No, as an industry, wages absolutely did not go down.  Your salary went down because your company and some others were in trouble, but most companies did not have salary cuts, and salaries were not cut whatsoever.<p>If a company goes bankrupt and it lays people off, it doesn&#x27;t mean that salaries all fell, it just means those employees&#x27; salaries dropped to $0.  This is what happened to you.  I got modest salary increases during the same time.