After 10-year surge, EE salaries level off at $89k (EE Salary Survey)

EE Times ^ | August 28, 2003 | EE Times Staff

[TopQuark]

Maybe he's opposed to being told that our standard of living is falling?

I am not opposed to being told the truth of any kind. I find it disturbig, however, that even the so-called coservatives (i) have no clue about economics that made their country great and (ii) spew socialist, anti-business propaganda.

[1rudeboy]

The horror! And the trend-line has only been up for forty years!

[sarcasm]

I see that you're jumping to conclusions. Where did I say that I was an electrical engineer?

What the market shows, however, that it is not 90,000 either.

Yep, the new market of free trade of labor across borders. Competition with Chinese and Indian labor will cause a downward spiral in American wages.

When are you going to accept a cut in your pay because of this new global reality?

[1rudeboy]

It's mystifying to me as well. Maybe it's nativism coupled with protectionism coupled with a sense of entitlement.

[sarcasm]

The horror! And the trend-line has only been up for forty years!

I fully expect it to continue to decline - "free trade" is great for the American worker.

[1rudeboy]

Competition with Chinese and Indian labor will cause a downward spiral in American wages.

So when will it happen? You've been warning us for years.

[sarcasm]

Just gave you the statistics released last Friday - do you have a problem with reading comprehension?

[1rudeboy]

"free trade" is great for the American worker.

You do realize that a lot of high-paying manufacturing jobs are in export-industries? Shouldn't you want to protect those too?

[TopQuark]

?I see that you're jumping to conclusions. Where did I say that I was an electrical engineer?

I am sorry you couldn't understand in the context that I meant an average American enginner.

Perhaps you should be less concerned with sarcasm and more with comprehension.

Yep, the new market of free trade of labor across borders. Competition with Chinese and Indian labor will cause a downward spiral in American wages.

As I said earlier, open a text book for Econ 101 and read about business cycles. The more you speak the more you make it obvious that you have not a clue about the world you live in.

If you do take some reasonably rigorous courses, you will also learn to make causal attribution with more care. As of now, you show complete unawareness of the difficulies.

When are you going to accept a cut in your pay because of this new global reality?

The question is childish an undeserved of the answer.

[TopQuark]

I think all factors you mentioned are there. They may also have a common antecedent: the three-decades-long dumbing down of our schools have produces a people largely unaware of how their world functions. Unfortunately, for OUR people, OUR economic instutuions are the best in the world, and there is what to lose from the destructive war now waged by the block of socialists and ignorami.

[1rudeboy]

You speak to me of comprehension, when you point to a snapshot and "discover" a trend? Comprehend this:

Granted, these figures to not cover the last recession, but we've got a lot of ground to lose before your "theory" begins to hold water.

[sarcasm]

Your chart seems to show that real wages are lower now than in the early 1970's.

[1rudeboy]

Average hourly earnings in private, nonagricultural business increased in real terms by about 16 percent during the past 40 years, but professionals did better: physicians, for example, enjoyed an increase in real earnings of 33 percent in the same period. One way of looking at the benefits of rising productivity is to compare various family income groups. The top 5 percent of families had an increase in income of 129 percent in real terms from 1960 to 1998, while the middle fifth had an increase of 54 percent and the bottom fifth only 38 percent. Family income went up not only because productivity was greater for other reasons, such as the increasing number of wives taking jobs outside the home. The average real income of working Americans, as the chart [at the top of the thread] shows, increased beginning in 1995--undoubtedly made possible by the spurt in productivity over the same period.

Source: Scientific American

[1rudeboy]

The left axis is percent change. Comprehend?

[sarcasm]

I don't think that you get it - there was an increase in real wages from 1960 to about 1973-4 (oil prices shock?) and have declined or remained stagnant since that time. Much in line with what I have read elsewhere.

[1rudeboy]

Please see #53.

[sarcasm]

I read #53 - it's using 1960 as a base year. I'm talking about the period from 1972 to the present - your chart show a decline in real wages. Thanks for making my point.

[1rudeboy]

The one point I made that you fail to comprehend is my #54. [laughing]

[sarcasm]

Your own chart disproves your argument. Hint - take a course in reading. (laughing)

[nwrep]

What is an EE?

Electrical Engineer. The most important field of the last 50 years.