O noes! The theme is gone!

Jeff:

And don't say "taxes," because we have a relatively low individual tax burden relative to most of the world, and unreasonably low corporate taxes.

I'd much prefer to pay double the taxes, and get free healthcare, functional public transit, quality schools and education, and have a quality infrastructure. But what do I know.

Jeff:

It doesn't really matter, because averages, but I checked any mine was up 22% over that period (not counting equity or bonus, which is another convenient way to skew actual compensation in tech), so definitely underperforming inflation. While I'm not OK with that...

I clock in at 6.7%. I would have been more than happy to somehow figure out a way to make 22% work even if it underperformed inflation.

Perhaps you need to consider employment elsewhere.

I have thought of that, but with retirement being 3-4 years away the thought of starting over with a new company does not have much appeal. Trade-offs. Or maybe sliders?

Jeff:

Perhaps you need to consider employment elsewhere.

Maybe there is a logical reason for it, but this is something that always annoyed me. Companies often offer far less to internal candidates, but externals are given much more. Why pay more for an unknown, and train them, then someone who might have been with the org for years, you know their work history and record, and they have knowledge of the business an outsider wouldn't.

Businesses often give better deals to new customers than existing, long term customers. In my field, general rule is you don't leave for another job unless you will get paid 30% more. There is substantial risk moving somewhere else. Existing job doesn't need to pay me 30% more. Just enough that no one else will pay 30% more. I have known several people who have bounced around (multiple times in some cases). Worked out for some but not for all. Though at least a couple of the ones for whom it didn't work were going to have problems had they stayed (was more an issue with them than it was where they worked).

Totally anecdotal, but I'm up 36% on my salary from January 2020. There was a promotion in there, but the promotion only garnered a 9% increase since I had been in my previous position for 10 years. On top of that, my bonus amounts have gone up significantly in recent years. I'm very lucky to work for a company that weathered COVID well and basically came out of it stronger. I was honestly surprised I've come up that much. I hadn't really checked the numbers.

Trump is definitely going to help to get government out of the lives of those with millions, or billions-of-dollars. And like Jeff was saying, he'll help make the problem of government in the lives of regular people even worse.

TheMillenniumRider:

Obviously CoasterBuzz isn't an accurate sample, but has anyone here increased their pay by 25%?

I did, through Covid pay. It actually was (...calculating) about a 700% raise in my wage (which really isn't much compared to what most people in this discussion bring in.) But that's because my pay was so low to begin with. And that money has just about ran out, and it is going back down in February. The lavish lifestyle I've been able to enjoy over the last several years is almost over.

All at a time when prices are high, and tariffs are going to make them higher. I should have been a rock star.

So if you were making minimum wage, you're now making over $50/hour? That's a hell of a raise.

Just checked myself because I feel like I've been bumped up over the last 4 years, and I'm at 24%.

Oops! That was a typo. I meant 70%.

Just checked mine and I'm just shy of 20% since 2020. Which includes a promotion to management.

I live in the strange world of Academia. It's been a bumpy ride, lately, to say the least. Teaching at a small(ish) liberal arts school in Ohio makes it even more of a bumpy ride.

Professors really get two major promotions; one at attaining tenure and the next at being knighted as a "full" professor (this is about a 12 year process). I snagged the second one in 2020.

Overall since 2019 I'm up around 8%, but a lot of that is the promotion. There were no raises from 2020-2023...in fact in 2021 everyone (literally everyone, including the football coach) took a pay decrease in order to maintain a balanced budget which, at a liberal arts school in Ohio, is not common.

That annoying pandemic really did a number on student-body numbers; for example we went from our average 700 students in a freshman class to about 450. Low enrollment = low revenue = smaller budget. But still > RRR.

Then last year nearly 10% of the faculty was let go. That's how bad it got. Well...they were given "voluntary release packages", but I think you get the idea.

Then this year we actually attained a record freshman class of over 750. We all got raises for the first time since 2019, and even a xmas bonus that wasn't a jelly-of-the-month club. I mean, I'm not putting in a pool, but it was significant.

But still...enduring half a decade of no raises combined with a one-year pay decrease wasn't easy; but it was something we were all willing to do to keep the ship afloat, and now the ship is sailing along while others have sunk around us.

TheMillenniumRider:

Maybe there is a logical reason for it, but this is something that always annoyed me. Companies often offer far less to internal candidates, but externals are given much more

GoBucks89:
There is substantial risk moving somewhere else.

Y'all wouldn't believe my experience. This is all business as usual in tech. 😂 I'm sitting here about to hit three years in my current job, which is a new record for me, and I've been out of school for 30 years this May. (😢) At least in our industry, there's little risk, and a ton of upside. I've never changed jobs without a five-figure increase, and probably a third of those changes were not voluntary.

Changing jobs is certainly uncomfortable, and it makes work seem even more transactional than it already is (unless you work in the arts), but you learn to roll with it. Oddly enough, I was well prepared for it because I started my career in broadcast, which I knew was going to be volatile.