What should the salary be?

Originally posted by Wajoma
Of course it's not the " 'difficulty' " of the work, nor is it people manipulating the system, it's our old friend - supply and demand - heard of it?

Supply has been artificially restricted by the wealthy via the government's gunmen (police).

Originally posted by telerion
Seconded. Moreover, the government doesn't base salary solely on education either.

This whole discussion is pretty ridiculous BTW.

Correct on both counts.

Originally posted by telerion
Seconded. Moreover, the government doesn't base salary solely on education either.

This whole discussion is pretty ridiculous BTW.

How bout we make it easy and say "what's the minimum you'd expect someone to get given their education level?"

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The economist, mathematician and physicist Jan Tinbergen (who won the first Nobel Prize for economics) addresses this question. He argued that a qualified person does not need to paid much more than an unqualified person because generally people with more talent also have to make less effort to accomplish a certain difficult task.

But that implies that people with similar educations are doing similar jobs which is not the case. If an unskilled person was doing what I do and took 5 times longer to do it, but got paid the same as me for the amount of work done, he would get a 5 times lower salary. Is this acceptable? The OP seemed to be asking about salaries per month or per year, not based on amount of work done.
How does one measure amount of work done for different types of jobs?

Originally posted by rwingett
I do not support the idea that everyone should be paid 'exactly' the same amount. Neither do I support the obscene disparities in wealth that are now prevalent. I am in favor of a great compression toward the middle, whereby the poor are much better off, the rich are far less opulent, while still leaving room for 'incentive.'

Then I think you need a wider range than you gave. The amounts you gave would not be sufficient incentive.

The 'difficulty' of work is of absolutely no consideration now. The most back-breaking jobs are frequently the lowest paid. What is currently rewarded is not hard work, but the ability to manipulate the system to ones advantage.
Well that depends on how you define 'difficulty'. Some of the things I do that appear to take me minutes, actually took many years of hard studying to prepare for. An I am not talking about school. I taught myself programming on my own time over many years. I have always said that a guy who digs ditches all day long does so because he is too lazy to look for a better job. It may be 'back breaking' but it is easier than the alternatives - which is why he is doing it.

I do agree that there is far to much differentiation in salaries and that the main reason for higher salaries going to management is because management sets the salaries not because what they do is any harder.

Originally posted by uzless
How bout we make it easy and say "what's the minimum you'd expect someone to get given their education level?"

It's not that easy. Well, unless you allow me to say zero.

I think it better to ask, "What would you expect the premium to be from getting degree Y in profession X, given all other characteristics are held fixed?" Basically, two otherwise identical people working in the same profession. One has more education than the other. How much more does the more educated person get paid? Does it depend upon what they studied? I mean who cares if you have a PhD in finance, if you apply for a job as a cook in a local diner, you gonna get paid the basic rate (in fact the premium would probably be negative since they'd see you as overqualified).

Alternatively, you could ask what my expectation of a person's income is conditioned only on the knowledge that they have education level X. Excluding nonworkers, I'd go with the mean salary. Guessing at that . . .

$105K-130K for PhD or professional degree (MD,JD,etc)
$65K-85K for MA
$55K-75K for BA

Those are just my guesstimates of the means. That is, they are statistics, and say nothing about what is fair or what some one deserves.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Then I think you need a wider range than you gave. The amounts you gave would not be sufficient incentive.

[b]The 'difficulty' of work is of absolutely no consideration now. The most back-breaking jobs are frequently the lowest paid. What is currently rewarded is not hard work, but the ability to manipulate the system to ones advantage.
Well that ...[text shortened]... management is because management sets the salaries not because what they do is any harder.[/b]

My salary range was not intended to be taken seriously. It was inserted for the sole purpose of throwing conservatives into a paroxysm of rage. It may not have been successful in that regard, though.

Originally posted by twhitehead
But that implies that people with similar educations are doing similar jobs which is not the case. If an unskilled person was doing what I do and took 5 times longer to do it, but got paid the same as me for the amount of work done, he would get a 5 times lower salary. Is this acceptable? The OP seemed to be asking about salaries per month or per year, no ...[text shortened]... d on amount of work done.
How does one measure amount of work done for different types of jobs?

Well, the problem is that in most jobs productivity is very hard to measure.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Well, the problem is that in most jobs productivity is very hard to measure.

That's a big problem. That's a big advantage the financial people have. They have a scoresheet. They have points. Therefore they can engage their mind in figuring out how to maximize their points.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
That's a big problem. That's a big advantage the financial people have. They have a scoresheet. They have points. Therefore they can engage their mind in figuring out how to maximize their points.

It's not really an advantage for "the financial people" at all. If productivity was easier to measure, their businesses would be more profitable.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
It's not really an advantage for "the financial people" at all. If productivity was easier to measure, their businesses would be more profitable.

I mean a relative advantage over people in other fields.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I mean a relative advantage over people in other fields.

How so?

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
How so?

It's much more difficult to demonstrate success in education for example. If you're stockbroker, either you made your clients money or you didn't. Nothing arbritrary about it. A teacher cannot do that. There is no universally accepted measure of educational success. Arbritrary judgements of individuals' success is much harder to avoid. Success turns into a popularity contest as much as anything else.

Originally posted by uzless
Basing this only on Education level, let's see you right wing nutjobs put down what you think an average fair market yearly salary in the private sector should be for the following groups of people:

highschool dropout
highschool graduate
community college graduate
univerisity graduate
doctoral Univeristy degree (PhD)

0. as in Year Zero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_%28political_notion%29

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
It's much more difficult to demonstrate success in education for example. If you're stockbroker, either you made your clients money or you didn't. Nothing arbritrary about it. A teacher cannot do that. There is no universally accepted measure of educational success. Arbritrary judgements of individuals' success is much harder to avoid. Success turns into a popularity contest as much as anything else.

SAT scores are what colleges typically use to judge the output of primary/secondary teachers.

California tests its students every few years, and sends out reports to the parents.

the data is available. the will to apply it is not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Standardized_Testing_and_Reporting_%28STAR%29_Program