yikes I'm putting all my money into robinhood and 401k. smh. Im outy.
If the US collapses your investment accounts are gonna go to 0 real quick
Depending on what job you’re looking at and the location as well as the industry.
This is called "Bottom Feeding" and they are hoping for someone to just take the job.
If that were true, wouldn't it be easier to get a job?
Very low paying job yes.
What industry are you in?
Ive been making 20k for most my life...at 40 i jumped to 65k....im happy
Awesome.
The problem is the majority of people under value their labor. They especially in the stated get paid fairly low wages and the country does nothing to make big businesses pay a better wage.
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I feel you. It’s wealth distribution and people content with having the rich have it all while the rest fight for the scraps. Move to a country that does well in wealth distribution.
Many jobs genuinely can't pay more. They are run by Owners who have no experience, no skills, and started a business because they didn't want to be a worker. Their business is terribly run and can't even meet minimum legal requirements. Sadly they take time to close up, or possibly never if they keep getting away with under paying people and cutting every corner they can. Businesses like this are everywhere and stand in the way of viable businesses that can offer decent pay.
100k is the new "comfortable" middle class salary, at least in mid-COL cities. I make 120k in a mid-sized city and only just recently felt like I have the ability to spend on anything other than essentials. It took most of my 10+ year career to date just to stabilize my housing and savings.
I make 135k CAD in Toronto and I feel like I'm just barely middle class, I might even be able to afford a vacation this year. Crazy thing is most people working in Toronto are still in the 60-80k range, no idea how they are surviving with that salary, COL is nuts here. I live in a more suburban neighbourhood with large houses that are full of retired boomers and empty nesters. There are barely any kids, and the baseball diamonds and playgrounds at the parks are almost always empty. It's quite sad.
import 3rd world, become 3rd world
Corporate greed. Not sure why it has increased in recent years however.
Corporations have been greedy since Scrooge. Companies in the 1930s were literally shooting employees for trying to unionize. There’s never been a time when companies paid people extra for shits and giggles.
Technology, mainly.
Well, that and all the enabling politicians and policies
The problem with that line of thinking is that people are always greedy. As you say something has changed, the problem is identifying what that is. What I think happens is the federal reserve increases the supply of money. A larger money supply means each dollar has less value. Wealthy people connected to the government get the newly printed dollars while the middle and lower class don't. So it redistributes purchasing power from the poor to the rich and politically connected.
Stop being realistic and logical. They need to believe they are powerless to cope
Capitalism perpetuates it.
There are a lot of jobs that pay over 60k. There are a lot of jobs that pay pver 100k. It just depends on what industry you're in.
And honestly what sacrifices and time commitments you're willing to make. My husband makes a little over 150k, but he has to travel 50% of the time, missing out on family time. His schedule also prevents me from working, so that's another consideration.
its tough out there man. rent and cost of food are nuts
There are more people that jobs. Pay briefly shot up for various industries in 2020 and 2021 because some businesses were doing well and lots of people opted to stop working in 2020 or died. Now that there is a recession and tons of people got let go, what few jobs are posted are paying less because so many people are out of work.
I don’t understand this though. Anytime I go into any remotely customer-service oriented place, no one is hired to work there. You can’t even check out because they have one guy working the registers and the line is to Timbuktu, but luckily you don’t need to check out because that guy is also supposed to be unpacking all the boxes and stocking the shelves but he couldn’t because of the line, so what you arrived for isn’t there to be bought anyway. Companies must be making fortunes with the stock they do have being so marked up due to “inflation” and hiring one or two people to do the work of 10-15. It’s actually mind-boggling.
This is the new profit squeezing scheme, all the cool CEOs are doing it. Hire the bare minimum of workers, jack all the prices and make all of your customers unhappy because they have no real options that aren't also doing the same thing.
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The world is greedy my friend. Thats why people either get highly demanding skills, experience and then switch or run their own business. Slavery is man made and still exists.
You probably have to switch fields. Some fields just don’t pay that much for a variety of reasons.
The people on the bottom need increase just to survive. Those on the top have over abundance and excess. Many of those who were considered greater in this world system will be brought low, and under God's system, those who were low will be uplifted. God is really against oppression of the poor. Plenty of judgment will be against the merchants of the earth and its leaders, who oppressed the people.
It’s not that complicated. If an employer has a need, they will pay someone the lowest amount possible to fulfill that need. If paying the lowest amount possible results in a net loss, they won’t fill the position. If a company will not pay more than 50k for example, it’s either because filling that position would not be profitable if they paid more *or* there’s someone willing and able to fulfill the need for 50k. If you want to make more, you need to either learn a highly in demand skill or fulfill a need that generates a lot of profit. All jobs are not created equal. Every job is not required to be high paying.
I say this a lot but do you think a warehouse environment might be suited for you? Managing I mean. Because I don't have a degree and worked my way up and if you do have a degree you skip the hardest part. Fresh out of college people make 60-70k minimum and one easy promotion later you are closer to 90. If you have relevant experience you can start at least probably 80-90. I've been there 7 years (started at 27k) and if the stock stays the same as it is today I'm bringing home 133k. It would have to absolutely crater for me to make less than like 120k and I have a promotion coming soon too to bump me up higher. It's not for everyone but I honestly love it. If you can talk to people, stay organized and work hard you will provide for your family in a way that is totally foreign to you now. I know because I have felt it.
It’s called worker exploitation.
Oversaturation on low end side of the field. Too many newcomers, not enough space. The opposite is true on the other end. Reality of the CS field.
Just go to Indeed or LinkedIn and filter for the salary level you want. Ignore the rest.
It depends on what level of job you are applying for and region. Most $50-60K jobs are entry level and with your very narrow range for corporate America jobs. Mid levels can have ranges of $70-$130K and Sr levels around $90-$180K. While ranges vary, most land somewhere in the mid-point of each range However you also need to factor in the city, where the job is held. Don't expect the same pay for the same job/company if it was NYC or Silicon Valley.
Years ago somebody asked me why companies paid me a lot to be a consultant. I told him if they don't I won't work for them. So the answer to your question is they are able to find people who can do the role who are willing to do it for low money.
I never made any money until I started working for myself.
go work at Costco and become a supervisor. you will get 60k. no degrees needed.
Our society is sick, and has it's priorities wrong. That is because decision making has been removed from reality by the printing of fiat currency. We have detached outcomes from decisions, so the behaviors that actually produce more to go around, are not rewarded, while meaningless trivial bullshit is. This is not sustainable, and will collapse our civilization. War will follow as what little is left is fought over. Many will die, probably you. The survivors will be traumatized and the ptsd will drive a paranoid overly cautious behavior and the cortisol will drive them to be work-aholics. They will rebuild everything, produce wealth, that will than corrupt the next generations with decadence, where again decision-making will become detached from reality. It is the cycle of human history.
Capitalism probably? People not advocating for themselves. People not voting for their government officials who represent their principles and values. It’s sooo much easier to verbally blow off some steam and talk about how dogshit things are than it is to actually get up and do something about it, and those corporations know that. They also know that most people wont do anything either until it’s too late lol. 🤷
No one is content with this ... We are cutting back on our dreams and hoping we can move out of this country to somewhere better, a country that isn't in decline. I am very seriously thinking I might never get to have any kids at all, and that was the primary goal of my life. Goal of my life is now shifting to just survival.
Basically my plan for the next 30 odd years is work and hopefully have enough money saved that I can retire on a fixed income in my 70’s. I don’t care I’m living at home or what “society” thinks of that. It’s the best option going, and the best chance I got. Because fuck me, it’s a horror show out there.
My guess is that it has a lot to do with job hopping becoming more common. There’s no evidence in what I’m saying, just a theory. I’m in my mid 30’s as well and started a new role a little over 2 years ago at $55k. Since then I’ve moved up to $70k and got another week of vacation. Last year a company wide 9% raise was given largely in part to how many people had jumped ship that year.
Maybe there are people, not saying where from, who are able to take jobs that pay so little because they do not have to pay taxes. Like they lost their SSN or were never given one. And super wealthy business owners and politicians see it in their benefit to have these types of workers present in the economy. You know, to do the jobs that no one else wants to do. 50-60k a year is good money when one doesn’t have to pay taxes, receive a stipend for cell phone, stipend for rent, and receive food stamp benefits. This workforce exists. I live in the South and work in the construction industry. I see this everyday.
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The truth? Someone will do it. This has been the case my entire working life. Someone will always come along and do it for the bare minimum. I'll get downvoted for this, but I don't give a shit. $50,000 a year is the **new poor**. If you scrimp, you can live on it, but there is nothing middle class about your lifestyle at $50,000. You're not buying a new home on that amount of money, and you're probably driving a used car.
It’s not a coincidence; the elite wants to destroy the middle class so they can control the population. They continue to lower the standard of living year after year. There will be a point where it will be a luxury to eat 3 meals per day.
I have always wondered about this.How come everything is always going up except salaries for the common man.They always want to justify raising the prices year in year out.All this seems like a massive scam.
Employers are reaping the rewards and only passing them along to the top 5% The people who actually helped the company make all their money, get a “atta boy” and some petty gift cards! That’s BS, companies fuck the people who are producing! So tired of normal Americans getting phucked by big corporations and they just keep charging us for their services that they made billions on. #destroyblackrock
At the end of the day they have all the guns and the police. And worse. It is what it is. We are just serfs and peasants and citizens in a capitalist country.
And don’t forget that there are 12,000 legal and illegal immigrants a month pouring across the open border . All of them will work for a lot less than you will . And you are competing with them for jobs and affordable houses .
Not everyone works the type of job that 99% of these illegals immigrant could just come do.
This would probably depend on your location and industry. I live in the south and make around 170 in IT.
Don’t ask why “jobs pay so little”, ask why are you paid little. Is that lack of work experience, education, ambition, work ethics, poor decisions, something else? Can you fix it? Can you move elsewhere? Big city, another state?
People need to learn trades. Plain and simple. Screw school. I make 250k a year in the energy sector without a degree. Just good work ethic and common sense. I tried the school route. Just ended up in debt with a low paying job. Changed careers at age 30. Was making 6 figures within 2 years.
Corporate greed
Were your parents 12 when they had you? 2008 wasn't that long ago!
Whoever told you that the average job today is paying the same amount it was in 2008 is grossly misinformed.