Pay Increases

[Repstock]

I was looking over old pay stubs and did some math. I have gotten raises in the past few years, and I wanted to see how much real world difference they made. After all deductions, my raise from 2011 to 2012 added $6.55 cents a week. From 2012 to 2013, another $5.24 was added to my weekly pay. From 2013 to 2014, $9.33 was added weekly. From 2014 to 2015, $13.82 a week was added. I wonder how much the cost of living has gone up in that time? It's better than being unemployed or not getting raises, but that doesn't mean it's good. I would imagine I've lost ground in terms of buying power. I wonder how typical this is? 

Edited December 7, 2015 by Repstock

[Repstock]

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Edited December 7, 2015 by Repstock

[Aaronw]

From 2011 to 2015 I've had a total of 2% increase. That was a 3 year pay freeze (2011-2013) followed by 1% each in 2014 and 2015. Over that same period it appears inflation has raised costs about 9%...

Edited December 7, 2015 by Aaronw

[Draggon]

I'm on SSD and the cost of living increases they give us can amount to 1% or so, about 10 or 15 bucks a month, however we've had no increases in the last 2 years. Prices of goods of course has risen. Despite claims of low inflation historically, prices of groceries has risen for many items 200% to 400% or more. In the last 5 years some of my prescriptions have risen 1000%  (yes I said one thousand ). Add to that ridiculously low interest rates and things don't look so good. I ( had ) a nice savings account, but these days the total amount of interest I get in a whole year is about what I used to get in 10 days. I worry about the future for my 24 year old son. 

Edited December 7, 2015 by Draggon

[Agent G]

The state of Nevada froze salaries from 7-1-08 until 7-1-14. They implemented furlough days during this time as well. I couldn't complain as I have a pension, which received it's regular COLA's (2-3%), and my wife was doing well as a casino director.

When MrsG was forced into retirement our furloughs decreased. Still couldn't complain. 

Fast forward to 7-1-14 when everything went back to normal and furloughs went away. I was the first up for a raise and the new administration maxed me out. Talk about sticker shock! I was promoted 2 months later and they maxed me out again at the higher pay. 

I was flat told I was "taken care of" because I hung in during the lean years and didn't go looking. Little did they know! 

The other thing is that out here in Nevada folks just got accustomed to being paid well. I, on the other hand, didn't really make squat back in St Louis as a policeman and was quite used to making do. 

It's all relative I suppose. 

G

[cobraman]

I think with the rising prices of most things around us that most of us are loosing ground. Hopefully I am wrong and most are doing well. We have noticed a price spike on some things at the grocery store. Gas is pretty low right now. Some utility bills are increasing and the taxes on some are just border line criminal. : )

[Ace-Garageguy]

I was making about $250 a week in the mid 1970s. To have the same buying power now, I'd have to be pulling down about $2500 per week. That's how much costs have gone up. My pay hasn't kept pace...not by a LONG shot.

We're all being screwed, whether we want to believe it or not.

[Harry P.]

You guys think you have it tough? Try being self-employed. Sure, theoretically I can charge whatever I want for a project, but when you're bidding on a project, guess who gets the job? There is always someone willing to take on the job for peanuts... even at a loss, just to get their foot in the door with the client. So when you're competing with low-ball job estimates, it's pretty hard to convince a potential client that you're worth a lot more than the Gen-Xer who is willing to work for $20 an hour...

[Harry Joy]

We have noticed a price spike on some things at the grocery store.

The grocery store is a good measure of true prices in the US, as long as you are talking about a regular grocery like Kroger, Safeway, Publix, Albertsons, or a local chain. True grocery chains are very price sensitive, and run on very low margins. A small bump in commodity prices is reflected very quickly in the stores, especially in milk, eggs, meat and produce. However, those same items are very much ruled by weather and other conditions. Wal-Mart, Target, and specialty chains operate a little differently.

[blunc]

You guys think you have it tough? Try being self-employed. Sure, theoretically I can charge whatever I want for a project, but when you're bidding on a project, guess who gets the job? There is always someone willing to take on the job for peanuts... even at a loss, just to get their foot in the door with the client. So when you're competing with low-ball job estimates, it's pretty hard to convince a potential client that you're worth a lot more than the Gen-Xer who is willing to work for $20 an hour...

I do not envy self employed people, in fact I respect them for doing it the hard way compared to regular employment with benefits.

In Arizona most self employed people get taxed about three different times on every dollar they take in (generalizing a little bit here), kinda makes it hard to stay self employed.

[Rob Hall]

I've done self-employed before as a consultant, doing 1099 contracts...finding companies willing to work w/ 1099s can be challenging...I was able to bill decent rates ($75/hr and up)  but with the insurance and 15% self-employment tax on top of regular taxes, it really wasn't that much better than a W2 or salaried position.  I've had a few good salaried gigs w/ ample benes and stayed 3 years at one and 5 years at another, but the occasional long hours made it seem like the salary was low (since I wasn't hourly).  4 years ago, I did a 6 month contract that devolved into a 90-100 hr per week death march for several weeks, at least I had a good bill rate for every hour.  I've been doing a W2 contract for the last year at a good hourly rate w/ pretty much no overtime needed (though I can bill for it when needed).   I have an S-corp w/ my sister for when she does 1099s and I'll probably use it sometime in the future again. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

The fact that Rob is in the computer industry did remind me of something that's not particularly relevant but interesting nonetheless.

To have a computer with only a small fraction of the power of my already obsolete desktop in the mid 1970s would have cost millions of dollars. Today's "mobile device" costing $400 or so in today's money would have been science fiction material, and unavailable for any price.

Point being...the disposable technology we take for granted now is really incredibly cheap compared to anything else.

[Rob Hall]

It is pretty fascinating how fast things change in the computer industry.......comparing a typical device such a cell phone w/ ones from 10 years ago, or 20 years ago...or devices like tablets that didn't exist 20 years ago (at least not as a commonplace item)....and the computing power, speed, etc of PCs today vs 30 years ago..   other industries haven't seen such leaps in power and capability w/ cuts in price over time.   And in the meantime, the demand for people to design software for these devices has greatly expanded compared to the size of the programmer market 40 years ago when mainframes ruled a much smaller software market...

[blunc]

just wait till yer car "blue screens" while you're on a freeway off ramp...

[Danno]

You guys think you have it tough? Try being self-employed. Sure, theoretically I can charge whatever I want for a project, but when you're bidding on a project, guess who gets the job? There is always someone willing to take on the job for peanuts... even at a loss, just to get their foot in the door with the client. So when you're competing with low-ball job estimates, it's pretty hard to convince a potential client that you're worth a lot more than the Gen-Xer who is willing to work for $20 an hour...

 

I fought that battle for years, too, Harry.  I feel your pain.  I finally gave it up when the cost of health care for the family outstripped what I was earning after self-employment taxes, etc.  And heaven-forbid the self-employed consultant even thought of putting some $$ away for college funds for children or even some respectable savings for the future.  

The other aggravating factor was the feast-or-famine nature of it all.  You're either too busy to keep up (and clients don't like that) or you're sitting around, wondering if the phone will ever ring again (because clients didn't like it when you were too busy to maintain turn-around expectations when you're too busy).  And, the famine always tracked with whatever 'new guy' just hung out his shingle . . . clients feel so much pressure to keep expenses down that they try the 'new guy' who bills a few dollars less . . . until his incompetence, inexperience, or inability burns them.  Then, you're busy again until the next 'new guy' comes along.  

Tiring.  Very tiring.  And, the stress factor ends up using up your energy.   

 

[Joe Handley]

With theast pay raise I got, Inalso had my hours cut, then cut again, then cut even more to the point that if I had been smart, unemployment would have probably been the smarter option. Then my store changed owners, and while my hourly rate didn't change, my hours dropped a bit more, then have returned to being better than they have in years!

[Repstock]

You guys think you have it tough? Try being self-employed. Sure, theoretically I can charge whatever I want for a project, but when you're bidding on a project, guess who gets the job? There is always someone willing to take on the job for peanuts... even at a loss, just to get their foot in the door with the client. So when you're competing with low-ball job estimates, it's pretty hard to convince a potential client that you're worth a lot more than the Gen-Xer who is willing to work for $20 an hour...

I imagine being self employed is very challenging. I'm not sure what to make of your first sentence. This was never meant to be a who-has-it-toughest contest. There are many people worse off than me, but that doesn't improve my position one bit. However, I see the little smiley guy at the end of the post, so maybe I'm taking this too seriously...It's hard to tell intent when reading a post.  

[Ace-Garageguy]

The other aggravating factor was the feast-or-famine nature of it all.  You're either too busy to keep up (and clients don't like that) or you're sitting around, wondering if the phone will ever ring again (because clients didn't like it when you were too busy to maintain turn-around expectations when you're too busy).  And, the famine always tracked with whatever 'new guy' just hung out his shingle . . . clients feel so much pressure to keep expenses down that they try the 'new guy' who bills a few dollars less . . . until his incompetence, inexperience, or inability burns them.  Then, you're busy again until the next 'new guy' comes along.  

Tiring.  Very tiring.  And, the stress factor ends up using up your energy.   

 

Yup...been there several times in different industries, and there right now. Though I work "with" a pretty well-known shop, I'm in a subcontractor "consultant" relationship, the big job I'm on is coming to an end, and there's not a whole jell of a lot on the horizon....though somehow, something always seems to fall out of the sky, at least enough to keep me going...just barely.

[Harry P.]

The other aggravating factor was the feast-or-famine nature of it all. You're either too busy to keep up (and clients don't like that) or you're sitting around, wondering if the phone will ever ring again (because clients didn't like it when you were too busy to maintain turn-around expectations when you're too busy).

Boy, ain't that the truth! Exactly! I'm either so busy and stressed out trying to meet simultaneous deadlines and juggling several projects at the same time that I can't think straight, or I'm sitting here wondering if I'll ever get another job again. The "feast or famine" aspect of being self-employed has got to be the hardest part of it. You have to be able to deal with the fact that it may be months between paychecks... and when the checks do come, you have to budget carefully because you don't know when the next one will come. Yep, self-employment is definitely not for everyone. When things are going good, you're on top of the world. When things slow down, you wonder why in the he-- you ever decided this was a good idea...

[Harry P.]

I imagine being self employed is very challenging. I'm not sure what to make of your first sentence. This was never meant to be a who-has-it-toughest contest. There are many people worse off than me, but that doesn't improve my position one bit. However, I see the little smiley guy at the end of the post, so maybe I'm taking this too seriously...It's hard to tell intent when reading a post.  

No intent on my part to be a jerk. I was just trying to make the point that people who have a 40 hour a week full time job have it easy compared to those of us who have to rely on ourselves alone to make ends meet.

[Rob Hall]

The unpredictability and additional taxes, accounting etc is why I generally avoid self-employed 1099 gigs and prefer 6-12 month w2 contracts.. Predictable income at a good rate with less risk.  And for my thing it seems like the last few times I've been looking I get 2-3 offers in less than a week usually..there always seems to be more programming gigs than developers.  In nearly 2 decades in the game, I've done salaried FTE in corporate IT environments, at a consulting firm, and startups, 1099 at a startup and a consulting firm, and w2 contracts in traditional IT environments...each approach to employment has it's +/-...

[High octane]

No intent on my part to be a jerk. I was just trying to make the point that people who have a 40 hour a week full time job have it easy compared to those of us who have to rely on ourselves alone to make ends meet.

Really? I've worked MANY 40 hour weeks Harry out in the bitter cold and the blazing sun, just to feed my family, pay some bills, pay the mortgage, and try to make ends meet. And I'm talkin' 'bout doin' this year after year for decades. Easy, not at all.

[Harry P.]

Really? I've worked MANY 40 hour weeks Harry out in the bitter cold and the blazing sun, just to feed my family, pay some bills, pay the mortgage, and try to make ends meet. And I'm talkin' 'bout doin' this year after year for decades. Easy, not at all.

You're completely missing my point.

I'm not saying that working a 40 hour a week job is necessarily easy. My point is, if you work for an employer as an employee, regardless of how hard the job may be, at least you know how much you'll be paid, and you know that you'll be paid every other Friday.

Self-employed people have no such guarantee. That's my point. Not how "hard" the work is, but knowing you'll be paid on a regular schedule.

[Ace-Garageguy]

I'm not saying that working a 40 hour a week job is necessarily easy. My point is, if you work for an employer as an employee, regardless of how hard the job may be, at least you know how much you'll be paid, and you know that you'll be paid every other Friday.

Self-employed people have no such guarantee. That's my point. Not how "hard" the work is, but knowing you'll be paid on a regular schedule.

Exactly. I was once driven to having to file for bankruptcy because 3 clients were slow-pays, back to back to back, and I was already overextended. I'd completed all their work in good faith, had contracts...but no money. Until you've been there, you don't know what it's like to have your calls never returned, or to have to listen to interminable lies and excuses, and to have to continually make excuses and beg for extensions from your own creditors.

There's a lot to be said for having a "job", no matter how nasty the work is.

[Harry P.]

Yes, clients that refuse to pay are another part of the self-employed world.

It's happened to me several times. The client knows that the amount they owe you isn't worth your bother to take them to court. The cost of hiring a lawyer, etc. would eat up the amount owed you, and then some. Sadly there are people that take advantage of that... and like I said, it's happened to me several times. Just one of the "benefits" of being self-employed.