More than a thousand readers responded to our call to share their salaries.
More than a thousand readers responded to our call to share their salaries.
Comments
How Much Money Americans Actually Make
ByLora KelleyandGus WezerekJuly 2, 2020
How much money do you make?
It’s generally a taboo question. Yet the answer determines so much about our everyday lives and the opportunities available to ourselves and our children.
One conclusion of our Times Opinion series “The America We Need” is perhaps an obvious one: Higher wages — and better benefits — would go a long way to reducing economic inequality. To further that discussion in a less abstract way, we asked Times readers to tell us what they earned in 2019 and whether they thought they were fairly compensated.
Over 1,100 people responded, volunteering to share details of their compensation. They included banking executives in the “one percent,” workers at nonprofits who say they are compensated in nonmonetary personal “fulfillment” and a cashier who longs for a $15 minimum wage. An Uber driver reported that a majority of his earnings were swallowed up by Uber’s commissions and by car upkeep. Dozens of medical residents wrote in telling us they were undercompensated for 80-hour weeks of specialized work.
Age vs. annual wage
0
5% of workers
Here’s the wage distribution in the United States across different age groups.
Here’s where some readers who responded fit on the chart, including a young software developer who made $131,000 and a 69-year-old vocational counselor who earned $26,000.
Many people felt they were paid too little, and a smaller number felt they were paid too much. But, across sectors, locations, age and income, respondents overwhelmingly said it was hard for them to know whether their compensation was normal or fair. They said that having transparency around pay with their peers could change that. Particularly for female and minority workers, who are too often subject to pay discrimination, not knowing what other people earn makes it harder to feel confident that they’re being treated fairly.
We spoke with dozens of the respondents, whose pay last year ranged from $24,000 to $415,000. In their own words, here are 19 of the readers who shared their salaries and how they felt about them.
All photos were taken by the subjects or people close to them. These accounts, drawn from interviews and submissions, have been edited and condensed. All salaries are self-reported.
Alexandra Parrish made $25,620
She is 27 and works as a bank teller in Missoula, Mont.
When people hear you work in a bank they think you must be set, because they think of Wall Street and big firms and huge companies. But the reality is the actual day-to-day lobby workers really aren’t paid any more than someone who works flipping burgers. 

I know it’s a smaller bank, so I wasn’t expecting to make the big bucks. But I was a little surprised to be paid only $12.50 an hour. A bank teller holds a very important position within any financial institution. The country needs a minimum wage of $15. I live in a part of the country where the cost of living is rising every year. Living here for the last eight years I have watched housing prices steadily climb and wages stay stagnant. 

I was told growing up to go to college to get a good job. I followed that path. And now I feel a little bit lied to. After graduating I thought that working at a bank would be a huge step up from the grocery store gig I had for three years. You would think that a bank would be a great place to work.
Kerisha Harris made $70,000
She is 37 and lives in Avon, Conn. She works as a social media manager.
I do not think I am compensated fairly for my current role. My current compensation is based on my prior compensation, and I think that automatically puts me behind. I have three kids so I’ve taken time off for their births. Salary history is disproportionately unfair to women, especially women of color, and to working mothers especially. I am all three. Basing salaries on my salary history puts me at a perpetual disadvantage. When employers base compensation on prior salary, which is often already too low, especially for marginalized folks, there’s so much not taken into consideration. 

Workers should be able to advocate for what they deserve based on their expertise and experience and all that their job will entail, not their prior salaries. I would like to see a change in the secrecy around compensation. If we don’t start talking about it, nothing will change.
Kristel Clayville, 42
Hospital chaplain in Chicago
$54,500
I get a lot of meaning out of my work, and I think the general economy sometimes thinks that being paid in meaning is sufficient to complement actual salary in ways that don’t help you pay your rent or your mortgage. I think care work is often undervalued and desperately needed.
Danny Gillane, 55
Librarian in Lafayette, La.
$71,000
I have a relatively low-stress job. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I can afford cheese. My wife and I joke that if I can afford going to a grocery store to buy a wedge of cheese, I’m happy.
David Sexton made $415,000
He is 50 and lives in Newton, Mass. He works as a senior director at a biotechnology company.
My compensation is fair, probably a bit more than fair. There is a scarcity of people in the field who are capable of doing the work, and it’s extremely well compensated. I work on analyzing DNA sequence samples.

I would love it if companies reported on compensation through their entire employee class and not just for the executive management, either through their filings with the S.E.C. or in some other ways with the labor relations board. Traditionally undercompensated people would benefit greatly from that transparency. Workers in general would benefit. I also think it is extremely important to take health care out of compensation. That’s a very bad thing.
Lynn Zhang made $48,000
She is 28 and works as a server and sommelier in Maui, Hawaii.
We all get paid minimum wage, and a lot of my total income last year came from tips. The guest always chooses how much they tip, and tips are largely governed by the guest’s perception of their server. I don’t think that everyone gets tipped the same, but you can’t really tell guests that they’re treating you a way that they shouldn’t or that’s not fair. As a woman of color, I feel that I have to work harder to rebut guests’ perceptions of what I deserve whereas my mostly male, white counterparts do not. 

Even though I am a certified sommelier, I feel like I have to push or find strategies to get guests to see me as someone who’s highly knowledgeable about the menu and our wine list. People are more likely to pass over me and ask for someone else. That’s sometimes reflected in my tips. I’m not sure how I could effect changes in my tips. But it just seems like it’s not fair that I have to work harder for the same thing.
Carol Canode, 64
School custodian in Columbus, Ohio
$47,311
I've been with the school district for almost 24 years. I started around $10 an hour back in 1996. I earn a very fair salary. There are other school districts that pay more, but I own my own home and I can take care of myself. Unions are so important for employees to have power and work with employers for fair compensation. We fought very hard to get those unions.
Mark Schettler, 34
Bar manager in New Orleans
$67,000
Coronavirus has changed everything for the nightlife industry. I think I was fairly compensated before. But I don't know if it's necessarily possible to have fair compensation within our industry right now.
Hannah Baptiste made $120,000
She is 29 and lives in Greensboro, N.C. She works as a product manager at a software company.
I work for a software development consultancy called Truss. I am a senior product manager there. I just started less than a month ago. At my previous company I was doing the same job as people with titles that were below mine and people whose titles were above mine. It was a startup and it was like, move fast and break things and worry about everything later. That can lead to resentment. It’s not healthy emotionally or mentally to work in an environment where you’re always wondering whether you’re being valued. And when there’s transparency, you’re not wondering.

Where I work now, there is transparency around everyone’s salary. My new base salary there is $145,000. There are pay bands for every level, and my boss told me exactly how they came up with the pay bands. I think that employees benefit the most from that level of transparency. It helps lead to a really good company culture that’s not toxic.

I’m being paid fairly. And I feel very blessed. The fact that I make more money than most people in this country frankly is not something I ever want to lose sight of. I would love to make more money so that I could support more people in my family, and so I could support more people in my community.
Ronald Gizzi, 63
Senior counsel at an energy company
$300,000
I would like my compensation to reflect the value I bring to the organization. It’s hard to know whether I’m compensated fairly for my work because of the lack of transparency with respect to compensation. It’s not talked about. I do not know what my colleagues earn.
Amanda Hanzlik, 30
Cook in Minneapolis
$24,000
I’m paid much better than many people who work in food service. I receive tips, which is not common for many who work in kitchens. I’m going back to work next week, but I’ve been getting federal unemployment during the pandemic. I’m making more money now than I ever have.
Fernando Javier Rodriguez, 40
I.T. manager in Manhattan
$179,000
I moved here from Argentina. There was a learning curve. One thing I learned is that the same position in different cities is completely different, because the cost of living is so different. I was working for some time in Ohio. When I got the notification that it was going to be moved to New York, they gave me a $30,000 increase.
Jo Anne Fordham, 66
Writer and writing coordinator
$50,000
Compensation has two sides to it: One is recognition for the work you do, and the other is actual money. I live in the Deep South, and it’s impossible to fix my broken central air-conditioning on my salary.
Yishu Dai made $70,000
She is 24 and lives in Brooklyn. She works as an analyst at a bank.
My salary is competitive within my industry given my years of experience, but I sometimes feel overcompensated for what I do compared to those who do more difficult jobs like sanitation work.

My salary was determined, in part, by salary negotiation. Not every industry provides that kind of leverage for workers. My mother, for instance, does caregiving. And I don’t think salary negotiation is a thing. There are so many jobs that are either physically demanding or psychologically demanding that really don’t give the same type of benefit of negotiation to people applying. 

When I was applying for my current job, I applied with several employers. They all gave different salary numbers, and that helped me figure out what range would be reasonable and competitive for me to ask for. The ability to talk about salaries and negotiation is very valuable for employees. Transparency would help workers be aware of what they could demand.
Hugo Walker made $28,500
He is 60 and works as a grocery store maintenance person in Lexington, Ky.
I work the closing shift at a Whole Foods. Sweeping, changing trash, cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning up spills and that sort of thing. I had to apply numerous times for this job. I guess they’re pretty selective.  Last month I was the employee of the month, and that was pretty exciting. I enjoy working here. It’s a great crew of people who work really hard.

I’ve been working here for just over a year. I started off with the wage of $15 an hour. After a year working here, I was able to get another dollar an hour. So I’m making $16 now. I was really happy because that helped toward the rent increases I’ve had in the past few years. We’re not getting our hazard pay anymore. That was great while it lasted.

I still pay at least 50 percent of my take-home pay for my apartment every month, and that’s before my utility bills. I’m definitely not starving. But at the same time I’m not able to save a whole lot of money. I’ve never owned a home. My take-home pay isn’t enough to qualify for a mortgage, and home prices are going up, up, up around here. I think local cost of living should be a contributing factor not just in starting rates but also annual pay increases.
Richard Falzone, 25
Line leader at a plastics company in Boston
$42,000
I’d like to see collective ownership. I am generally in favor of lower-level people getting stocks and things. I think that’s a really good way to incentivize good work and treat people fairly.
Gaby Mlynarczyk, 52
Bartender and restaurant manager in Los Angeles
$75,000
In general men get paid more than women in my industry. It’s humiliating to get backlash when you ask your boss for an extra 50 cents or dollar per hour for the job that you do. I think sharing the profits with workers would make workers feel valued and give them a certain amount of ownership.
Jay Highfill made $236,000
He is 60 and lives in Overland Park, Kan. He works as a senior director at a consulting firm.
I make more money than I ever thought I’d make. The only real issue I have with my pay is that I have to accept the risk that comes with that reward. I’m in a job that is at high risk of being turned over. I’ve been unemployed four times. Another reason for the higher pay is that it’s hard work, and you’re away from your family for most of the week. I travel to my clients four days a week about 45 to 48 weeks a year. 

I’m a work force consultant. Employers might disagree with me, but I think transparency actually benefits employers more than the employees. I’m not convinced employees will make more money with transparency. But with transparency employers are really forced to administer their wages in a compliant manner, in an honest way, and think about how they want to administer pay.
Sivan Mehta made $131,000
He is 25 and works as a software engineer in Seattle.
I think I am compensated very well. I am paid fairly relative to my immediate peers, and I think I have an about average salary for someone with three years of experience as a software engineer in Seattle. 

In general, I would prefer salary ranges to be public for all roles. That would make it easier for people, especially  those in historically disadvantaged negotiating scenarios, to negotiate higher salaries. As a man who graduated without debt from an expensive private school, I have all of the power in the world in negotiating my salary. But I recognize that’s not the case for everyone. People who don’t have the same privileges as me don’t have nearly the same set of opportunities. I don’t think there’s any reason for companies to hide compensation data unless they want to take away leverage power from workers.
Lora Kelley is an editorial assistant in the Opinion section. Gus Wezerek is a graphics editor in the Opinion section.