What is the percent change in your income over time?

[BlueHouse]

I was checking out my earnings record on the SS site and calculated the percent change each year.  I’ve had a few career changes, so there are some pretty wild swings in my history.  I don’t think that career changes or setbacks are unusual in this day, so I’m curious to see the history of others. 

How has your income changed over the years?  Do you have a lot of wild swings like I do?  Are these swings pretty normal or is this very unusual?

For reference, I used the SSA data and calculated percent change from previous year’s Taxed Medicare Earnings.  Here are my results:

Work Year	Percent change	Comment
1	0
2	5387.2%
3	-25.8%
4	65.1%
5	-67.8%
6	14.5%
7	372.0%
8	91.5%
9	-24.6%	Move
10	81.5%
11	6.7%
12	41.1%
13	62.0%
14	-31.3%	Career Change
15	23.5%
16	13.6%
17	14.9%
18	14.6%
19	-58.6%	Industry Shakeup
20	69.3%
21	-63.9%	Lay-off
22	-75.3%	pre-tire & travel
23	1021.2%	Career Change
24	42.7%
25	54.5%
26	14.7%
27	41.6%	start self-employ
28	-1.1%
29	75.6%	best year ever
30	-15.6%
31	-37.2%

                        

[deborah]

There was the year I did the jobs of two people (the person who left had a year's backlog), and got 3 times my salary for the year due to the overtime I did. The year I got a contractor's wage. The years after an accident, when I earnt 1/3 of my salary. So yes, there have been fluctuations. These things show you that it makes sense to save a lot and live on less.

[Greystache]

My earning history is nothing like yours.  I went from $22K in 1982 to $177K in 2014 (all with the same company).  I never had a year where I made less than the year before. Most years I had salary increases of between 3 and 7 %.  I had a couple double digit increases early in my career, but then inflation was running around double digits in those years.  Looking back I'm a little surprised just how boring and steady it was. Anyway, I am picking up my last paycheck tomorrow and calling it quits.  I guess my earnings streak will end this year. But then again, maybe not, I checked Personal Capital this morning and last month I made three times more from my investments than I did from my salary.

[minority_finance_mo]

I was checking out my earnings record on the SS site and calculated the percent change each year.  I’ve had a few career changes, so there are some pretty wild swings in my history.  I don’t think that career changes or setbacks are unusual in this day, so I’m curious to see the history of others. 

How has your income changed over the years?  Do you have a lot of wild swings like I do?  Are these swings pretty normal or is this very unusual?

For reference, I used the SSA data and calculated percent change from previous year’s Taxed Medicare Earnings.  Here are my results:

Work Year	Percent change	Comment
1	0
2	5387.2%
3	-25.8%
4	65.1%
5	-67.8%
6	14.5%
7	372.0%
8	91.5%
9	-24.6%	Move
10	81.5%
11	6.7%
12	41.1%
13	62.0%
14	-31.3%	Career Change
15	23.5%
16	13.6%
17	14.9%
18	14.6%
19	-58.6%	Industry Shakeup
20	69.3%
21	-63.9%	Lay-off
22	-75.3%	pre-tire & travel
23	1021.2%	Career Change
24	42.7%
25	54.5%
26	14.7%
27	41.6%	start self-employ
28	-1.1%
29	75.6%	best year ever
30	-15.6%
31	-37.2%

Hey buddy, congratulations on the phenomenal growth. However, can you double check your numbers for accuracy? Somehow, it seems in year 29 you made nearly 500x (48103.432%) your year 1 salary. How did you manage that??

I, myself, will be starting my career in February (currently a college student), but can update you as I move up the ladder.

[BlueHouse]

Hey buddy, congratulations on the phenomenal growth. However, can you double check your numbers for accuracy? Somehow, it seems in year 29 you made nearly 500x (48103.432%) your year 1 salary. How did you manage that??

I, myself, will be starting my career in February (currently a college student), but can update you as I move up the ladder.

Well, I get 413336% of year 1.  Year 1 was $78.  I was 15. 

[minority_finance_mo]

Hey buddy, congratulations on the phenomenal growth. However, can you double check your numbers for accuracy? Somehow, it seems in year 29 you made nearly 500x (48103.432%) your year 1 salary. How did you manage that??

I, myself, will be starting my career in February (currently a college student), but can update you as I move up the ladder.

Well, I get 413336% of year 1.  Year 1 was $78.  I was 15.

Haha, I've been tricked by the magic of percentages again - shame on me. Thanks for the clarification :)

[Cheddar Stacker]

Slow and steady for me. Nothing shocking.

Start of career: 0% - low starting wage in 2000
Today: 500% ish of starting wage 15 years later.

[2Birds1Stone]

It wouldn't be worth figuring out annual income from all the part time jobs I held from ages 13-22. But since I started working full time salaried at age 23

23 - X
24 - +25% (Promotion)
25 - +15% (Larger Store)
26 - -5% (Company doing poorly)
27 - -8% (Company doing even worse)
28 - +70%(Next year, switched careers a few weeks ago)

[BlueHouse]

Would any of you say that you're in a particularly stable industry?  My industry has seen quite a lot of changes over the years and I've modified my career trajectory twice because of it.  But seeing the actual history as it was taxed, I can't help but see how precarious my situation continues to be.  It's really motivating me to decrease my spend rate. 

[deborah]

I was in a stable industry, yet my income fluctuated as much as any on this list.

[2Birds1Stone]

I work in sales/management, so despite always being able to find decent work the pay can vary wildly.

I think its important to establish anchor points in salary and sometimes that means job hopping within an industry or even switching careers. I made a power move last month that set me up for a much higher lifetime earning potential than having stayed with my previous industry/employer.

[MustachianAccountant]

Oh very cool. I've never done this.
Notable for me were an 80% increase in earnings by going back to school and getting a professional certification, and then another 80% increase by switching industries within my career path.

Overall, since my very first recorded year of work, I've increased my earnings almost 7000%!

[BlueHouse]

Oh very cool. I've never done this.
Notable for me were an 80% increase in earnings by going back to school and getting a professional certification, and then another 80% increase by switching industries within my career path.

Overall, since my very first recorded year of work, I've increased my earnings almost 7000%!

That's awesome.  I'm going to look back on some of my certs too and see if they made a difference.  The year I graduated, my income actually decreased because I moved cross-country and was seeking a job for a few months in my new home.

Another point of interest to me is that I've always thought of myself as rather risk-averse and conservative, but judging from my employment choices and history, that is clearly not how things worked out.  The big swings represent big risk/big reward.  (I'm in an upcycle, so I can talk about it without dread right now).

I wish I could run a similar analysis on my investments to see if the results match my risk profile from the same period.  Sadly though, the results are from ignorance and bad choices, so any correlation would be meaningless.

[BBub]

Not including part time work in high school & college.. year 1 is first year of post college work:

Year 1: infinity %
Year 2: 82%
Year 3: 10%
Year 4: 17%
Year 5: 47%
Year 6: 67% (this yr)

478% total from year 1 to year 6.

[sol]

Congress deigned to grant me a 1% raise this year.  That will bring my nominal cumulative pay increase over the past five years to 2%, over a time period in which inflation ran 9%, so I've effectively seen my purchasing power eroded by 7% over 5 years.  5 years of phenomenal growth in corporate profits, btw.  Oh, and I was furloughed, sequestered, and then told to stay home during the shutdown, just for icing on the cake.

Some of my coworkers are grumbling that the 1% pay raise they'll get this year will not be enough to cover the increased premiums for their federal health insurance plan, meaning they'll actually take home less next year than this year even after the raise.

[darkadams00]

374% gain in 8 years with 45% of that coming in the second year. One job change and two promotions.

[YoungInvestor]

I'm in my first year, but the % increase from my salary when I walked out of college will be a bit north of 20% in january.

[aspiringnomad]

Oh very cool. I've never done this.
Notable for me were an 80% increase in earnings by going back to school and getting a professional certification, and then another 80% increase by switching industries within my career path.

Overall, since my very first recorded year of work, I've increased my earnings almost 7000%!

That's awesome.  I'm going to look back on some of my certs too and see if they made a difference.  The year I graduated, my income actually decreased because I moved cross-country and was seeking a job for a few months in my new home.

Another point of interest to me is that I've always thought of myself as rather risk-averse and conservative, but judging from my employment choices and history, that is clearly not how things worked out.  The big swings represent big risk/big reward.  (I'm in an upcycle, so I can talk about it without dread right now).

I wish I could run a similar analysis on my investments to see if the results match my risk profile from the same period.  Sadly though, the results are from ignorance and bad choices, so any correlation would be meaningless.

This was an interesting exercise for me. I've always had a vague idea of my percentage salary increase over time, but it certainly helps to put hard numbers to it. If I ignore high school/university jobs and start counting from my lowly graduate research stipend, I now make 2,874% more. But using my more respectable full-time starting salary as a base, I'll make 181% more this year than my first full year of employment 7 years ago. That's after a few employer changes and a few promotions within employers. Thanks to those moves it was a relatively quick and steady upward climb. I'm sure it'll level out quite a bit now but the results are encouraging, because I've always estimated my income for planning purposes at a 2% increase per year. Reminds me of MMM's optimism post. Of course, early in your career it's much easier to see gains.

BlueHouse, you seem to being doing very well for yourself. Good on ya.