Posted on 03/14/2006 8:01:09 PM PST by stainlessbanner
My industry, computer software, saw a 30% drop in paychecks overall. People are still paid well, but day by day we lose people because the corporate world is shifting and doesn't see value in software. Of course, we cause our own problems more than anything else.
Typical union propaganda piece reprinted as facts by the friendly co-conspirators at the newspapers. Rather than give actual figures, by which one can make meaningful comparisons, one figure is given as it actually is, while the rest are "adjusted for inflation," which could mean anything -- and probably does, to arrive at their preconceived conclusions that salaries and wages are the lowest in history, and so millions of Americans are going to bed starving every night, and so the median weight of Americans (adjusted for inflation) are below that of people starving in Africa.
Also, because wages are so low, nobody can afford to buy cars and so the roads are completely empty with no traffic congestion (adjusting for inflation) while newspaper subscriptions are soaring (adjusting for inflation).
"The median weekly salary in 2005 was $659 (half of all workers earned more, half earned less). After inflation, that’s 1.9% less than in 2004. Average hourly pay for all production and nonsupervisory workers was $16.11—a 0.7% decline when adjusted for inflation. Workers’ retirement and health-care benefits also are shrinking—and not only in troubled industries. Financially healthy companies are freezing their pension plans to exclude new hires and/or younger employees—a trend that’s expected to continue. In a frozen plan, workers stop accruing benefits. This also hurts longtime workers, because they will retire with much less than they expected: Up to 50% of a pension is earned in the last five years on the job."
P.S. The salaries that I see in software ranges from $55,000 for lower end to $105,000 for higher end with a solid average being $75,000. The best earn up to $145,000, but they are 1 in maybe 500.
Did I help?
You sound like someone that lives a work life like me.
At the moment, I am ONE COMMENT away from leaving our company.
However, I love my job so damn much, it would kill me to ever leave this company.
Like I said, everyone knows that we are all walking on egg-shells this week.
"Even those who are buying a house for $50K in Faraway, Nebraska need a lawyer to look over the papers.
"
We don't use lawyers for real estate purchases in Colorado.
"Chiropracty, Reflexology, Phrenology, and Psychology are all sham sciences that far too many people pay far too much money to believe in."
Are you a scientologist?
You gave me some perspective
I love my work but I'll never get rich doing it
Gotta hit the rack. Work in the morning you know
Hate lawyers all you want, just remember your hatred when you sidle up to one at the next cocktail party for some "free" advice.
And by the way, not all lawyers are the highly-paid gazillionaires everyone thinks. Most are paid modestly - likely in the neighborhood of $50k or so, depending on geographical location.
The ones that make the big bucks in NYC, LA and other metro-centers work the equivalent of 2 or 3 full time jobs (120+ billable hours a week and 150+ overall hours). Take two or three full time jobs doing exactly what you do and you'll double or triple your salary and you'll make the big bucks as well. But don't forget to kiss your wife and kids in the 20 minutes you see them - if you remember what they look like. . . .
Thanks for sharing that range with me. I strive to be in the upper "average" and never abuse those who are paying me. I know, upper "average" is a contradiction, but most people understand what I was trying to say.
Notice how I have called myself a Software Engineer and not a Programmer.
My job is to invent!
And the theme of the day is that the present economy is hurting the midddle and upper middle class folks a lot harder than the people at the lowest end -- and so the poor now should subsidize wage increases for the upper middle (who adjusted for inflation) are really the poor.
Sorry, I'm not buying this stuff at all. Something is continuing to drive up greatly increased travel, educational and housing costs. Almost everyone I know is doing much, much better and living at a higher standard then their parents ever imagined.
If it bleeds it leads. The MSM is incapable of delivering good news, however accurate it might be.
You ought to be kidding me...$481 a week for actors?!...me thinks it is more like $481 a minute.
I'm probably missing a joke here but, no, I'm not a scientologist. Why do you ask?
That Katie Holmes is pretty hot though.
I may have to go to Las Vegas again to see if I can get lucky or maybe win a lottery!
Don't know about the last three but you are just wrong about the first.
No it is not a family friend and I am not a stipid person.
Jeez.
Who ever thinks about their yearly income in terms of "per week?"
When I was working at Mac Donald's, I thought about my hourly wages.
When I became a professional, I thought about it in terms of a yearly salary.
Who thinks in terms of weekly wages?
You've got it right. But reporters aren't interested in boring old prosperity.
Lawyers can double up their billable hours - wait in court with one client, work on a document for another - bill both.
I suspect some of them have a researcher working for $30 an hour, and they bill the client as if they were doing the work, for $200.
The kinds of bozos who write for Parade Magazine.
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