The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: BlueHouse on July 08, 2016, 06:00:45 PM
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Please provide evidence to back up your selection.
I see many people talk about how they are underpaid, but I cannot understand why, if that is true, they don't leave and get another job. I myself believe that I am wildly overpaid for the amount of work I do, but I've been able to justify my pay at the hourly rate level (using GSA schedules and comparing hourly rates for similar jobs) -- I have just been working more consistently than most in my field.
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Hard to have an opinion on that, when you provide so little evidence.
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I see many people talk about how they are underpaid, but I cannot understand why, if that is true, they don't leave and get another job.
Maybe because... we like our jobs.
I teach college. Not full-time as tenure track jobs are few and far in-between. My actual paid hours amount to about 20-25hours a week (time in classroom). Average pay per hour is about $60. Sounds like a lot at face value, but doesn't take into account meetings with students before and after class, emails, individualized help, lesson planning, department meetings, and all the other bs you have to deal with when you have a job that deals with humans.
It's a job that's basically 24/7, I don't get to come home and "turn off" most of the time. I also realize this is true of many office-esque jobs, but the pay for those is usually much higher. I also don't get perks like health insurance, 401k matching, etc. I do work during winter and summer but obviously less than the regular semesters. Overall, I earn about $45k/year.
I would say my actual work amounts to about double of what I get paid for, so an "adjusted" hourly rate of $25-$30 sounds about right. If you want to account for driving to work, no benefits, etc. I'm sure I'm making minimum wage or around there.
Why I do it? I enjoy teaching and I enjoy the flexibility. I have had lots of different jobs and this is the one I like the most, even though I realize my overall income will never really change unless I add a side hustle or do something different.
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Fairly Compensated. I can meet my current needs and still save 75% of my income. That sure doesn't feel underpaid to me..
What determines fair compensation if it's not based off of standard of living? Or is a Mustachian living non-standard?
Do I need to have a mortgage, 2 car loans, a dog and 2-3 kids in order to be living the "Real" SoCal life? Sure seems like the expected norm around here :)
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I was in the exact same position as lbmustache last year. Having a doctoral degree and making that low of a salary was enough to get me to give up the job. I am FI and I was doing it because I love teaching and my students (I am in Teacher Education). I decided I could volunteer at my local Primary school (where I was an administrator for many years) and have more choice in my days and still get a lot of fulfillment (and help teachers!)
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I work as a nurse in an intensive care unit. The shit I have to do to keep people alive is deserving of more than just 27$ a hour.
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Underpaid. I work remotely in a role that usually isn't remote in the industry I'm in, but my pay is based off the scale of the city my employer is located, rather than where I work. The nature of my work does require me to live where I do, so I think it's fair to expect market rate pay for the region, especially since I have excelled in this role. Unfortunately, I accepted the job while moving from a lower COL area than either city, and didn't properly calculate the difference to negotiate a fair wage (totally on me, I know). That said, the benefits of remote work are pretty huge, and my boss is awesome. I have 100x more flexibility than I would at a desk job, which is my only realistic option if I want to go elsewhere for better pay. This, combined with the lack of available comparable (remote) jobs has made me stick it out through an annoyingly lengthy salary renegotiation process. I am cautiously optimistic an accord will be reached, although I am prepared to jump ship if I have to, but only for the right opportunity.
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According to Payscale.com (I suggest that if you're looking for evidence, this is a good tool to use) I make more than 60% of people in my field and in my circumstance.
Personally I feel compensated adequately. When I started in my position 3 years ago, I was under experienced and very new to the working world. I regularly try not to let things get to my head, lest I start thinking that I'm better than I am. I'm damn lucky to have a job that pays as well as it does and I like to remind myself of that.
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Fairly Compensated, if you average across a longer time period.
Some days I'm responsible for making life-or-death level decisions. The making of which required me to accumulate and maintain a lot of highly specialized skills. High intensity days are generally 14-20 hours long. Since I'm salaried, I'm probably underpaid for the responsibility and time commitment.
Somedays I'm responsible for keeping my butt in my cubical chair, answering policy questions, and keeping the internet ticking along. Low intensity days are 7 hours, and I'm probably overpaid for the amount of work I actually produce.
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I'm underpaid by about $10k. I think about making a move, but I have a pretty good thing going here. I've been at my job two years and have received a 7% raise both of those year. If things keep going that way, I'll be at where I should be in a couple more years. Plus the economy is going to shit here, so it seems prudent to stay somewhere that I have established relationships. Less likely to be the first one out the door if things go really south.
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I see many people talk about how they are underpaid, but I cannot understand why, if that is true, they don't leave and get another job.
Maybe because... we like our jobs.
Maybe my phrasing is bad. For people who love their jobs, aren't you receiving some compensation in satisfaction? I know the money isn't proportional to your education or your hard work or your dedication or long hours, but do you have a genuine feeling of unfairness in the contract that leaves you feeling undervalued? I realize the original question isn't phrased this way...I was very interested in the way people answered this even if they are underpaid in dollars if they feel that sense of unfairness or if they receive some greater joy out of the work itself.
My job is so god-awful soul-killing and boring with so few benefits, that I wouldn't think twice about leaving if I felt underpaid. I feel undervalued every single day, but that has nothing to do with compensation. But I've had other jobs that I would have worked for free because they made me feel great. And even though I was at the bottom of the pay scale, I felt great to be in the presence of the people I was working with (who were the real experts in the field).
No need to change answers based on this thought. initial answers indicate something about posters feeling about fair pay, and whether that means empirical data points to them or if there are other benefits that translate into or replace low pay.
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I'm at the 7th percentile accornpding to payscale.com; that is 93% of people in my position (tenured associate professor) and in my field make more - and I calculated based on a raise that goes into effect with August pay.
But I knew that going in, and I chose the place deliberately. I'm making a real difference, in a place where the difference really matters, and I'll stay for that for awhile more.
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I'm paid fairly for my skills BUT am in an environment where lots of unskilled people make less than half of what I do. While it's all fair, dealing with the daily resentment is a serious drag.
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According to payscale.com, I'm in the 95th %ile. However, I don't think I'm overpaid. I'm very specialized within my field, and a simple website like payscale.com really doesn't have any way of taking my specialization into account. I think I'm paid fairly.
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With sites like Glassdoor, it is incredibly easy to measure whether you're underpaid or overpaid. A lot of people say they're underpaid just because they think they deserve more. That's BS.
Measure it against comparable jobs in your same metro area.
My current wage is market rate compared to comparable positions.
At my previous employer, I started the job at market rate, but fell behind the market as I added skills and the Bay Area job market improved. I asked my manager for a raise based on my salary being ~20% below market. He wanted to give me a raise, but he was barred by HR policy. So I found a new job at market rate.
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I'm overpaid according to everything I've seen online. If I felt underpaid I'd jump ship immediately because my job is very boring, and not flexible (40 hours with my butt in my seat). Being overpaid and not having to commute into the city are what keep me here.
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According to Glassdoor I am making the average, although I am not sure this accounts for experience.
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I am overpaid for my market/experience/career/associates degree. I am a nurse 1 year of exp and make 36$+hour plus great benefits. New grads come out making anywhere from 29$/HR-34ish (for the big hospitals.) new grads coming into my job will get paid 29$/hour and have 5 years to go before making what I do. I came in on the 6th paystep. It is funny because I am still being trained and I was getting trained by a nurse the other day who has been here for 2 years and came in after working elsewhere for many years, she is currently on the 5th pay step.
I say I am overpaid because I know nurses who work at smallish hospitals, working ICU/medsurg and after 4 years working was making 34$/hour. Granted she chooses to continue working for this employer.
I came out of school, got a government job that paid 33.5/hour (top of the market for new grads) then 2 months later the union negotiated a 7.5% pay raise because they had been chronically underpayed. I left 4 months later and got my pay matched at a place that I actually have room to grow both in terms of salary and promotional. I got lucky.
I can also point out that I have an associates degree, my classmates who got the 33.5$/hr jobs out of school (other then me) had to agree to get their bachelors within a year (at an expensive online private school. I never had to make this promise.
The BLS has the hourly mean wage for Oregon at 40.29$/hour (I assume this include nurse managers.) This sounds about right to me considering the big hospitals in the area go to around 52ish/hour (as far as I know.) for floor nurses; my job goes to 42ish plus differentials depending on the degree/if you speak other languages. But being a state job that difference is made up for in benefits.
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According to payscale.com, I am in the 67th percentile. Not bad for just having graduated last year.
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Please provide evidence to back up your selection.
I see many people talk about how they are underpaid, but I cannot understand why, if that is true, they don't leave and get another job. I myself believe that I am wildly overpaid for the amount of work I do, but I've been able to justify my pay at the hourly rate level (using GSA schedules and comparing hourly rates for similar jobs) -- I have just been working more consistently than most in my field.
Well, I am underpaid.
I know this because for a couple of years, I was involved in hiring my contemporaries, one of whom worked for me. I know their salaries. The lowest paid of the 4 people we hired at my level made $12k more than me. The highest paid was around $30k. The two highest paid were completely incapable of doing the job (one got laid off, the other - well, boss was not successful in laying him off because he'd made friends with the CEO). Of course this was after about 6 months of me either training them to do their jobs or just continuing to do it for them so stuff would keep moving. All of this happened during a 4 year stretch of NO raises.
Added to that, I can simply look at the average salaries in my industry at my level of experience and know that they are $25-30k a year more than I made ($25k for women, $30k for men).
So...why don't I just get another job? I live in a small city. Not a lot of industry here. Despite the high cost of living. I have looked for another job off and on. The offer I got wasn't great (and the company, scary). The offer I didn't get? Well, they just had layoffs.
As I'm the "lesser" income of the two in our household, we aren't going to be moving a different city for my job. When a lot of people talk about "why don't you get another job" they don't factor in the 2-career couple. Aside from moving to the Bay Area (which I don't want to do), we, as a family, are going to have to make compromises.
I still keep my eye out for other local jobs, but I admit that I'm picky. With the changes in our company (and widespread layoffs), I have a great boss and a lot of flexibility. I have 2 kids who are 10 and 4. So, while I'd love to get a job for $25k more than I'm making now, it would come with more stress and longer hours (you know engineering/ high tech. Long hours.)
Salaries at many companies in town are depressed because there's a small core of people who live here, work here, and bought their houses cheaply. They can afford to work for less. Small companies in semiconductors come and go in this town.
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Without doing extensive research on what other people in the same profession are making around the country and then comparing cost of living etc, I think that this question also relates a lot to job satisfaction and spending habits. I would be willing to guess that an individual who enjoys their job and has a mustachian type life style is more likely to think they are overpaid than someone miserable at their job. My wife and I are both police officers with Master's Degrees making around 85K each. We both find satisfaction with what we do and constantly talk about how lucky we are to be making so much for what we do. We also both grew up relatively poor so don't expect much in regards to luxurious things.
Similarly, we work with many people that make the same as us or more because they work around the clock and always complain about how they are underpaid while they have two car payments, a boat and a McMansion.
I think fair compensation may be a mindset?
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Underpaid. As a teacher I could make $9,000 more a year if I moved to a neighboring district. Ours is one of the lowest, if not the lowest in the area. I haven't moved yet because my commute would go up and I would have to start over as a non-tenured teacher (extra days and new teacher training because I would be new to that district). I have applied for other positions but the right one hasn't come along yet.
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I think I am probably a bit underpaid but it's hard to guess since I work at a very small company and wear so many hats. I do print production, human resources, bookkeeping, IT, office manager roles, and more. Any one of those roles might be paid a bit less than I make, but I feel like someone who is doing ALL of them should be paid more than someone who is doing ONE of them. I'm afraid that my boss (the owner) has grown to believe that my job description is basically 'do everything' and therefore there is nothing that could ever trigger a raise/promotion.
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Fairly paid in my job and industry.
As compared to the importance of what I do compared to other "essential services"... probably overpaid.
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Egregiously overpaid for the level of skill that is needed for my full time job.
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Underpaid if you look at the money side of things. I make a tad bit less than one employee with same credentials and similar job profile but not at the bottom most rung of the ladder. I recently negotiated higher package with another job offer in hand which I was not really interested in anyway.
Currently I am handling one major project and a few other side projects come in every few weeks. Since my higher management is not yet deployed for the project guess who is filling in that role! Though the hike was nice but our research and multiple job offers say I am underpaid.
On the life side of things though it is a great setting and both professionally as well as personally though if I could i would choose a much LCOL city than the one we are currently in. Our current FIRE easy plan is based on being in this job for next 10 years.
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I am fairly compensated.
I work in sales and my base pay is ~$27/hr + 5% commission.......so income is based on performance :)
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I spent years being underpaid in my current industry, but recently got a job with a public university. They show how they come up with a fair wage based on national and regional data. The benefits are also far beyond anything that I have had.
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I could argue either way but I choose to believe "fairly compensated" because what's the point of not being happy.
* overpaid - arguments here are that compared to what locals (often with far more qualifications than I have) earn for the exact same work I get a lot more... of course against that you have to balance that I'm the one who was prepared to leave my home country so I should be given extra compensation for that.
* underpaid - I have a degree in pure mathematics and left university exactly 20 years ago (eeekkkk how did it get to be 20 years?). Compared to others I studied with I now earn a fraction of what they do. Of course it's a stupid comparison because we've made such different choices with our lives but sometimes I think "what if..."
* fairly compensated - I earn enough to lead a very nice lifestyle which includes a lot of travel, I'm saving a decent amount and having all sorts of cool life experiences. I knew what the package was when I accepted the job, I was happy with it then and I'm happy with it now. I usually switch jobs every few years and there's a good chance that my next job will have a different amount of monetary compensation (in this job I earn approximately a third what I did in my last one) but there'll be other perks instead.
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Overall, I earn about $45k/year.
I would say my actual work amounts to about double of what I get paid for, so an "adjusted" hourly rate of $25-$30 sounds about right. If you want to account for driving to work, no benefits, etc. I'm sure I'm making minimum wage or around there.
Minimum wage is $7.25/hour. At full-time (40 hours/week, 50 weeks/year, so 2000 hours) that's $14,500/year. And people actually earning minimum wage also have to commute to work and get no benefits.
You are getting way, way more than minimum wage -- so much more that your comparison shows a fairly stunning lack of perspective.
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I'm paid about right for what I do. Sure, I could take a more stressful job and make a bit more, but I like the flexibility I have here. Payscale says I'm in the 58th percentile, but I get decent vacation, I'm never on call, and every other friday off. Plus we shut down for a week between christmas and new years, so bonus.
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last year i would have said underpaid. but i switched positions in my company. i was traveling 50% of the year and making no more than the other engineers in other groups who were not traveling. with our employee owned company i could easily have clicked overpaid b/c of how good profit sharing is here but thats not a sure thing.
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Why I do it? I enjoy teaching and I enjoy the flexibility. I have had lots of different jobs and this is the one I like the most, even though I realize my overall income will never really change unless I add a side hustle or do something different.
This is a weird attitude (that shows up in a lot of posts here). "I have a lot of really great perks for my job, but in spite of this am underpaid."
It's weird because compensation is far more than just a salary number. Benefits, work/life balance, and salary are all part of the equation. Seeing, "I'm under compensated because I have a bunch of other perks" just... doesn't compute to me.
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I can not answer the poll since I am trying retirement as of this month, however for your comment below I think the key is "for the job", not "overpaid" or "underpaid". in my previous life I was making a lot of money (300k+ when all counted in) yearly but the job involved 8-10 hours worth conference calls, 24x7 on call and online (since you are responsible for tens of thousands of deployments/systems), very active multitasking (being on video call is not an excuse to do at least 4 other things), being always behind as your resources are never comparable with your tasks and needs, constant fighting/politicking with very A type personalities (of which you had to be one yourself, no doormats here, no nice guys/girls), running dozens of teams daily, and very frequent travel. very few are cut out for this and I can see persons wanting to jump out of buildings just to end this, a lot of my peers burn out very fast. is it overpaid? underpaid? who knows? but my org could not recruit and keep people at that level who had the talent to do the job, the capacity to take the pain, and willingness to come back. for me I end up deciding that I had enough for what I ever want/need and left. the same org is now asking me to meet tomorrow to discuss possibilities.. LOL.
"This is a weird attitude (that shows up in a lot of posts here). "I have a lot of really great perks for my job, but in spite of this am underpaid."
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I just checked Glassdoor it it would appear that I am overpaid. However, I when I got my current job offer a year ago I got specific information on my peer group here at the company when I tried to negotiate (unsuccessfully) for more money. Based on that, I am below the others in my same pay grade and job title. The difference though is that those people have between 10 and 20 years more experience than I do in the same position, so that justifies some differentiation. Overall I checked "fairly compensated" though I recognize every day that I am very fortunate that someone is willing to pay me this ridiculous sum of money. :)
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Why I do it? I enjoy teaching and I enjoy the flexibility. I have had lots of different jobs and this is the one I like the most, even though I realize my overall income will never really change unless I add a side hustle or do something different.
This is a weird attitude (that shows up in a lot of posts here). "I have a lot of really great perks for my job, but in spite of this am underpaid."
It's weird because compensation is far more than just a salary number. Benefits, work/life balance, and salary are all part of the equation. Seeing, "I'm under compensated because I have a bunch of other perks" just... doesn't compute to me.
exactly. i'd gladly take a 25%+ pay cut to have my summers off and extended breaks around holidays as well as PTO on top of it. when you account for the amount of time off in that profession i'd do it in a heart beat ... but its frowned upon to take that kinda time off in my field even if i was willing to do it unpaid.
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Why I do it? I enjoy teaching and I enjoy the flexibility. I have had lots of different jobs and this is the one I like the most, even though I realize my overall income will never really change unless I add a side hustle or do something different.
This is a weird attitude (that shows up in a lot of posts here). "I have a lot of really great perks for my job, but in spite of this am underpaid."
It's weird because compensation is far more than just a salary number. Benefits, work/life balance, and salary are all part of the equation. Seeing, "I'm under compensated because I have a bunch of other perks" just... doesn't compute to me.
exactly. i'd gladly take a 25%+ pay cut to have my summers off and extended breaks around holidays as well as PTO on top of it. when you account for the amount of time off in that profession i'd do it in a heart beat ... but its frowned upon to take that kinda time off in my field even if i was willing to do it unpaid.
Obviously perks matter, which is why everyone in those posts says they are sticking with their jobs. But it gets tricky to determine whether you are fairly compensated (versus fairly paid) in those instances because many of those perks are of subjective value. Ender's comment doesn't compute with me because it seems to imply that anyone who is content to stay in their current job is by definition fairly compensated. I suppose you can make that case from a purely capitalistic standpoint, but personally I think an employer that takes advantage of an employee who happens to like their work more than average by paying them less is pretty shady.
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According to payscale.com, I'm only in the 36% percentile of what I put it. That said, I didn't fit neatly into many of their categories, so I picked the closest thing. Also between 401k and ESOP, my company contributes 10% of my salary, which is pretty good. Also, my week ends after 40 hours, no one calls me at home. On the other side, I do produce about 2x as much as anyone else in my group.
I put fairly compensated.
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Why I do it? I enjoy teaching and I enjoy the flexibility. I have had lots of different jobs and this is the one I like the most, even though I realize my overall income will never really change unless I add a side hustle or do something different.
This is a weird attitude (that shows up in a lot of posts here). "I have a lot of really great perks for my job, but in spite of this am underpaid."
It's weird because compensation is far more than just a salary number. Benefits, work/life balance, and salary are all part of the equation. Seeing, "I'm under compensated because I have a bunch of other perks" just... doesn't compute to me.
exactly. i'd gladly take a 25%+ pay cut to have my summers off and extended breaks around holidays as well as PTO on top of it. when you account for the amount of time off in that profession i'd do it in a heart beat ... but its frowned upon to take that kinda time off in my field even if i was willing to do it unpaid.
Some good points here. Spouse just got back from a trip. He was in a convo with his sister (who works for the school system) and their dad. Sis was talking about retirement (pension of 66% of income at 30 years or age 55, whichever comes first. For her, it's the exact same time. And of course, it goes up if she works longer. And maybe she will? Her kids will be out of college by then.) Their dad was asking my hubby about pension. Ha! We have 401k's. Which means 59.5 at the earliest, not 55. I guess at 46 I'm too old to switch jobs for a pension.
In any event, my industry is not the kind of one where you can take extended time off. And I'm not fairly compensated. I've created the flexibility that I want just by taking it, and by finding a good boss with kids who gets it. The flexibility was not given to me. Upper management still expects 45-60 hours a week. Upper management does not sign my timecard.
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pension of 66% of income at 30 years or age 55, whichever comes first.
Hmm... would that still apply if someone started working for the school system at age 50?
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pension of 66% of income at 30 years or age 55, whichever comes first.
Hmm... would that still apply if someone started working for the school system at age 50?
Hm...maybe it's whichever one comes second, or only after a minimum (like 20 years). I was only listening with half an ear.
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Underpaid. Asked for a raise. Still waiting for the answer and currently looking for another (better paid) job.
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Well this thread must have been good karma for me because my ongoing negotiations finally resulted in an 18% raise today! That's actually better than I expected and I can now definitively state that I am fairly compensated! :)
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I am fairly compensated.
I work in sales and my base pay is ~$27/hr + 5% commission.......so income is based on performance :)
Glad to hear that you are fairly compensated. Your comment, "so income is based on performance :)" indicates that your compensation is based on performance, but is your performance worth more than $27/hr + 5% commission. Maybe it should be $35/hr +15% commission.
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Maybe Tomsang. Last year I made $109k which puts me in the top 5% of income earners in my age group (25-34). This year I will increase that substantially. I would say it's par for the course. Not to say I don't want a raise ;)