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Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

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Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#261

Post by furyg3 »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #20

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

My employers automatically corrects for inflation at the end of each year. Of course it's still 'behind the curve', since inflation happening this year is only compensated next year, but it's still something.

Pro-tip, if you have yearly performance/raise/bonus discussions, let your manager tell you all of the nice things to justify why they are giving you a raise. Dig into it, be super grateful and receptive. Then ask "oh of course this is in addition to an inflation compensation, right?"

If not, it's appropriate to be genuinely confused about why you're actually not getting a raise at all given his/her stated reasons why you are deserving of one.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#262

Post by throwawaycities »

Gareth321 wrote: post #250

Real wages have been flat since the 1970s ( https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us... ). "Okay, so people's living standards are about the same since 1970?" Not even close. The problem with inflation is that its calculation is fraught with all kinds of selective weighting, bias, and politics. Take a look at the relative differences between the things which have decreased and increased in cost in…

Glad this was the top comment.

Wages have not kept up with cost of living for 50 years in the US.

We need to stop pretending flat wages are some modern problem of inflation, and we need to stop pretending inflation is some problem caused by the pandemic.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#263

Post by choppaface »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #20

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company reconsider their 'standard' 2% raise?' The lady answering looks dead in the camera and goes 'Honestly? No' and goes on to talk about how we're reasonably competitive with the local market. Hey, credit where credit is due, at least she was a refreshingly straight shoo…

Why compare the “standard raise” with inflation when you could compare it with the CEO’s total comp? Is the ratio of CEO-to-employee pay competitive? Has the company’s pandemic response increased or decreased this ratio? How about comparing employees versus the comp awarded to the board or other investors?

Tell HR and the C-levels that the employees are making a big investment of themselves at the company. Shape the dialog such that the leadership has to recognize the employees as investors, not cogs.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#264

Post by furyg3 »

Kiro wrote: post #129
kelseyfrog wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing you can do is organize your workplace. Job hopping allows businesses to eat the market at the edges and eventually squeeze those demands out of the labor pool.

Look at Sweden. The collectively bargained pay increase was below inflation in all sectors. You should unionize for many reasons but I wouldn't trust it as an efficient tool for pay negotiations.

Most of the collective bargaining agreements I've heard about here in the Netherlands involve an automatic inflation correction at the end of the year.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#265

Post by steerablesafe »

onion2k wrote: post #203
JimBlackwood wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at it from this point of view; if your employer is so unhappy with you that, even when you’ve shown your skill, he’s unwilling to pay you a competitive amount then it’s clear you don’t really have a future at your current job. A new company is willing to risk it on you, while paying more than your current job where you have experience. No surprise they leave in a year anyway.

if your employer is so unhappy with you that, even when you’ve shown your skill, he’s unwilling to pay you a competitive amount then it’s clear you don’t really have a future at your current job This is the crux of the problem - people assume that anyone going to their boss asking for a raise is underpaid. That isn't always true. When someone goes and finds a new role on more money it's almost always at a higher leve…

If they got promoted at their new company then you can counter offer with a promotion too?

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#266

Post by walkhour »

carom wrote: post #71
neonbjb wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong IMO - the fed has NO tools in its hands. Its last tool was inflation rates, and it burned that during the great recession. It is now caught in a pickle: raise interest rates, causing a mass exodus of wealth from securities to savings accounts and CDs and causing the stock market to tumble (like it arguably always should have done since 2008), or let inflation take its course. I am not an economist, and…

Inflation isn't bad, it is part of the interest rate cycle. You cut rates until you can't then you use inflation.

Could you elaborate? Why is the interest rate cycle good?

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#267

Post by refurb »

manmal wrote: post #211
turbinerneiter wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The revolution will not come from the left. The "left" elites have forgotten the people, and the left in general is talking more about identity issues than class issues. The revolution will be more Trump than Bernie. Like in the early 1900, where more revolutions where fascist than communist.

What people in the US call left elites, is being called slightly rightwing in the EU. When I hear comments like „state-funded housing is socialism“ I have to chuckle. That’s just how you make sure people won’t starve if they don’t resort to shady business. Bernie‘s ideas would be called leftist here, but not extremely so.

Bernie isn’t the elite running the country.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#268

Post by npteljes »

landemva wrote: post #110
missedthecue wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth noting that switching jobs for pay raises is mainly a white collar thing. If you work in trucking for instance, where productivity is capped, worker differentiation is minimal (meaning two different truckers perform essentially identical work unlike engineers or salespeople), and where industry margins are thin, you'll top out relatively quickly. After that, switching companies isn't going to do all that m…

Bad example, as trucker turnover historically is over 100% each year. https://www.fleetowner.com/operations/drivers/article/211453...

Does this turnover mean that the truckers get better paid? If not, then it's an even better example, because the turnover would highlight that they have topped out.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#269

Post by ericd »

goodpoint wrote: post #216
whydid wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I love to study history, you can almost predict the future by studying the past. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

Reminder: the level of inequality before the French revolution was *lower* that what it is now.

Another reminder: food was far more expensive then, they had food shortages, and a significant portion of the population could barely afford to eat. It is certainly not worse right now.

Re: Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

#270

Post by onion2k »

refurb wrote: post #241
moksly wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure why this is getting so much negative attention. I’ve been both in and around high level management in the Danish public sector for decades and I’ve never matched or sparred with another manager who would these sort of things. No one, and I do mean no one, is irreplaceable. Maybe you’ll have to throw away an entire IT system because you’ve lost the know how to keep the business case for the system a net p…

I’m guessing Denmark and the public sector is very different than other countries and industries. When a key contributor asks for a 20% raise (or say $50,000 more per year) and them leaving put millions of dollars of revenue at risk, or more importantly, reflects poorly on a manager and threatens their advancement (why can’t you keep your team happy?) then the math is actually quite simple. But in a highly siloed and…

them leaving put millions of dollars of revenue at risk

Every team should fight against this. Writing simple, understandable, documented code that doesn't need some key person to maintain it is a very good thing. For a start, failing to do that locks people in to their job. Not being able to move on, and up, is a very bad thing. Secondly, people leave for reasons other than money. What if someone's husband gets a cool job in another state and they move for that? No amount of money would keep them, so you still lose those millions. Thirdly, there's the bus factor - what if that person is run over by a bus? How do you keep going?

Paying someone more and more to keep them is only patching the underlying problem that your team isn't resilient enough to catastrophic change. Fix that problem.

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