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More Than 60% of Tech Workers Feel They're Underpaid (cnbc.com)
gollum123 writes: Tech workers are the envy of labor market -- they earn some of the highest starting salaries and often command top-notch benefits. But money doesn't always buy satisfaction. Entrepreneur reports that tech workers in major American cities earn an average of $135,000 and yet, a survey of 6,000 tech workers conducted by workplace app Blind and reported by Quartz found that over 60 percent feel they aren't being paid enough. The survey also breaks down how tech workers feel about their pay by company. The five tech companies with the highest percentage of employees who felt they were underpaid shared one important characteristic: They were all founded before 1998. Cisco, Intel, Expedia, VMware and Microsoft employees were the most likely to say that they did not make enough money. Cisco had the highest percentage of dissatisfied employees, with 80 percent telling Blind that they did not feel adequately compensated. Facebook employees, on the other hand, were the most like to say that they are overpaid, with 13.8 percent saying that they felt their employer was overly generous.
Actually, I should also say this is why most tech workers believe they are underpaid as they know of people in silicon valley earning twice or more their salary.
You assume a zero sum economy, it doesnt work that way, more people also means more spending, more money flowing, a bigger economy. Capitalism relies on the velocity of money, and that means more people spending money, not concentrations at the top as we do see (and which we wouldn't if your premise was correct, the money simply wouldnt be there, the problem isn't that employment or money has moved out of the country, it's that the wage disparity between the top and the bottom has become so huge because of stagnant wages that money isn't moving in the way it really needs to to grow the economy for anyone but the very wealthy).
Industry didn't outsource because costs were too high alone, they did it because organized labor's power declined and they were able to get favorable laws passed to allow outsourcing, consolidation, and stashing money overseas to be much much easier.
tl;dr you're wrong and your randian fantasy's about how organized labor and immigration destroyed livelihoods is wrong too and you should feel bad.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
That's why we need a comp time policy at the Federal level for salaried workers. Nothing extreme--you get your hourly rate (not time-and-a-half) paid out each quarter at request or they give it to you as additional time off later--since states can put in stronger policies.
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I'd like to see that government tech job that pays "huge wages". While the benefits are good compared to many private sector jobs the wages are limited by the fixed GS scale which for purely technical roles tops out at GS-13 step 10 or $126,000 in the DC area. That is well below the average of $135,000 referenced in the article. A senior software engineer in the DC area can easily get a paid in $150k-$200k at a private company which is way more than they could ever make working as a federal employee.
Actually, I should also say this is why most tech workers believe they are underpaid as they know of people in silicon valley earning twice or more their salary.
I work for a large publicly traded company. Part of the federal regulation mandates that it publishes median employee compensation (excluding C level management). This raw number is meaningless because we have offices in multiple states within the US and multiple countries (not to mention it includes everything from Software Engineers to Receptionists). My own commutable area has two distinct areas: one averaging 90k per year and the other averaging 70k per year for "IT workers". Five years ago the areas were swapped.
Generally, IT job positions have pay grades, and you get a range inside there. That's how it works in government positions.
Unionized workers can negotiate salaries however, including by putting those positions into a hierarchy of pay grades and leaving it up to the individual to negotiate within that range. Much of the time, the workers don't know all the details of negotiating on their own, so the union sends experts to handle that. Unions are more-organized than the average worker and tend to have more control over the bargaining process in the same way a lawyer has more control over a class-action lawsuit.
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