how much money do you make?

It’s hard to get real-world information about what jobs pay, especially tailored to a particular industry or geographic region. Online salary websites are often inaccurate, and people can get weird when you ask them directly.

In 2014 and 2017, in an effort to take some of the mystery out of salaries, I ran posts asking people to share how much money they make, their job, and their geographic region. People have been asking for it again, so let’s do an updated version.

If you’d like to play, please fill out the survey below. (Do not leave your info in the comments section this time! If you can’t see the survey questions, try this link instead.)

When you’re done, you can view all the responses here in a sortable spreadsheet. (Big thanks to commenter sacados for putting this together!)

{ 337 comments… read them below }

  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    Note: Please don’t leave your answers here! Leave them in the survey above!

    Also, if you’re having trouble sorting the spreadsheet: Your link may have defaulted to a /htmlview view. Try removing “htmlview” from the URL in your browser, which has solved it for people below.

    1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      You might want to mention in the post that there’s a survey there… it’s not allowed through my work filter, so I just have a blank “could not be displayed” box in the post.

      1. Adalind*

        Thanks Countess! I saw my work filter message and the big blank space and was wondering. Will have to log on at home later.

    2. Age of Makto*

      Thank you for putting this together.

      If I might make one suggestion: add a field for “highest degree obtained.” If you have an MBA or other graduate degree, presumably that influences your salary.

      1. ArtsNerd*

        Budget size / size of org is also a major factor. That said, that’s a lot of variables and I think the lines drawn here are “good enough”

        1. quirkypants*

          I agree with ArtsNerd.

          Also, in some industries, a graudate degree doesn’t matter as much as others…

    3. helpful survey!*

      It would be nice to see gender as a question next time. To see the descrepency would be eye-opening.

    1. Foreign Octopus*

      Oh, I know. I was looking for my age bracket and realised I’d moved up one. I did not enjoy that realisation.

      1. The Ginger Ginger*

        SAAAAAME. Goodbye bracket that got lumped in with the 20’s. I hardly knew ye T_T

    2. hermit crab*

      Ha! Congratulations. :) Today is my birthday but I still have a year in my current category. I did spend a few minutes deciding whether to round my 10.8 years of experience up or down (ultimately went with up).

    3. Sylvan*

      I’m not one of the 20somethings that gets lumped in with college students anymore. I’m an actual adult. Spooky,

    4. Sloan Kittering*

      Yes, and then I felt really lousy because I’m only ONE DAY into the category and I’m pretty sure I’m going to look like a chump compared to everybody else in there!!! Ah well, such is life.

    5. Youngin*

      I’m so dumb – I just realized I’m not even in the category I put anymore *face palm* Sorry Allison!

  2. Jaime*

    For the last question, would the answer need to change if you do not have a college degree? Or is it your years of experience regardless of education?

      1. Prof*

        What about graduate education? That was unclear. Should my 6 years as a PhD student count as “professional experience” or as nothing (I assumed the latter)?

        1. epi*

          I counted mine as professional experience. I worked for four years between undergrad and grad, and I’m still working now.

        2. Kate R*

          I counted it because I figured it was akin to an early career professional job. It was a low paying, full time job where the experience I gained would be directly applicable to my future career, so I think it counts.

        3. Tau*

          Did not count it because I switched fields and I took an entry-level job after finishing. That said, I think I managed to progress significantly faster in my career than I would have if I’d taken the job straight from Bachelor’s, so it’s a definite confound and maybe I should have counted it as 50% professional experience or similar.

        4. quirkypants*

          You’re probably the best judge of that.

          With some PhDs, there is a lot of professional experience to be gained – i.e. A biology PhD who spent 6 years working in the lab on things that directly relate to the type of work she’ll be doing. Or, a PhD student who became a profession and taught while a PhD. For others, time as a PhD isn’t as directly related to the work you’ll be doing later (i.e. a PhD in humanities, spending the time teaching, and then went on to do something applied and not related to teaching). Also, for some people they don’t get to that “professional experience” aspect until part way through their PhD so they likely should only count the years they were gaining whatever qualifies as professional experience.

          That’s just my opinion, though…

      2. Llellayena*

        I left out my retail years between undergrad and grad schools. I assumed it was years in my current professional track, so post-grad. (Though I did forget the year in my current field before grad school, I’d have bumped up a level with that. Whoops!)

    1. Nerdy Library Clerk*

      I took it as years of experience regardless of education, and counted my entire working life, even though I did spend some time in college during it. (And may go back to finish my four year degree, since it would give me the ability to move up at my workplace.)

    2. Chickie Manages It All*

      That last question is a sticky one because it assumes that a person has a degree. I attended college for approximately 50% of a semester. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished without a degree and want other people to know that you do not have to attend college to be successful. The way this question is worded is an issue and perpetuates the perception that if one has not attended college, they are “less than.”

      I read AAM every day and have for years. I know that was not the intent. And yet, here we have it.

      1. Sandra*

        I totally agree. Really disappointed to see “post-college” when our educational system is rooted in systemic inequity and not everyone has the access or resources to attend college. Why can’t we just say “professional experience” since all experience regardless of a degree is valuable? As a Talent Acquisition leader, I’ve had my organization start to remove educational requirements from our job postings for this reason – to be inclusive.

  3. Gay Hamster in the Corporate Wheel*

    Corporate level Business Continuity professional with certification and 8 years of experience, financial industry in the southeast US, $86,000 annually.

  4. Heatherskib*

    I posted mine, but I worked in government during hiring and salary freezes for a decade so mine’s likely lower then it should be…

  5. Constant Reader*

    I work in Higher Ed in NYC and make $90k working in HR (EEO). 5-7 years of experience post graduate degree.

    1. Smooth Operator*

      I have a similar job/similar education in New Jersey. I make a bit more I think because I work for a large corporation and have a couple more years experience. But I do think you could make more if you worked for a corporation…

  6. Not a Real Giraffe*

    Are we factoring in things like a bonus or overtime into annual salary, or just base?

      1. Ha2*

        Oops, I just looked at how much money I made over the last year, included bonuses and stock grants… guess I did it wrong, sry

      2. Robin*

        Would this be the case even if bonus and equity are a huge (and consistent) part of your compensation? I’m a sales role and my salary is only half of my total comp. While bonus can differ from quarter to quarter, I think over a decade, I’ve never had a year where it was less than 100% of target.

    1. The Cosmic Avenger*

      I included my annual bonus because it’s been the exact same amount for many years now. I always use the wages+bonus number when comparing a salary somewhere else, since for me that is very reliable income.

      1. JILL comp dir*

        Without adding annual bonus and stock, it’s not a complete picture, where provided annually. These can easily add 10-100 percent or more to annual compensation.

  7. Compliance*

    Compliance in the New York metro area. Been in compliance for ~3 years. My base salary is $62k, but I’m expecting a total of $80-90k by year end from bonuses and other monetary perks (my W2 was $82k last year, even though my salary was $60k).

    1. Investment Customer Service (Licensed)*

      Ooh, what sort of industry do you handle compliance for? I’m interested in moving in that direction.

      1. Lily in NYC*

        I’d also love to hear more. My job is mostly compliance and also in NYC. Similar salary but I’m getting tired of this job; I’ve been here forever.

            1. Compliance*

              No worries! Without giving too much personal detail away, I’m in private equity. The demand for good talent on the investment side is high, so many places will offer perks as incentives, which can (and in my case, does) apply to non-investment talent as well.

              I tend to handle a lot of the paralegal activity (we don’t have one and that’s where I sort of started), but I’m slowly doing more real *compliance* work. We’re in a busy season now with filings and quarterly reports. My days can go from insanely busy, non stop 10 hour work days to spending too much time on AAM :)

    2. Miss Fisher*

      I work in due diligence and deal directly a lot with Banking compliance. I am interested in heading in that direction at my company since that seems to be one of the next steps people take.

    3. alsocompliance*

      Oh – I’m in compliance as well – in NYC. Are you in one of the large firms/banks or are you someplace smaller? Did you have any experience before going into compliance (like unrelated)?

      I’m 10 years out of school – first 6 were general office stuff (admin, office manager, etc.) within the industry, last four have been compliance specific. I’m at 80k base, but expect 100-110k all in.

      1. Compliance*

        Someplace smaller – we’re less than 100 people. I started off as an admin here as compliance started really picking up. Then, it was a one person department, so whenever I had free time I would assist. I started working more in compliance & legal (mostly doing paralegal stuff) until I was officially poached. It’s been a slow process and even now I don’t think my title 100% matches what I do, but I’m working towards it.

  8. Process Geek*

    I’m a SharePoint Consultant in the upper Midwest with 10 years of experience in this role. I have a Masters in Technical Communication. I make $87K per year, plus an annual bonus which is usually 12% of my salary.

      1. AnnaBananna*

        Great question. I could see a BA in english, comm or even CS being the starting point for Process’ career.

  9. Investment Customer Service (Licensed)*

    Formal title: Registered Representative
    Job: Email communication with consumer investing clients
    Geographic Area: Greater Baltimore Metro Area, Maryland, US
    Years of industry experience: 3
    Qualifications: College degree, FINRA series 7/66 licensed
    Pay: $48,000 annually, not bonus eligible

    The job is 90% customer service, but I do have to have my securities licenses since I’m often reviewing things like trading violations, margin rules, &etc with investment clients. My specific role doesn’t earn bonus comp because we can’t engage in sales discussions, so instead we have a base pay bump over comparable bonus-eligible roles.

  10. Bananatiel*

    Very interesting to look at the results so far! Excited to see a few other creatives already present.

  11. Roja*

    Pity the survey doesn’t allow for wages per hour, which makes far more sense for those of us working part-time. My yearly salary is quite small because I work so few hours (soon to change, thank goodness), but the rate per hour is just fine. So I don’t want to input anything, because it would give an inaccurate picture. It would be nice to have an employee vs. contractor section too, as that makes a huge difference in the pay.

    Can’t wait to see the results, even if I can’t really participate!

    1. ThisColumnMakesMeGratefulForMyBoss*

      You could add the salary based on working full time. Just multiply the hourly rate by 2080 and you’ll have the annual FT salary.

      1. Roja*

        The problem is that would also be very inaccurate, as the field is very gig economy based and almost no one works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. It’s incredibly rare.

    2. Mary*

      Oh, I automatically entered my FTE salary even though I’m 0.6 – I really must remember that I’m actually not on my FTE salary!

        1. Lucy*

          I’m going for my FTE as I don’t actually know what the fraction is (I know if the right amount lands in the bank on payday, just not what it adds up to overall before tax!). I also think FTE is more useful for my industry where nearly everyone works full time and nobody is paid hourly.

    3. Tequila Mockingbird*

      I agree, this was the most frustrating part of the survey for me. Not everyone earns a “salary”–some people are hourly or per diem–and there are some who earn a base salary plus commissions, bonuses, etc. which fluctuate from year to year. There are many crucial factors this survey doesn’t take into account (gender, college degree, etc) but the “blanket salary” thing was the hardest for me to figure out what to put down.

    4. Mimmy*

      Ohhh…I’m part time; I just put what I actually make (approximately) by calculating hourly pay x hours per week x 52 weeks. Whoops.

    1. Roja*

      Seriously! Over 100 responses came in just in the few minutes I was looking at the sheet. Easily 1,000 in an hour–that’s a lot!

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        I think this is getting way more participation than in past years — must be something about using an actual survey vs. “leave it in the comments.”

        1. MtnLaurel*

          Yes. I wasn’t comfortable leaving it in the comments earlier (though I do love to see others!), so this is the first year I’ve participated.

    2. Lily Rowan*

      It also really emphasizes what Alison always says about how most people reading don’t comment!

  12. Emily S.*

    Thanks for putting this together, I think it’s a great idea.

    I was a little surprised not to see a question of whether you have a college degree, though. That would seem to make a significant difference with regard to pay.

    1. Miss Fisher*

      Or a question about if you are actually using your degree. Most of the people I work with have degrees in education or something but we all ended up in Banking.

    2. Seifer*

      I’m not sure about that. I don’t have a college degree and I make twice as much as a friend of a friend that just landed her first professional job with a master’s. I also make almost as much as the fresh out of college engineers at my last company. I think it depends more on location and negotiating power.

      1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

        In general, degree vs no degree does have a large impact on earning power. Obviously there are always exceptions, but the nationwide stats (for the US anyway) would say that at least an undergrad degree makes a major difference.

      2. Art3mis*

        I kind of agree. My husband doesn’t have a bachelors, I do, he makes twice what I make.

      3. TechWorker*

        Sure but then that’s still really interesting info! (Oh look, Seifer did great and they don’t have a degree!)

      4. The Other Dawn*

        I agree. I never had a college degree until I was well into my 30s (and only got an AS), and at that point when I started school I was a VP making much more than most of my friends and family. I think in certain industries college degree=more money, but I don’t think it’s across all industries.

    1. Countess Boochie Flagrante*

      It’s interesting that the age range is so solid but the ‘years of professional experience’ answers are still all over the board.

      Even aside from the salary data, just the readership data is really interesting!

        1. Prof*

          I think it’s because of graduate work, which I think a lot of people are not counting towards “professional experience.”

            1. NotAnotherManager!*

              Or took time out of their career to care for children or aging parents.

              There are tons of reasons for the age/experience mismatch.

          1. As Close As Breakfast*

            Yeah, it didn’t even occur to me to count graduate work. I spent about 7 years in graduate programs but I guess my brain lumps all of that as “research experience” and not “professional experience.” What I now do out here in the non-academic world is so, so different from those long years of research I didn’t consider including it until reading these comments.

        2. GS*

          I counted only years of experience in this career, I had a previous 15-year-career in a different field with little carryover in skillset before I went to school.

    2. LizA*

      Makes sense to me – that’s the demographic where people are settling into professional careers and looking for guidance on next steps. Plus it’s the first generation to have grown up with the internet, so it’s not surprising that there’d be fewer older users.

  13. CatCat*

    The last question seems over and under inclusive. For me, it’s a little over inclusive because not all my post-college experience has any relation to my current profession and I don’t think it has bearing on my current earnings, but rather my post-professional school experience has direct bearing on that). It’s also under inclusive in that it excludes people from the survey who didn’t go to college.

    Thoughts for future surveys like this. Maybe questions like:
    * How many years of work experience do you have overall?
    * How many years of work experience do you have in your current industry?
    * How many years of work experience do you have in your current profession?

    1. sparty07*

      Other question options in a similar vein:
      How many years of work experience in your general job type (I’m new to my industry, but been doing various financial analysis work my whole career)
      How many different companies have you worked for? This could possibly show the salary difference between job hoppers (3-5 year) vs. job farmers (15+ years with the same company)

    2. Slow Gin Lizz*

      True! I spent several years in a completely unrelated industry (freelance musician/music teacher) to where I work now, so I was confused about how to answer that question. I ultimately decided I’d include those years since it was still professional experience. And occasionally I do find that experience relevant in my current position. Rarely, but occasionally.

    3. Sally*

      I was a full time fundraiser/political organizer for nine years post-college, and I didn’t include those years. They definitely played a huge role in who I am, including many skills that apply at work, but they are not at all related to my current career. In any case, those nine years would not have moved my answer into the next category.

  14. Stephanie*

    In future iterations, it might be helpful to include bonuses/bonus potential or mitigating factors like paid-for insurance premiums as well. In some industries/jobs, that can change the annual compensation quite a bit (mine, less so).

    Filled out the survey, but adding context:
    -Job Title: Supplier Quality Engineer
    -Company: Big 3 Automaker
    -Location: Metro Detroit
    -Salary: $88,000 with $5,000 bonus potential based on company performance (did not get 100% of the bonus this year, but company has hit targets in recent years)
    -Standard “good” big corporate benefits
    -Education Level: BS and MS, both in mechanical engineering
    -Post School Experience: 6 years–I’m technically in a college hire rotational program because I came to this job out of grad school, but I believe they adjusted my salary slightly higher because of the prior experience

  15. Amber Rose*

    Oh, I like this. It’ll be organized a lot better.

    I suspect my information is probably useless to most people since I’m a hybrid of two completely unrelated positions. But who knows.

  16. J*

    Pretty sure I am the lowest paid person on this survey. Yay what we pay for schools and support staff. After our new contacts get ratified I’ll be making 15.42 next year.

    1. ThatGirl*

      I could include my husband’s info, he has a Master’s degree and ~12 years of experience and is woefully underpaid at his university job as a mental health counselor.

    2. J Kate*

      Maybe not. I don’t make a heck of a lot either – in-home healthcare isn’t the highest profit industry.

    3. Sophie Hatter*

      I agree that we do not pay school staff even half of what they are worth. I’m right there in that salary bracket with you and when I worked in schools I made less than I do now. Support staff have it really rough- I couldn’t do it. Thank you for your work.

    4. she was a fast machine*

      Yeah, I put my salary as my “salary” which was 23k, but I actually took home about 16k after paying out the butt for insurance that I didn’t have a choice about. So that sucks. I’m hoping we get a bit more of a bump this year but who knows. Solidarity fistbump!

  17. EmAyEl*

    Hi,

    Sorry if I’m just not operating it correctly, but how can we sort this? It looks to be view only.

              1. Aunt Vixen*

                Me too, and I can’t even click in the columns, so there’s nothing to select and nothing to sort by.

                1. Aunt Vixen*

                  I am signed in to a google account, but I realized somehow following the link had defaulted me to a /htmlview view of the thing, which if I removed it magically replaced with /edit and solved everything. I’ve got a comment in the mod queue saying as much.

          1. Amber Rose*

            It works for me about one in three tries of click on the link. Sometimes it seems like it just doesn’t load in Google, since my account icon in the corner isn’t there and the tabs aren’t on the bottom.

            I seem to have more luck right clicking the link and opening it in a new tab. I’m using Firefox, for the record. But I’m not sure why it only works sometimes.

      1. ThatGirl*

        I’m not finding it sortable either – I could always copy and paste into Excel though, I suppose

        1. sparty07*

          If you add a temporary filter, you can then click the filter button and sort through the filter options

          1. ThatGirl*

            I literally cannot do anything to the spreadsheet. Can’t select columns or rows, nothing happens if I click on them. It’s not the end of the world, but I definitely don’t have a filter option.

      1. MoopySwarpet*

        I think results are coming in so fast it’s refreshing data before things can be clicked. I can add temporary filter, but when I click on the button to sort (or filter), it opens then closes before I can choose my criteria.

        I’ve decided to come back to it later when it’s slowed down a bit.

      1. LCH*

        replacing htmlview with edit wasn’t working for me, it just reverted back UNTIL i added a space after edit. in case anyone else was frustrated.

        1. Liza*

          How weird! I wouldn’t have thought of adding a space, but that fixed it for me too. Thanks!

  18. Jody*

    It would be helpful if your survey asked how many years of experience we have doing our current job.

  19. Jennifer M*

    Coincidentally just this morning I was thinking about how many years of experience I have. In my head the answer is 15+ years. In reality I started a mostly full-time internship (work during the day, classes at night) in my industry in February 2019 while i was in grad school and stayed there until the end of September 2000 and in October 2000 I started my first full time job in my industry. So while 15+ is “accurate”, I now kind of need to say I have 20 years of experience.

  20. Hello*

    In the future, it would be nice to have a column for job sector categories to help with sorting and seeing salaries within a sector (for example, higher education, finance, government, art and culture, etc…)

      1. LaSalleUGirl*

        That’s true, but people in the same sector are sometimes using different terms to code themselves (Higher Ed and Academia, for instance, which is my sector). It might help to have some overarching categories (maybe using the self-reported ones from this round as the starting place?).

        1. MsM*

          Agreed. I might consider using this year’s data to develop some drop-down options for next year, and then offer an “other” fill-in or a second “elaborate here” question like with the job titles for anyone who doesn’t feel this sufficiently covers them.

        2. Admin of Sys*

          Yeah, the data consistency is pretty crap in the self-filled fields. If Alison is willing, some of us could help normalize the datasets.

          1. Parenthetically*

            I seriously love all of you spreadsheet people so much. Also I need to use “normalize the datasets” more, somehow — it sits very pleasingly in the mouth.

  21. Widdershins*

    I see there’s an epidemiologist in Portland, OR where I also live. I’m fascinated by public health and food contamination outbreaks and other interactions between people, society, and disease. We’ve had a lot of fun here with our recent measles situation. If you ever need a nerdy, data-focused helper, let me know. I’d love to learn more about the industry and am more than willing to input data and love spreadsheets. I have no experience other than my MA thesis was on prehistoric food, so that’s kinda adjacent, eh?

  22. Lady Blerd*

    I wish I could provide a bit more context for my pay level. After I got promoted, I changed pay categories and categories has 5 pay levels, each level is a 1% increase. We automatically go up a pay level per year and am currently in my second year.

  23. lnelson in Tysons*

    I know that a lot of salary survey are questionable.

    Is there anyone reading these comments in the Washington DC non-profit area? InsideNGO used to put out a salary survey for the non-profits with the majority of NGOs either in Washington, DC or NY, NY. But they got the information from the NGO themselves, which lead me to believe that the information was probably more accurate than from other sources. And we would have a better chance of comparing apples to apples for some positions, eg grant administrator, admin assistant, IT associate, etc.

    Do they still do this? This was about ten years ago for me.

    1. RR*

      No longer in International Development, but was until recently. I believe Humentum (as InsideNGO is now named) still does this, but it is members only. If you agree to complete the salary survey (as an authorized rep for your organization) you get a copy as well.

  24. Llama Wrangler*

    FYI — the linked spreadsheet does not seem to be sortable. Are other people able to sort?

    1. sparty07*

      When I first opened the initial link it was all sortable as a google sheets doc. Now it appears to be a form report that is no longer sortable through google sheets functionality

      1. Amber Rose*

        It’s about 60/40 for me which one it will open as. Seems like it works slightly better if you open in a new tab.

      2. Ask a Manager* Post author

        How odd. That happened to me when I wasn’t signed into any Google account, but corrected itself once I was. (I’d signed out of my main one to test it, but was signed into another and it still worked fine>)

  25. Sales Geek*

    I’m retired (3 years this September). Do you want my current information or would you prefer using my information from 32 years on the job…

  26. SeattleGeek*

    I’m currently a Sr Database Developer/Architect making $132,600 in Seattle. Funny thing is, I work in HR and a few years back I worked on a salary /yearly rating project wherein I learned how low my salary was in comparison to others in the company. They gave me a small raise when I brought it up and promised they’d regrade my position so they could bring it up to par.

    Spoiler alert: that second raise never happened.

    I soon start a new position at $150,000 (with a typical 10% bonus). Because duh, of course I’m not going to stick around.

    BTW, for anyone in a database role, Brent Ozar does a yearly survey as well, so be sure to go look at his blog for that.

  27. ZSD*

    I believe the time stamp on the spreadsheet is wrong. It’s saying people are filling out the survey on 4/25, which is tomorrow.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Yeah, I just saw it was set to Tokyo time. I changed it so it’ll be correct going forward (but I don’t think I can correct the old timestamps already there).

  28. Happy Pineapple*

    I was so excited to fill this survey out! I just accepted a job offer with a pay raise of more than 80%!! I truly never thought I’d earn this much and I am over the moon realizing that a savings account and being a home owner could now become reality for me. Wishing every the same luck and success this year!

    1. PipPop*

      Right there with you, just gave my two weeks to move on to a company giving me a 50% raise. In Seattle, that’s a big deal, and I’m elated! I might actually be able to afford a house before i’m 50, hallelujah!

    2. sandwich eater*

      Congrats Happy Pineapple, PipPop & Sammie.
      I’m in the same boat, and according to the spreadsheet, it looks like I’m finally at market rate for my career!

    1. NotAnotherManager!*

      I’m guessing that is because so many wage entries are in a non-numeric format that they can’t be processed into the table. For example, I’d be $45,000 made it into the breakdown table while $45K did not.

  29. AnnieBlue*

    What if there is a typo in your response? I thought I selected my age range correctly — but did not! (It is definitely an outlier in the table.) Oops…

  30. Software Developer*

    Would a master’s degree count as post college professional experience? It feels like it shouldn’t, but I know I get paid more than some of my peers because of it.

    1. CheeryO*

      I would assume no, unless you are making significantly more than your peers (as in, at least an amount equal to an extra 1-2 years of experience).

  31. Chuck*

    Oh, great, we’ve got a Pro Gamer(tm) on here already.

    (Would actually be interested to learn about how much money people make through esports etc…too bad this person seems to be trolling.)

  32. Rabbit*

    For the aggregated salary information I’m assuming the table is counting the responses between salary values? At the moment the columns are labelled as covering everything under each band, which clearly doesn’t match the actual values

    1. Iris Eyes*

      The formula is counting only the first 953 lines, it isn’t the entire column (which is how it probably should be)

    1. Kheldarson*

      I’m a state employee and you can look up our salaries by name. It’s fun when you find out the guy who refuses to learn the process makes more money than you >.<

      1. Middle Manager*

        Same, I have no worry about sharing my salary. If you go to the state website, you can see every individual by name, department, job title. Anyone who know my full name can find exactly what I make.

    2. Cog in the Machine*

      Yep! Of course, if I had added a city to mine, it would be really easy to know who I am.

  33. freedlabrat*

    On the next one you should add a question about degrees held, I have 3 years of work experience, but with a masters degree, which seems very different that 3 years straight out of undergrad

    1. RainbowsAndKitties*

      Nevermind. Once I actually went through and compared to similar job titles I am pretty much in line with people with similar titles and experience. Gotta love how nonprofit salaries compare to private sector though! lol

  34. LizA*

    I picked “5-7 years experience” thinking “oh yeah it’s about 5 years, right?” Then I did the math and realized it’ll be 8 years this fall. I’m still very much in the mindset of being an early career professional but I guess I’m really not anymore! I’d love to see a post from Alison about making that mental transition – maybe I should write in!

    1. Annie Moose*

      Ha, similar for me–I was about to put down 2-4 when I realized I’ve been at my current job three years, and two years at the one before that. I definitely still think of myself as new to the workforce, so it’s weird when I remember I’m… not.

  35. AKchic*

    Yeah… mine is weird.

    I have no college education, I dropped out of high school, worked, got my GED, kept working. I count ALL of my work experience though.
    My wages are also kind of weird. I’m union, so I have a full package at one wage, but then I have the “this is what you take home” package. I look so much better salary-wise on paper with that full package price.

    1. CMart*

      I only counted my experience in my current field, I guess since that’s most relevant considering I’m now in a “career” type job. I’ve been working 20+ hours a week since I was 15, full time since I was 18, but I’ve only been in my career position for 2 years. 12 years of experience in food and bev are sadly irrelevant to my accounting position other than being a good ice breaker topic.

      1. AKchic*

        Some of my retail/food service experience actually does carry over to my desk job. I use my fake smile, extreme patience with ridiculousness, and those vaunted “customer service skills” on the daily. All on my boss, mostly.

  36. Linda Evangelista*

    Watching all these results come in and realizing how many of us in the DC metro area are underpaid for the cost of living here.

      1. Linda Evangelista*

        I can’t WAIT to leave. I unfortunately picked a career that makes it hard, but not impossible. Fingers crossed.

  37. ThatGirl*

    It’s really interesting to me to see that there are a lot of people in my age range (35-44) making between 100-200k a year. I thought I was doing pretty well in the mid-50s. Once the dust has settled a bit I want to see what those jobs actually are.

    1. LaDeeDa*

      I think industry/sector plays a huge part in it. In tech or health care my job earns well over $120,000, my job in education or non-profit earns about $75-80,000. Big difference. And then of course location makes a difference.

      1. ThatGirl*

        Oh for sure. I’m not a tech person, in health care or law or anything that people would expect to make big $$. It’s just interesting to me.

        1. LaDeeDa*

          My job is done in many different sectors, so I am always pretty strategic about which industries I look for when applying for a job– I want stability and a company that makes enough to pay me a lot. LOL!

      1. anon today and tomorrow*

        Yup. This even varies within one state’s different regions. I’d be pretty comfortable on $90K in the rural suburb in MA where I grew up, but $90K is breaking even in Boston because of high cost of living (I am constantly astounded at how much more expensive groceries are in the city versus the suburbs).

        1. CMart*

          I just had a friend move (back) to Chicago after several years in Boston. We had a new grocery chain move into the area while she was gone and I touted it as a great place for bakery/butcher/prepared items but kind of expensive for actual groceries. She went there and then called me, saying “I thought you said this was the expensive store? Or am I misremembering and this was the discount chain you also mentioned? Everything was SO CHEAP!”

          And I had to be like “oh honey. Cheap compared to Boston. It’s still one of the most expensive games in town. You’re going to poop yourself when you go to Aldi.”

            1. ThatGirl*

              I find Mariano’s pretty reasonable for most grocery stuff, but it does have a whiff of Whole Foods. Jewel is still more expensive overall though :P

        2. Cog in the Machine*

          The very rural town I live in now has a higher COL than the not quite to rural town I used to live in. A good part of this is new town is in the middle of nowhere so what groceries there are are high, and if you want something better you have to drive 50-some miles at a minimum.

      2. NotAnotherManager!*

        Yes – $125K/year household income is considered middle-class living where I am, mostly due to the insanity of housing and childcare costs, and it’s more as you get closer to DC (though not as nuts as the Bay Area). Were I to move 100 miles south (which I could not do and keep my job, nor does my job exist there), I’d need about half my current salary to maintain my “lifestyle”.

      3. ThatGirl*

        True. I live near Chicago so it’s not a LOW cost of living area, but compared with San Francisco or NYC…

  38. Rabbit*

    I am interested in how accurate the aggregation will be given that the salary field is a free entry field – it seems to only be trying to aggregate when USD is selected but there is an awful lot of text in the responses, even just a lot of people entering e.g. 30k
    Also I think there is a gap and a few errors in the columns above 70k:
    See this extract from the 80k column:
    Form Responses 1′!$E$2:$E,”90000″,
    It looks like it is trying to count salaries below 80k AND above 90k and is inevitably returning 0

    Alison, would you be ok with people copying the data to produce their own analysis? I have entered my own information for the new position I just started for which this sort of data cleaning and analysis would be an interesting practice example

  39. LaDeeDa*

    I love that there are so many people are in the 18-24 yr age range– if I was that early in my career something like this would really help me pick an industry or job title to focus on. It took me a while to find my career path, simply because I didn’t know it existed.

    1. Sammie*

      I was thinking much the same thing. I’m very happy with where I’m at right now, but I definitely wish I’d known more of this even just out of college. I hope to put my teenage nephew on the right course, although to be fair to him he’s far more shrewd than I was.

  40. rageismycaffeine*

    I’m so (pleasantly!) surprised to see that there are a not-significant amount of people who have responded that are in my same niche field! Prospect researchers, say hi!

    1. LizA*

      Grants or major gifts? I’m a grants manager and I’m working on improving my grant prospecting skills!

      1. rageismycaffeine*

        Major gifts here but I’ve dabbled in grant prospecting. Which is a whole different beast! It’s ever so much fun to try to search a grant database for fifteen different variants on the same keyword because you never quite know which words the foundation is going to use to describe its own grants. Had a project a while back asking for us to identify foundations that make grants to “social entrepreneurship” and that was a real fun one.

        1. LizA*

          My most fruitful strategy has been to find an org that does similar work to ours, look at all their funders, see who THEIR funders fund, and repeat. One week I looked at about 150 grantmakers and grantees this way, and IDd about 10 very good prospects after sorting through all the chaff.

          On the other hand I know NOTHING about major gifts! And I find it fairly intimidating – there’s a reason I went into the specialty that’s more about writing to a set of guidelines than it is about social skills!

          1. rageismycaffeine*

            Oh, to be clear, I am a major gifts researcher, NOT a fundraiser. There’s no way I would ever do direct soliciting myself. I hear often that people think that prospect researchers should occasionally go on donor calls with fundraisers to get a better feel for what they do and I can’t nope out fast enough. :)

            Taking notes on your suggested method to ID grantmakers… I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before I’ll be asked to do that again.

  41. anon today and tomorrow*

    It’s interesting to me that my salary at 8-10 years is higher than similar positions with 11 – 20 years. I haven’t looked too closely to see if it’s industry or region related yet, but I do live in a HCOL area so I wonder if that’s a factor.

    Also writing it made me realize I went from a salary of under $20K/year to almost six figures in ten years (I did switch industries several times). I never really thought much about that. Huh.

  42. The Grammarian*

    I really want to see a Q&A with the ghostwriter who responded! I also took the survey and was so interested to see what other people in my industry make across the country and around the world.

    1. Lepidoptera*

      Same. I’m fascinated by the idea of a job that gives someone else all the glory for your work! I’d get grumpy so fast…

  43. Sarah*

    The breakdown page makes no sense. If you have people in the “under 200” category, shouldn’t they also be accounted for in the “under 90” “under 80” etc categories? Or should the labels actually be ranges?

    1. ThatGirl*

      They are ranges – but I do find it odd that nobody seems to be in the 70-80 and 80-90 range, and I wonder if that’s a flaw in the reporting.

  44. Advisor*

    Shoutout to my colleagues in international education – unless you’re a director we are all clearly underpaid.

  45. Administrative Assistant*

    This is always so interesting to me! I moved from New England to Florida and am doing a similar job in a different industry – my base salary now is about 2/3 of what I made up North and my total compensation (including bonus, 401k, health/vision/dental) is about 1/2. And this is even after negotiating a higher salary for my position here. And, really, COL is not as different as people think it is if you live in the suburbs and not downtown.

    1. Close Bracket*

      I moved from New England to Arizona and also took a large effective salary hit for a similar role. The COL is lower, but the decrease to my salary is greater than the decrease to my cost of living. I tried to negotiate for a salary that would break even on decrease to salary:lower cost of living, but was only given a nominally better offer.

    2. Luisa*

      Seriously. I live in New England in a very HCOL area, and my husband not-so-secretly wants to leave. He keeps saying that the cost of living will be SOOOO much lower in his home city, or his favorite city…and it’s really not the case. We would be likely to buy a marginally bigger house (which we actually don’t need) for marginally less money, but I would take a minimum 50% pay cut (from which I would never recover) and he’d probably take at least a 10% cut as well. Our crazy-expensive area sucks, but at least our current salaries allow us to live here!

  46. Dan*

    Next time you should require that the salary be an integer to make it easier to sort. A lot of people have added entries like “50k” or whatever which doesn’t sort properly vs entries like “50000”. I get that allowing letters allows for more context like hourly wage but I think if you just make people annualize it, and people who aren’t salaried could put what they made last year, it’ll make it easier to do comparisons, averages, sorting, etc.

    Also I think it would be nice to have a field for estimated value of non-salary benefits like stock options, 401k matching, healthcare, etc

    1. Dan*

      Oh and also I think there could be some value in having the “what industry do you work in” question have a set of predefined answers plus an other field. Same with breaking out state and country and having dropdowns. Basically the more standardized you can make it the more interesting data you can get. With these changes you could get the average salary for tech workers in New York state, whereas now you sort of could but it would be difficult

  47. Michaela Westen*

    Alison, I submitted the survey.
    I didn’t finish a college degree. As far as I can tell that makes no difference in my job, but I wonder if it should be in the survey.

  48. CheeryO*

    This is super interesting to me! Way more local people and people in my industry in general than I would have guessed based on the active commenters.

  49. LaDeeDa*

    I am not getting any work done, I just keep refreshing the spreadsheet and sorting it in multiple different ways.

  50. Goose Lavel*

    Senior Manufacturing Engineer with 30 years experience working in Silicon Valley. I made $136,000 a year. It would have been helpful to have a section for “other salary”, as I received a yearly bonus based upon company performance, which was $26,000.
    I also received Company stock.

  51. she was a fast machine*

    Not a huge fan of the wording on “post college professional experience” thing, since I’m in-progress on a degree but I’ve been working “professionally” doing data entry/admin work since I was 16. It’s just that this isn’t my chosen/eventual career.

    1. LaDeeDa*

      I think you would answer for your current job of data entry, and then when you finish your degree and start working in that field, it would reset the clock on the years working in that field.

      1. she was a fast machine*

        Yeah, that’s pretty much how I answered it, just that the post-college wording stings for those of us who have been working professionally without a degree.

    2. Michaela Westen*

      I didn’t like that either. I didn’t finish a degree and don’t intend to.
      I counted experience in my current field as “post-college professional experience”. Before that I did some restaurant work, some day labor, etc. Didn’t count that – but of course I would if I was still in those fields!

    3. EggEgg*

      I’m in the same boat–I still haven’t finished my bachelor degree (so close!) but I’ve been working for five years. So, post-college experience is none, but that doesn’t feel right.

  52. twig*

    This is so fascinating!

    I’ve learned:
    1. I’ve been out of college for 20 years?!?!? when did that happen?!?!
    2. one of my colleagues is a reader!! *waives!* (by industry and location, I know they work at my university or at the local community college)

    1. Save One Day at a Time*

      Okay that point 2 is incredible! I was happy to see other people in my city on there! The community is obviously much bigger than the comments section alone

  53. Sports person*

    Hi Sports people!
    Do you mind telling me what level of sports you work at? (team in one of the Big 5, minor league, Women’s sports etc?) Thanks!

  54. TR*

    I entered my salary as 20.000 dollars and the spread sheet seems to have understood that as 20, not 20,000. Oops! Of course I ALSO left a comment that I’m actually paid in Turkish lira and my salary is not so low in lira, the exchange rate is just really awful, but posting my salary in lira also seemed meaningless, so I converted it to dollars, SOOOOO, what I feel obligated to say now is: the lira exchange rate is officially NOT THAT BAD. Not yet, at least :D Depressing, non-mainstream currency-earners unite??

  55. Jenni Mathews*

    I was able to use the copy/paste function to put it into an excel spreadsheet. I couldn’t get the sorting to work otherwise. It was definitely interesting to see how I compared.

  56. manondessources*

    I just want to say that this is such a cool and helpful idea! Can’t wait to look at the results once I’m not on mobile.

  57. To The Experiential Learning People*

    I saw one or two of those on the survey and would love more information on what it is that you do, especially the Coordinator in MA! Although my title is not called that, I do something very very similar.

  58. Xingcat*

    This is fantastic information. I think people are so conditioned (at least here in the US) to never discuss salary except in the strictest of confidence, and that knowledge is incredibly powerful.

  59. Jerusha*

    Do you want total compensation (e.g. “Social Security Income” (W-2 boxes 3, 5), or income after pre-tax deductions (W-2 box 1)?

  60. PolicyWonk*

    This was a very striking accidental contrast. It turns out A LOT can be said about society in two lines of a form:
    25-34 Tech (software) Manager, business process & technology 101,000 USD San Francisco, CA 5-7 years

    45-54 Teaching Special Education Teacher $60,000USD Bay Area, California 11 – 20 years

  61. Jaybeetee*

    … with a big ol’ asterisk due to Phoenix. :/ I.e. my salary and what I’m actually getting paid aren’t the same things right now…

  62. Silicon Valley Girl*

    While the data nerd in me wants to clean up the spreadsheet, lol, I can still look past that & it’s fascinating & useful! Especially if making sure to look at the location, then I can see that, yup, I’m right in the ballpark.

  63. antigone_ks*

    For annual salary, do you want the amount I earn, or the amount in my base contract? I have a contract to teach a certain number of classes/hold office hours, but some years I will take on extra classes via adjunct contract. Last year that amounted to almost $12k over my base salary. If someone is looking for average salaries in my industry, is base salary or total amount more useful to them?

  64. Anon for financial info*

    Items like RSUs and sign-on bonuses make a huge difference in total compensation. If I just give my standard salary, that will give the wrong impression.

    1. Sammie*

      And this is a very important point. My understanding is that many large (or start-up) companies give so much compensation in RSU’s etc. because it benefits them come tax time. If that’s true (and, please, someone enlighten me if I’m incorrect here) giving the ‘wrong impression’ is kind of the point.

  65. Odetoahormone*

    I think more clarification for training vs job experience would be nice- I am an academic physician, so I did college, med school, residency and fellowship and got a masters degree during my fellowship ( in clinical research) I was so confused as to what to pick. I got paid as a resident ( but that is definitely still training and is best categorized as a paid apprenticeship- paid 25,000 USD/ year working 80 hr/ week) my fellowship was also paid, but I was classified officially as a student and did reasearch 2/3rds of the time and patient care 1/3rd of the time and took masters classes in my free time. I have had a faculty position for 8 years.

    Also, more importantly if I gave my City and state, I would be easily identified as there are only 3 people with my job title in my state and only 10 people who do my job at any level in the whole state. But my kind of physician is the lowest paid so it is important to specify my specialty!

    1. Smooth Operator*

      I chose the nearest large city to mask myself for the same reason. In the (geographically) tiny town I work in people would know who I was. So I think if you work near a major metro, put that city.

  66. Llellayena*

    Hey I saw an Aerospace Engineer on the list (or at least an Engineer in the Aerospace field). If you’re reading comments, do you have any advice for a friend whose got an Aerospace undergrad degree and a soon-to-be Mechanical Engineering grad degree (I think that’s it)? He’s been looking for an Aerospace (or any engineering) job for 6 years or so, jumped back into grad school in the hopes it would make the search easier. He never seems to even get to the interview stage (yes I’ve directed him to this site). If you have any industry specific job sites, networking conferences, companies to look at or helpful advice, can you post? Thanks!

    1. Nichole*

      I’m not the survey entry you were looking at but I am an aerospace engineer. I’d say that the job field is a lot better now than it was six years ago. Does he know people he got his undergrad with who are working in the field that he can reach out to, find out if they like what they’re doing, if they’d be willing to recommend him. If his grad school has career fairs, a career center, etc, that’s probably going to be a decent starting point, since companies often are recruiting from specific schools. Getting manufacturing experience of some kind is also very often a strong selling point, so if he has some of that he can include on his resume (or can get it, or has class work that covers it) that might help.

  67. Kate Daniels*

    This is amazing! Thank you so much for setting this up. In the future, perhaps a survey about benefits (number of vacation days, sick days, etc.) would also be great to provide insight into whether job postings claiming that benefits are “competitive” for a job truly are!

    1. Sail On, Sailor*

      I was thinking the same thing! It would be interesting to compare that information too.

  68. Environmental Compliance*

    Thanks for doing this!! This is absolutely fascinating – and I’m sure will help a lot of people out with what’s common/realistic/possible.

    1. Lepidoptera*

      Alison’s last paragraph up top has a hotlink in the phrase ” you can view all the responses here in a sortable spreadsheet”.

  69. Leslie*

    Man, reading the list of annual salaries makes me feel bad about my own. I’ve been stuck at my current (very low) salary for over two years with no chance of advancing, financially and professionally :(

  70. That Work from Home Life*

    I just wanted to thank you for this kind of content. It’s so helpful to see this kind of data!

  71. Non-profit in DC*

    If I just went via the spreadsheet, I’d seem wildly underpaid. I know that’s not actually the case (I’m only a little underpaid for our budget size and benefits package), so curious to see if that changes as more small-org employees fill out the survey.

    It does remind me I need to push for a raise soon …

  72. OhGee*

    Anybody else realize their particular industry is small and specific enough in their location that you’re pretty sure somebody you work with also responded to the survey?

    1. Luisa*

      Not quite, but based on the job location + salary + years of experience, I know at least one other person who works for my same (large) employer responded. Our relatively high salaries in our field stick out!

    2. Ed Tech and Online Learning*

      I’m pretty sure I have some coworkers in here, and my response is identifying enough that I would welcome any coworkers who have questions to shoot me an IM tomorrow. :)

    3. Goya de la Mancha*

      Not I, but I’m intrigued at how many posters were from my state (in various fields).

  73. Patricia*

    I might be the only one, but I wish I’d known that there would be a viewable spreadsheet of responses before I submitted by answers.

    Several of my coworkers read AAM, and I would have preferred to make my salary response more general.

    1. Water Sports are not Death Traps*

      Allyson’s post clearly says, “When you’re done, you can view all the responses here in a sortable spreadsheet” with a hyper link.

      Hopefully it doesn’t get weird for you – yay for salary transparency though!

      1. Patricia*

        I don’t think the spreadsheet had been created when I added, and also I assumed it would be collated by different values rather than just a raw data sheet. My mistake, but I can’t be the only one.

  74. Eleanor*

    Recommend a # of hours worked per week entry next time on the survey. I only work PT & put my PT salary, not what I’d make if I worked FT.

  75. VictorianCowgirl*

    My dear bookkeeper in Portland OR making $33k – you are grossly underpaid for that area! $45 would be more appropriate IMO.

  76. Vax is my disaster bicon*

    Does anyone have thoughts on how to count experience as a graduate student in a PhD program? The teaching I do isn’t exactly the equivalent of a full time position (since I also have to do research!), but it’s not quite the same as, say, an internship that an undergrad might do for a semester.

  77. Lilith*

    I’ve read through 5000 postings on the survey & didn’t see anyone from my US city. I’m a bit surprised. Maybe a name will pop up later. But yay for 5000 participants!

  78. Helena Handbasket*

    Alison, it looks like the formulas in columns H and I on the “Breakdown” tab are wrong – the criteria are salaries that are less than $80K but greater than $90K (doesn’t make sense) and less than $90K but greater than $100K (also doesn’t make sense).

    Probably why there are zeroes in these fields when there are salaries that should be counted in those columns.

  79. Julie C*

    For future surveys, I’d like to see a notes/comments box to add additional information.

    For instance, the last question asking about post-college work experience is great; but I never finished college and worked for 15 years to get to my current position. Maybe I’m being to specific about the meaning of the question in my interpretation, but I was left wanting a comment box to make my answer more complete.

  80. Sarah*

    I have to ask, is the HR manager in MN who makes 555k a typo? If it’s not, I’m moving.

    1. Tigger*

      I’m not that one but I live in MN and have friends in HR. The only people with that level of salary are C level Hr people at the Fortune 500 in town

  81. Survey participant*

    There are some errors in the “breakdown of responses” in columns I and J. Someone accidentally typed >90000 and >100000 in the cell formula where it needs to say >70000 and >80000.

  82. JD*

    Pretty fascinating. I think music teachers should be paid much more (note I am not a music teacher).

  83. TST*

    I really want to know where people with the title Assistant Editor are working in Publishing in NYC and making well over $40,000/year!

    Signed, someone working for the biggest academic publisher in the world (a nonprofit), whose U.S. branch is headquartered in NYC where it only pays Editorial Assistants $35k and Assistant Editors $38k.

    1. Cloudmare Publishing*

      My former employer has a few, I think, likely due to favoritism. But you don’t want to work for them, I promise – they were a nightmare.

  84. AJ*

    Stopped doing questionnaire in this Google format. It assumes I am Chinese and doesn’t give an option to change the language.

    *必填

    請勿透過 Google 表格提交密碼。

    Google 並未認可或建立這項內容。 舉報濫用情況 – 服務條款

    Plus some other Chinese characters I can’t copy/paste, such as the greyed out text below the questions and the buttons at the bottom.

    And if I click on the ! (exclamation mark) at the bottom left I get this:
    傳送意見
    說明您的問題或分享建議
    包括螢幕擷圖
    您可以前往「法律說明」頁面,就法律原因要求變更內容。部分帳戶及系統資料或會傳送至 Google。您提供的資料將用於解決技術問題及改善服務。相關使用方式受《私隱權政策》及《服務條款》約束。

    Yeah… I don’t bother with Google Docs/Forms because it can’t fathom native English speakers exist in other countries. Oh, and where I live English is an official language.

  85. 'Tis me*

    Please tell me that when I went to delete a local copy off my phone because the filter wasn’t working properly I didn’t just delete the whole thing instead??? It’s 3:30 am and I’m dealing with the lingering after effects of a migraine from Hell… But surely it was set up so I wouldn’t be able to do that?! (If I did I am so sorry :o)

    1. 'Tis me*

      That emoticon was a :o followed by a closing bracket incidentally rather than a smile with a large nose…

      I tried restoring the version in my bin, and the link still doesn’t work so if I did hopefully it’s in the AAM account bin instead or something??

  86. Unfurloughed Fed*

    I’m 58. I’ve worked full time since high school. I have no college degree, so I have no post-college work experience.

  87. DerivativePoster*

    I’m in the process of leaving one job and starting another in a different industry. I submitted both to the survey (different industries and locations).

    HOWEVER, within the last month I got 2 other offers which I declined. I would be happy to submit the details of those positions and salaries as well (if people think there isn’t enough data on software engineers out there)!

  88. matilda*

    I was pleasantly surprised to see that mine wasn’t the only response from Singapore! Hello, folks!

  89. This ruined my day*

    Idea: you shouldn’t be allowed to take the survey until you’ve worked in the food industry or cleaned up after people. I make 12k a year and work so hard.

    1. Goya de la Mancha*

      I’m sorry it ruined your day. I’m guessing that many of the posters have worked food service or the like at some point in their life.

      1. Smooth Operator*

        I certainly have and it’s very valuable experience. Hard work! It will pay off in the long run. I promise.

  90. Goya de la Mancha*

    Thank you so much for this! It was great to look through and compare, some of the salaries in my field were astounding – until I looked at the location.

  91. Dan*

    The “Breakdown of Response” tab has some bugs, the <80000 and 70000 not >90000
    =COUNTIFS(‘Form Responses 1′!$B$3:$B,$A5,’Form Responses 1′!$E$3:$E,”90000″,’Form Responses 1’!$F$3:$F,”USD”)

    1. Dan*

      Sorry, last post seems to be missing texts, reposting:
      The “Breakdown of Response” tab has some bugs, the <80000 and 70000 not >90000 in the below example:

      =COUNTIFS(‘Form Responses 1′!$B$3:$B,$A5,’Form Responses 1′!$E$3:$E,”90000″,’Form Responses 1’!$F$3:$F,”USD”)

  92. FuzzFrogs*

    I’ve Ctrl+F’ed the document for “Libr” (to catch “library” as well as “libraries”) in order to have a good look-see at the state of my industry. For anyone wondering–I did look into whether you could port rows into a new spreadsheet based on a keyword (I wanted to look at just library stuff). The posts I saw made my eyes cross so, for laymen spreadsheet users, seems the answer is no.

    (Shoutout to the Falls Church VA library employee–you’re working in my childhood library system and coming across your entry gave me warm and fuzzy feelings.)

  93. LN*

    I looked up the jobs in my city and it’s true that high pay goes with the high COL here. I was also appalled at the salary of the public school district’s jobs. And the teachers and STAFF went on strike claiming low pay!!! With their salary, they don’t need my (as a parent) financial support!! I will never give money to them again. They don’t know what the heck low pay is!!

  94. pfctdayelise*

    When you close the survey, will you publish the spreadsheet as a data set? Could be really interesting to see what analyses people can build on top of it!

  95. greenbeanies*

    Wow, the technical writer salaries are all over the place–huge range ($50k-$130K, and I didn’t even finish searching the whole doc.)

  96. Zane*

    I’m a laborer in the union last year my W-2 was approximately 92,000 I work in the tunnel building the train track for the light rail
    I have no college education and only made it to 10th Grade if you work hard you can do anything we bought our first home this year
    And this year I should be making closer to 120,000

  97. NotLost*

    This is a neat idea. But it’s too bad the only experience questions is about experience after college. So I have about 25 years of work that don’t count. And no experience counts for blue collar workers. Thanks, though.

  98. Dispatch response*

    So I’ve been in my job (Dispatcher) for about 6 years. It requires a high school diploma. I have an MBA. I have 20+ years post-graduate/professional experience, but only 6 years at my current job.

    I fell into this job 6 years ago when I was out of work, and am old enough that I don’t see leaving it anytime soon. I make really good money, and I’ve been out of the finance world so long I’d probably be starting over in a more or less entry level position if I tried to get a job there again.

  99. Xucan*

    I feel like education level completed is a very significant variable that is sorely needed in this sort of data.

  100. ANNONYMOUS*

    I BELIEVE THIS DATA WOULD BE MORE ACCURATE IF PART TIME/FULL TIME WAS TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION.

  101. Siva K*

    For those who are having trouble getting rid of the htmlview, you can try this.

    You can download the spreadsheet as an Excel file by modifying the URL to export?format=xlsx
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rGCKXIKt-7l5gX06NAwO3pjqEHh-oPXtB8ihkp0vGWo/export?format=xlsx

    I think Google allows only first 100 people to edit the document. After that it defaults to htmlview.
    https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2494822?hl=en&visit_id=636921789541032113-595454141&rd=1

  102. dataviz?*

    This is an excellent exercise! Would be interested in supporting the data collection/analysis/visualization for any future efforts…

Comments are closed.