how much money do you make?

by Alison Green on April 27, 2021

It’s hard to get real-world information about what jobs pay. Online salary websites are often inaccurate, and people can get weird when you ask them directly.

So let’s take some of the mystery out of salaries. Fill out the form below to anonymously share your salary and other relevant info. (Do not leave your info in the comments section! If you can’t see the survey questions, try this link instead.)

When you’re done, you can view all the responses in a sortable spreadsheet.

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{ 372 comments }

{ 372 comments… read them below }

  1. Ask a Manager* Post author

    Hi! Some further instructions:

    Please enter your *gross* income.

    The field for additional compensation: this is for MONEY only — not tuition reimbursement or other benefits.

    If your bonus or overtime varies from year to year, please use the most recent figures (even if they were lower due to the pandemic).

    If a question isn’t perfectly framed for your situation, please answer with your best approximation. Last time we got over 34,000 responses; with that volume, there’s no way to make it fit every situation perfectly. (As the person who helped me create this put it, “The idea is that the survey is really about general pay rates, not each person’s unique story, so we’re smoothing out some nuance in service of generalization.”)

  2. Legal Rugby*

    You might want to add professional degree to the degree options – some places value a PHD and a JD or a masters and a MNP differently!

      2. Eye roll*

        I put master’s. Just because the three-year stint for a JD didn’t feel equivalent to the 7 year roll my PhD friends needed. But a professional degree selection option is needed.

        1. commonsensesometimesmakessense*

          But it is technically a doctorate. Which is tricky. I have a Masters and a J.D. Fortunately she added professional degrees to the list by the time I answered!

    2. L.H. Puttgrass*

      Agreed. As someone who has run the occasional survey, “Professional degree (MD, JD, etc.)” covers ground that none of those other options really do. Or replace “Ph.D.” with “Doctorate,” since not all academic doctorates are Ph.D.s, either (doctorates in education, law, etc.).

    3. Anon for this...*

      or professional certifications. I’m a CPA which technically is more than a masters but less than a phD

      1. Elenna*

        Is it possible to add a “fill in the name of your degree” box? Both because it might be interesting to see what degree people got compared to what their current salary/career path is, and because some fields have more than one professional degree. E.g. for the Society of Actuaries, you get an ASA and then an FSA and there’s usually an fairly large increase in pay for each of those.

        1. Qwerty*

          Seconding this request. In my field, the college degree could be Computer Science, Computer Science Engineering, or Computer Engineering, which all tend to impart different skills that influence where you are on the salary band. Plus there are tons of people who are self-taught or took a retraining class and have a degree in an entirely different field, so you could have someone with a Masters or PhD in science or history that is making less than someone with a bachelors. (Lots of tech companies use the same title for all contributors, which makes it even harder to figure what market rate is)

        2. Marzipan*

          Even if it wasn’t free text, it would be interesting to have a question for whether you actually need that level of education for the job, or whether you just happen to have it. (I put master’s degree because I do have one, but it’s largely iirrelevant to my job and they don’t even know I have it)

        3. raktajino*

          A career path survey, regardless of income, sounds super interesting. My college’s alumni newsletter published an article about where grads end up and it was FASCINATING and super validating. The survey for that asked for degree, first field(s) after college, any post-grad schooling (including a second AA or BA), and current field.

      2. Fashionable Pumpkin*

        As someone with 2 associates degrees that I feel are just as useful as my bachelors, I agree associates degrees are also worth recording.

      3. BonzaSonza*

        I am industry certified, because my profession is niche enough that there are no degrees available through university.
        However, it’s highly technical and I’ve done 7+ years of study with accreditation examinations that are recognised internationally.

        I’m always annoyed when the options for education are “university” or “high school/none”

        1. Elisa*

          I also get frustrated when there’s only options for things that only North America has. Nowhere else in the world has “associate’s degree”. Most of the rest of the world has things like “vocational qualification”, “apprenticeship” and so on. I studied for several years to university equivalent in my field but I do not have a degree, so what am I supposed to answer for questions like this?

          1. Bluesboy*

            As another person outside the US, I understand what you mean, but I don’t think we can really expect a survey to cover every possibility, especially not when there are 34,000 replies as Alison said there were last time!

            If you’re in Europe, I would consider using the European Qualification Framework to make a comparison and just insert the qualification of the same level as yours. My wife, for example has a qualification called a Delta. It isn’t technically a Masters, but is recognised as being at the same level on that framework. If not in Europe, you might have a similar framework in your country or region.

    7. Beth*

      PLEASE consider adding, as an option for the level of education, “some graduate school”. I spent four years in grad school, gaining critical knowledge and skills, and never finished my degree, mostly due to my screwed-up adademic “advisor”, who didn’t. (advise, that is)

      Most surveys will allow for the existance of an unfinished college degree, but there are a lot of us with unfinished graduate degrees, and we have to choose between two inaccurate replies.

      1. amandahpinney*

        I second this also because a lot people get graduate certificates that aren’t the same as degrees

    8. FrivYeti*

      I ran into a similar problem, but ended up just saying “college” – I have a postgraduate certificate of specialized training, but it was a one-year program that defintely doesn’t feel like it’s at a Master’s level. There’s no real category for “Bachelor’s and a half”, though.

  3. Box of Kittens*

    Thank you for doing this again! I got a good raise two years ago but they suspended raises last year and no peep about reviews/raises this year either. :/ Feeling pressure to move on so my wages don’t stagnate and I already feel like I’m on the low end of what’s normal for my field, even as a still pretty entry level person.

  4. Sarah*

    Thank you for creating so many multiple-choice options to limit free text fields. It’s so much easier to sort and filter!

    1. Marketing Automation Guru*

      Loving the dropdown fields (aka “Picklist”). Having done these types of surveys before, I highly recommend moving the “Country” field to a picklist. You’d be surprised how many ways people can indicate a country … just the US: United States, US, USA, U.S., U.S.A. United States of America, etc.

      1. Sarah*

        Yeah, the free-form country field poses challenges, but with ~200 countries I can see how a drop-down could be less feasible. ;-)

      2. Bluesboy*

        As an immigrant, I often have to give my nationality, and in public offices it always takes forever to insert my details. But at least with the USA most options start with the letter ‘U’…my country is inserted in some software as ‘England’, in some as ‘Britain’, in some as ‘Great Britain’, in some as ‘United Kingdom’, in some as ‘The United Kingdom’…sometimes it takes 5 minutes just to find my country in drop down lists!

  5. Bean Counter Extraordinaire*

    Are we supposed to answer Industry as “what the company does (ie llama grooming)” or “what category is my job in (accounting)”?

    1. Kenilf*

      I went with the one attached to my actual job category. At the end of the day, you can be an accountant at places other than llama grooming companies….

      1. Sarah*

        Agreed. I work for a large tech company, but doing a non-tech function. However, working for the tech company adds a lot to my pay potential. I previously did basically the same work for retail companies and made significantly less. If I did what I do for a non-profit I’d make 50-70% what I did for retailers.
        What I do is my discipline/field, who I work for is the industry.

        1. Sarah*

          Oops, this was supposed to be in reply to ManBearPig. Industry refers to the type of employer, not the discipline of the work.

          1. Maeve*

            I was stuck on this–I work in marketing for an industry that is not easily summarized in any of the choices, so I just selected marketing as the industry.

        2. gbca*

          Same here – my tech salary as a finance professional is much different than it was when I worked in finance for a non-tech company.

        3. BuchNerd*

          Same. I work in agriculture in a policy role, and it’s significantly more than when I worked in government in the same type of role.

    2. ManBearPig*

      What the company does. It’s most useful to know that an accountant in the Llama Grooming industry makes X rather than just generally that an accountant makes X

        1. drpuma*

          If you do this again, would you consider separate dropdowns/checkboxes for both? ie, “your company’s industry” distinct from “the functional area of your job” or similar? Some departments have similar or even matching job titles that would still be compensated differently. The multifaceted rainbow of “project manager”s comes to mind

          1. Respectfully, Pumat Sol*

            Yep! As a project manager I almost never know how to answer questions like this b/c I am on a marketing team for a financial services company – do I put project management, marketing or finance?

            1. peggy*

              oh hello, i am also on a marketing team for a financial services company (fintech, specifically). the marketing/finance/technology triad.

            2. Caduceus*

              Yes! I struggle with this as well, went with “engineering and manufacturing” because that’s what my company does but I am far from an Engineer.

              Also love the name

            3. RosyGlasses*

              Yeah good point! I’m HR, but for a marketing agency – so I went with Marketing but it would be interesting to see job role breakdowns alongside industries.

          2. BPT*

            Agreed! I work in government affairs/lobbying at an association, and there’s never a choice for either of these. You can be a lobbyist at almost any different type of company, so it’s helpful to be able to compare what people in government affairs make at different employers, but it’s also helpful to see general pay differences between corporations/associations/other nonprofits/government, etc.

          3. facepalm*

            Yep! I’m employed by a defense contractor, so should I put government? That would completely skew the data for people employed by state governments, for example. Or the area of my current contract?

            1. Mockingjay*

              I am too; I put engineering/manufacturing since my company is primarily IT and engineering services.

      2. DataGirl*

        This is the way I went. My job is in tech but my industry (non-profit) means my salary is much more limited than if I worked for a tech company.

        1. Deborah*

          Agreed. I work with EDI, which is a way of electronically transmitting documents between computer systems without human intervention, and it’s widely used by supply chain and medical fields. For some reason, health care EDI pays less, and they aren’t completely interchangeable. I am familiar with the documents and processes for supply chain, like purchase orders and shipping notices, not how to manage HIPAA with EDI.

          Also my employer is in the telecommunications industry and did very well last year so the bonus and profit sharing was unaffected by the pandemic…

      3. Lacey*

        That’s how I took it as well. I’m a graphic designer. I’ve mostly worked for advertising companies, but I’ve also done inhouse graphic design for a financial institution. The pay gap between industries wasn’t huge, but it was there.

      4. Generic Name*

        Exactly. An accountant at say BigLaw probably makes more than an accountant for a nonprofit or public school system.

        1. No Longer Looking*

          Yeah – I’m an accountant at an association management company that manages health-focused professional nonprofit associations. I NEVER know what industry category that should fall under.

      5. ThatGirl*

        Oh, whoops. I didn’t see Manufacturing on the list, so I went with my job function/department (marketing). Oh well.

    3. Littorally*

      That would make a fascinating additional data point the next time Alison does this, maybe — ask for industry of occupation and industry of employer. Does an accountant for a llama grooming facility make more than an accountant for an alpaca stable?

      1. Sarah*

        Agreed, it’s very valuable to know. That’s exactly the variation we’d see if people answer “industry” with their employer’s industry, as intended. ;-)

      2. Kyubey*

        Yes I think this can be significant, an accountant for a small privately owned business compared to the CFO of a large consulting firm will have a pretty big salary difference.

    4. JC*

      I had the same quandary and made the same choice you did — answer closest to what I do, since I could do it anywhere (but the industry I’m in definitely pays more than some others).

      1. anon today*

        I did this as well, but in part because the combo of industry of company/city/job title/gender/ethnicity makes me uniquely identifiable, which I don’t want (and I’m in a nerdy data/comp sci field where people could/would do that).

    5. Agile Phalanges*

      As an accountant in a non-accounting company, I went with the actual industry I’m in (construction now, but would’ve been manufacturing a year ago), since a later question asked your actual title, which covers the accounting part of my job. But yeah, I could have gone either way. And accounting (or HR or whatever) is definitely something that could be done in a variety of industries. But I took the “Accounting, banking, finance” category to mean someone actually working on Wall Street or for a big CPA firm or something, which isn’t my case.

      1. Extroverted Bean Counter*

        And I totally biffed this, as an accountant working for a manufacturer! Picked “accounting/banking/finance” since I am a CPA.

        Oh well.

    6. L.H. Puttgrass*

      Also, since we’re only supposed to pick one of these, can you make this a radio-button question (like the age question above it) instead of tick boxes? It’s slightly confusing as it is, since I thought I could select both what my employer does and what I do, before I got the message at the bottom saying I’m only supposed to pick one.

    7. L.H. Puttgrass*

      BTW, if you do this again next year, a lot of surveys ask two questions: (1) what is your job function, and (2) what is your company’s industry? That solves the problem lots of people are having with, “My employer manufactures teapots, but I’m in legal.” And since both job function and employer industry are relevant to how salaries are determined, it’s useful to have both.

      I know you can capture some of the job function with job titles, but job titles are often really bad at indicating what someone actually does (especially if one works for a woo-filled company like that in one of yesterday’s posts).

      1. PeanutButter*

        Same. I work in a non-profit bioscience/tech research institute that is NOT primarily higher ed. Like, there are grad students in the lab but they are just there to do their research, we don’t have classes and they get their actual degree from another institution. I’m do data science/informatics/statistics/general number crunching and computer for the lab, but I’m not “in tech”. There should be an option for people in the sciences that are not working for a university.

        1. ArtsNerd*

          I’d put nonprofit in your case. The nonprofit sector is far more than social services.

          1. ArtsNerd*

            Personally, I waffled between nonprofit and entertainment since I work for a nonprofit arts organization, but landed on nonprofit.

  7. SocialLerker*

    Thanks for doing this. Having data and figures when negotiating a new job or requesting a raise can be so tricky. This will help folks, especially in underpaid fields and for those facing bias. Thanks!

  9. RussianInTexas*

    I submitted mine and my partner’s, hopefully both are recorded, since we are basically on the opposite of the scale salary-wise.
    If I have to re-do it with just mine, please let me know.

      1. RussianInTexas*

        I did two individual entrees, one for me, and one for him, and the poll didn’t stop me, so now I wonder. Sometimes the poll will say “you already voted” or some such.

    1. fposte*

      On my tablet I found I couldn’t initially roll up above the Ms but if I waited for a bit it loaded enough to allow it.

    2. Just Here for the Cake*

      I had the same problem. If you click the link to the survey in the description at the top, you should be able to see all the state options.

    3. cacwgrl*

      You have to scroll the whole page up, not just the menu that pops up. Had the same issue to find CA.

    5. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

      Yeah, I had issues on my cell as well. I didn’t realize it was possible to record remote work until I saw it for another entry on the spreadsheet – I live/work in one city/state, but my company is based in another. I don’t think my company sets salaries based on location, so I don’t want to give people the wrong impression about salary ranges in my area.

    6. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Agh, the dropdowns are weird and take a while to load in some browsers. I’ll change it to checkboxes, which don’t seem to have that problem.

  11. Cat Tree*

    Is there any way to edit my entry? If not, it’s no big deal because all the info is correct. I just realized it would be helpful to mention my specific industry. (I work in a big industry and sometimes forget that people with the same job title can work in other industries.)

  12. Cabubbles*

    Mine artificially low due to a stupid raise cap on promotions. My boss tried to fight corporate when I was first promoted because I was making minimum wage. She’s fought hard to get me a number of raises but compression has made it harder for her to keep up.

  14. Lore*

    I never know whether book publishing counts as media, entertainment, or other? What say other publishing folks? Might as well try to get us all in the same category…

  15. Schwanli*

    I’m guessing this is for Americans only, given that there’s no way to specify what currency we’re paid in?

    3. Xr*

      There is a question for currency and the salary question itself points out the existence of the currency question.

      1. Schwanli*

        Thanks! I somehow didn’t see that the survey has a side scroll bar and was longer than a couple of questions :-)

  16. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

    Amazing public service!
    My knee-jerk reaction is we are almost all underpaid!!

    2. peggy*

      There’s an RN that makes 862,000 USD. :) I sense he or she may be a tad overpaid. (I think there may have been some extra zeroes added to some salaries, and some missing zeroes from others, just based on my initial scan of the spreadsheet sorted by salary from high to low.)

      1. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

        I hear traveling nurses can make a lot of money, and I would think at a premium during the pandemic, but yeah that does look like an extra zero was added…was that in US dollars?

        1. Peg*

          I know 2 traveling nurses, they’re not pulling in nearly a million dollars a year ;) maybe 80k ish?

          1. Howard Bannister*

            Anecdote, but my spouse is a nurse and was pulling 60k from a non-traveling position and talking about the premium the traveling nurses were getting being more than 10 percent, so that would be right in line with those numbers…

            1. pancakes*

              It wouldn’t be counted as salary for this, but they can get generous housing allowances when on assignment, too.

      2. Tegan*

        I was about to mention the same thing, I think there are several responses with an extra zero mistakenly added to salary (or I’m just in the wrong field, hah).

  17. fara*

    Thank you for doing this!
    I’ve been tempted to move from my programming job to an adjacent field but wasn’t sure if it would make sense if it would pay less . . . looks like it doesn’t really pay that much less? Depends on the industry/company though

  18. Amber Rose*

    I have a university degree, and I have 6 years of experience doing this specific job, but they are not remotely related. I probably should have said that. xD

    1. Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain*

      That would be an interesting side survey wouldn’t it? A college degree often leads to higher income in general, regardless of whether the degree is relevant to the job or not. I know many, many people who have degrees in areas that didn’t end up being their career.

      1. Missing the degree, but did all the work and then some*

        Same. My studies are highly relevant to my job, but I still haven’t finished my bachelor’s degree (only missing the thesis, did all the other years of work! I had a massive mental health breakdown due to either bipolar or ADD–jury’s still out on that one!–and a dude who started stalking me at the end of my studies. I just abandoned everything, actually left my country to start a new life elsewhere, the whole nine yards, and I ended up never going back to finish my degree. Still had to pay it off, though!).

        Would love to see how others in a similar situation with unfinished degrees are doing, relatively speaking. I feel like I have worked twice as hard in the last decade to get where I am now, but also not having a paper degree to prove that I learned something lead me to make a lot more creative leaps than I would have otherwise.

      2. pancakes*

        I think that’s the norm? Maybe it’s just the norm in my world, as my undergrad school didn’t and doesn’t have majors. Everyone graduates with a Liberal Arts B.A.

  19. Ballot*

    Is this for US reference only? For example $40,000 means something very different in America vs Canada or Australia, etc.

  20. anon responder*

    Also clarified that I am a contractor vs an FTE. Did not specify gross salary or net – I assume gross.

    1. Chilipepper*

      Yes, so many librarians! an “ask a manager” librarian group?

      re the survey: I did not know what industry to select, education, non-profit, govt?

      1. yala*

        yeah, I wasn’t sure either. I probably should’ve put education, since that seems to be what most other library workers make.

        I guess library folks like information.

      2. Sarah*

        What does your employer do? That’s your industry. If you work for a city library, industry is government. If you’re a school librarian, education. :-)

        1. Chilipepper*

          I agree Sarah! After seeing the spreadsheet, I can see that this is the way to do it. I was not sure if putting government would obscure the library part.

      3. Awlbiste*

        I put it under other and wrote in “Libraries” because nothing else was really quite right.

      4. Another Librarian*

        I put “Other” because I wasn’t sure! I work in a county library, so I suppose government might’ve been the best option.

      5. Paris Geller*

        I’m at a library owned by the city, so I put govt. I definitely feel all the very government-specific things that come with working for a city. Technically my employer is not the library, but the city.

      7. Rachel Morgan*

        I put governmental, because most libraries are governmental at their core. We’re just separate from township etc goverment.

    4. Librarian beyond the Shelves We Know*

      I was just about to fill out the survey, but my responses would make me too recognizable. I already see a specific colleague’s answers there. I think about PII way too much in my role. ;)

      But I’d be down for a AAM librarian group!

  22. Namelesscommentator*

    This is super interesting. Would it be possible to do for benefits as well at some point in the future?

    1. The Rural Juror*

      That’s a good point. My benefits package is really what makes up for my salary not being at the top of the range.

      1. mcfizzle*

        Agreed – I get 4 weeks of vacation, a day of sick leave a month, and 3 discretionary days. Plus banking holidays. It’s awesome.

        2. TiffIf*

          Yup also comparing health care in the US could be very eye opening–like fields for:
          *insurance source (employer provided, medicare, medicaid, ACA healthcare exchange, etc),
          *ACA compliant (yes/no: this helps compare apples to apples coveragewise),
          *type of plan (single/couple/family)
          *premium you pay per month (not including amount paid by employer)
          *deductible
          *out of pocket max

  23. Dragon_dreamer*

    I don’t agree with treating all jobs as 40 hours a week. For some jobs, like retail, 40 hours is usually forbidden! Most retail workers are limited to 24 hours a week, so this assumption skews the data by almost doubling the expected wage.

    There is also a HUGE problem with pay gaps, due to most workers being young and companies actively encouraging management to NOT help employees know their rights.

    I suggest either a separate spreadsheet for part timers, or add a column for average number of hours worked per week. Either would give you MUCH more accurate salary numbers for non-fulltimers.

    2. NerdyKris*

      The question says “If you are part-time or hourly, please enter an annualized equivalent — what you would earn if you worked the job 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.) ” to avoid that exact issue.

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        Yes – annualize it and then add a note in the Additional Context field explaining what you did (and how many hours you actually work if you want). The point is to make the data useful to a large group, and annualized salaries are easier for comparison purposes.

        1. BubbleTea*

          I added a note specifying that full time here is generally considered to be 35 or 37.5 hours a week (seven hours of work a day, 0.5 or 1 hour unpaid for lunch) – so my gross salary is indeed full time, but it is for 35 hours. I often wonder if it is just a counting difference (do people who say they work 40 hours a week mean they work 8 hours a day, plus one hour for lunch, or do they mean they work 8 hours a day but one hour is unpaid for lunch?) or a cultural difference.

          1. BRR*

            I think to some degree a “40 hour week” is really just slang for a full time work week. Same with 9-5 for a work day.

          2. Amber Rose*

            I think the standard assumption is that you’re scheduled for 40 hours of office time per week, including breaks. So 40 hours is not working hours, but at-work hours.

            That said, most of the places I’ve worked didn’t include breaks, so I was technically scheduled 9 hours a day.

          3. Chilipepper*

            I am at work for 42.5 hours as full time here (govt) is 40 hours and they mean 40 hours! If I am 1 minute late 4 times in a calendar year, I need to report to HR and ‘splain myself!

            So I am at the building 8.5 hours a day with a 30 minute unpaid break.

        2. Gina*

          That is actually exactly what I did- glad I did it right! I’m a preschool teacher, but I only teach morning sessions so I am only paid for 20 hours per week, for the 38 weeks our program runs per year. (I actually work quite a bit more than that, but hey, that’s the education field. Lol.) First time commenting, long time lurker. Love your site, Alison!

      2. Dragon_dreamer*

        Exactly. I earned $13.5k in 2017 in retail. “Normalized,” that would be $25k. That is a HUGE difference, and spreadsheets with assumptions like this are also used to argue AGAINST higher wages! (And I have it on good authority that raises at my old company have effectively been on freeze for the last 5 years.)

        1. L.H. Puttgrass*

          Yup. This form can get into misleading territory when part-time jobs are concerned, especially when annualizing part-time income. It would be better to ask whether people are paid salaried or hourly, then ask for the annual salary from salaried respondents and the hourly wage and hours per week for people who are paid hourly. But I don’t know if Google forms supports that level of if/then question dependency.

    3. char*

      I agree. I work part time, and it was very weird to me to have to say that my “salary” is far more than what I actually make in a year! Especially since I specifically negotiated a higher hourly rate to partially make up for the part-time hours.

      (To explain… I used to be in a weird situation where I was salaried but also part-time. Eventually my employer converted me to being hourly. When they did, I figured that if they were happy to pay me $X/year for my 30-hour-per-week schedule before, then they should convert my salary to an hourly rate based on a 30-hour work week rather than a 40-hour work week, so that I’d make enough per hour to still earn $X/year working 30-hour weeks. My employer agreed. So that $X/year is what I think of as my actual yearly salary, not some hypothetical $Y/year that I would make if I worked 40-hour weeks at my current hourly rate, which I never have and never will.)

      I think your idea of adding a column for the average hours worked per week is a good one.

    1. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

      I agree with you, as does the US Census. But, AAM’s survey, AAM’s categories.

      1. TiffIf*

        And the purpose of this is to be able to see differences/make comparisons across groups or categories/locations etc so it is important to define that group especially since there is a known pay equity gap with people of Latino or Hispanic origin. Maybe the field could have been labelled better but having the data is better than not.

    2. BubbleTea*

      ALL of those options are ethnicities, if we’re going to nitpick wording – everyone is part of the human race. Ethnic categories are incredibly culturally specific too – you would be very unlikely to see Hispanic/Latino as an option on a UK/EU list of options, and most Spanish people (as in from Spain) would classify themselves as White.

      1. Lily Rowan*

        Your first sentence is not at all the point. In the US, people who identify as Latino can be of any race.

    3. Time for Tea*

      I write surveys for a living (10 years experience) and I’ve found that the Census’ way of having a separate question for Hispanic/Latinx ethnicity and race actually does not align with how most Hispanic/Latinx people identify. The version AAM has tends to better reflect more people’s identity (in my experience)

  25. New to School*

    This is so amazing! Would you ever consider partnering with someone like Emily Oster to analyze all the data and pull out trends (e.g. demonstrating the wage gap?)

    2. I stan Dear Wendy*

      Ugh, Emily Oster. She spent a lot of time analyzing cherry-picked Covid data in an effort to keep NY schools open when we were spiking and they definitely should have been closed. Her reporting and data were incredibly biased and became the basis for a ton of policy actions and NYTimes articles. I no longer trust her analysis, as an economist who felt she could report on Covid data effectively.

      1. CSD*

        Wait, can you expand here? I loved her first 2 books because they pulled together such a wide variety of data points and left the decision up to individuals, and I assumed she was as rigorous with COVId data.

  26. Anon for this*

    Will the city information be made public? I’m one of a handful of people in my town in this job, if I answer the poll and it’s visible my answer will be 100% traceable to me.

    1. LQ*

      I used a very generic (but useful I hope) version of my job title to get around this. I decided not to skip the city question but leave that in because I managed to go generic enough that there are hundreds at least with that type of title + industry + location combo.

      1. Anon for this*

        I don’t actually have a unique title. It’s just that this place is small enough that there are only maybe ten people in the entire county who DO this stuff. Possibly 30 in the whole state.

        1. mcfizzle*

          I didn’t specify my city at all. “Northern Front Range” seemed specific enough without giving away too much.

          1. College Career Counselor*

            Same. I didn’t specify my town because you could figure out who I am from the location. I did describe the type of town I live in (e.g. small/large, suburban/rural, etc.)

        2. Princess Trachea-Aurelia Belaroth*

          Yeah I think you could write in a general term that would give an idea of cost of living. Like “affluent Chicago suburb,” “Town of X population,” “mid-sized suburban city,” and then combined with the state, industry, and role, you’re still helping people with compensation comparisons.

    2. kittymommy*

      Same. There’s about 5 people who have a similar job as me. Add in salary and exact title? I’m it.

      1. BubbleTea*

        I put the region of my country, which is as precise as we usually get here. I don’t work in a specific city – my office is in one town, I’m WFH in another, but my job role is national and so is my payscale.

    4. Lunch Eating Mid Manager*

      I got around this by using my region rather than city. City would make it/me very identifiable, or at least increase my perception of risk thereof.

    5. Anon2*

      I felt the same way, I know for a fact I’m the only person in my city with my job title. But I work for a public university, so my salary is public record anyway. So I was like, whatever.

    7. Free Meerkats*

      Me, too. But I don’t see that as a problem. All salaries should be fully transparent; I’ve never understood the US obsession with hiding how much one earns (and I’ve lived here all my life.)

    8. The Prettiest Curse*

      City is a free text field, so even though it’s required by the form, you can just enter N/A or “prefer not to say”.

    9. Mallory Janis Ian*

      One of my coworkers and I found each other a few years ago on AAM from our answers to a question. It’s funny because we were already friendly at work and attended the same church, but we had never talked about AAM before. Then I answered a question with enough detail for someone who knows to identify that it could be only a handful of people on campus, and she asked me about it, and I let her know that it was me. I still had some deniability, but we already liked each other, so it turned out okay.

    10. Mimmy*

      Appreciate all the suggestions as I was going to post that I wasn’t comfortable putting my specific city.

    11. Lizy*

      Yeah I’m debating about what to put, myself. I’m thinking a general area of the state – like SW MO. Would that work for you?

    12. DeweyDecibal*

      I used the nearest major city since I’m the only one in my small town with my title

    13. glitter writer*

      I put in the anchor city of my metro area, as opposed to the actual city where I work and live. The same as a Texan visiting London might say they’re from Houston even if they’re from a suburb 30 minutes away.

    14. Anon for this*

      Yeah I left out the city because I am the only person in my city with my job title. With all of the other information, it pointed directly to me.

    15. Not So NewReader*

      I can’t put my city. Worse, city plus job title would totally identify me around here.

      I was pleased to see people right near me, some perhaps an hour or less away. [Waves] If we ever happen to figure out who the other one is, let’s grab socially distanced coffees and chat.

    16. Not playing your game anymore*

      LOL. My name, salary, job title and institution are in a publicly accessible database. Your tax dollars at work.

  27. Bagpuss*

    Alison, are you interested in salaries only, or do you want data from people who are self-employed e.g. partners in a business?
    I guess salaries are much more relevant when helping people figure out negotiations but the other could be relevant to people thinking of taking the plunge and looking at joining or starting a partnership.

    2. JJ*

      I was coming here to ask something similar, I’m a freelancer with varying projects at varying rates, and recently discovered a colleague on the same project was being paid $25/hr more than I was (I went and got myself a raise that day).

      For me, it would be vastly more helpful to know what people are charging hourly for different freelance services, and whether that’s independent or through an agency. Maybe a separate tab for that? There are a lot of freelancers, and our numbers are only growing.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer*

        Only darn fancy thing about what I do! (Sidenote: do not bring feather boas into server rooms. Feathers and fans is soooo not a good combination)

      2. Forrest*

        There are a couple of UK people with £25k-ish salaries but most (at least when I looked earlier) are over £40k and there’s several £50k+. Median UK salary is about £31k.

    4. Liz*

      I think that might have changed, I’ve just arrived with my £18k pro rata salary to tank the UK average!

    5. Hamish*

      Right? It’s been a while since I worked in the UK… but dang, you’re all making way higher salaries than I was when I was there.

  30. SaraV*

    When you realize you’re less than a month away from having to select another age range up from what you did select. *gulp*

    Thank you for this!

    1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

      I had a similar feeling when I realized this is my last year in my age group. Where did the time go?!

    3. SarahKay*

      I’m firmly in the middle of an age range, but getting *very* close to my half-century. Any angst I might have had over this milestone has been totally mitigated by the consolation that I was one age-group closer to getting vaccinated.

      1. Midwest Manager*

        LOL, as of this month I had to select a new age category and I almost messed it up! Glad I could go back and change my answer before submitting! :)

  32. JelloTokyo*

    Something that might play a factor in pay is where you work versus where you live. For example, I have a job based in California but I live in Texas. My compensation is scaled for Texas based on who knows what but it’s how they do things.

    1. Ann Cognito*

      In HR in CA here. Salary surveys – market data can be pulled on all geographic regions within the US. With the pandemic a lot of employers here have allowed people to work remotely, but adjusted salary based on the region the employee now lives.

  33. 123*

    I felt a little weird submitting this as I know for a fact I’m the only person in my city with my job title so I could totally be identified. But I work for a public university, so my salary is public record anyway!

  34. kbrew*

    I wish I had the option to actually choose multiple industries. I’m technically in both Law and Computing/Tech. Like, I do Computing/Tech work in the legal field.

    1. Filosofickle*

      Industry means the field of the organization you work for, so legal. Your title/role covers the computing part.

    2. Sunflower*

      Agree with the above. If you’re a lawyer or paralegal at a tech company, your field is legal. If you’re a tech guru at a law firm, your field is tech.

      1. Mallory Janis Ian*

        I thought it was the opposite? If you’re a computer tech at a law firm, the field in which you’re employed is law, and your job title is computer tech. Or if you’re a lawyer for a tech company, your field is tech and your job title is lawyer.

  35. Goose*

    Possible question for next year–if you negotiated to get the listed salary. Especially with such a gender disparity with the responses!

    1. Somebody*

      I second this! I am definitively underpaid, but I’ve gotten two huge raises the past two years, so at least we’re working in the right direction.

    2. Curious Forge*

      As of half an hour ago or so, 86% of the respondents identified as women. I wish more men would answer so we could see how the pay gap has changed!

      1. Not So NewReader*

        Maybe the women who answered can drag people from other groups around them into the mix.

  36. bassclefchick*

    I work at a Big 10 University with mandatory furlough days. Luckily for me, they’re “smoothing” the deductions meaning they’re dividing them equally among paychecks for a certain time period. Instead of taking off a full day of furlough and having the whole 8 hours deducted from 1 check, they’re spreading it out. Which is helpful. I’d be interested to know if other Universities/Colleges are doing the same thing.

  37. DataGirl*

    It’s fascinating to see the range of salaries in any given job category. I just looked at ones that were related to data management/analysis/etc. and the range is huge. Sometimes it makes sense, like the person has an advanced degree or has been in the industry for 20-30 years so they have a higher salary, but for others it seems like the person has an exceptionally high salary given their age, length of time in the job, and degree level (or, an exceptionally low salary given those criteria). Of course there’s COL to take into consideration as well… it would be fascinating to see someone do a deep dive into the data and what kind of analysis could come out of it.

    1. Saladzzz*

      I think it would be interesting to see people’s trajectory of their salaries over the years, what kind of company they work for (big company, mid-size, etc.), how often they switched jobs/companies, what type of personality do they have, are they good at negotiating salary, etc.

      I feel lucky to say that I’ve been able to take my annual income (including bonus) from 35k (college graduate) to 120k (33 years old) in 9 years with no advanced degree (I’m a woman).

      A friend of mine has the most magnetic personality and a very ambitious spirit. Having a convo with her makes you wanna be a go-getter like her. Before she went to MIT to get her master’s degree, I’m pretty sure she was making between 160,000-180,000, no advanced degree, and she was 31.

      This certainly is not backed by data but in my personal experience and with the people that I’ve known in my life, the charismatic, charming, fun, outgoing, and go-getter people have way more success and make more money than those with advanced degrees who aren’t known for having those personality characteristics.

      1. Anon regular*

        Agreed, and I have a similar background but a couple years on you.
        Actually didn’t have my college degree when I started my first office job at a small/medium private company. -Paid $27k to start. Promoted to another role at $33k. In my time there (>5 years) I got up to $45k. Earned my BA while at this company, which was paid for entirely by the company.
        -Moved to consultant role for mega-company, paid $58k, <1 year
        -Moved to FTE role for separate retail/food mega-company, paid $70k to start, $77k when I left (<3 years)
        -Moved to FTE role for large retail company, expanded autonomy/responsibility, $90k start, $97k when I left (<4 years) +15% annual bonus
        -Moved to FTE role for mega-company (tech), $125k + 20% annual bonus + annual stock grants. In addition: $80k new-hire stock (vest over four years) and $20k hiring bonus, plus plenty of perks with added value, including no-premium health insurance
        I am not in a tech role, FWIW.
        Agree somewhat with the personality piece. I'm a strong interviewer, warm/welcoming but not effusive, and confident. These all help. However, my last two roles I have gotten through direct connections… which arguably has to do with those known characteristics, but it's hard to get through the gates for "desirable" employers without a connection. My company hires around 1% of total applicants annually.

  38. Keymaster of Gozer*

    Just wanted to leave a note to Alison that that’s definitely a great bit of website coding for that form! Very accessible, viewable on all my devices….

    I’m gonna show it to a few of our devs.

      1. Keymaster of Gozer*

        Still, someone had to embed it and trust me it’s better than the dratted thing I’m currently trying to fix…

  40. Sara*

    One thing I think (in my case anyways) is relevant is the years working vs years in your field. I switched careers in my mid-30s. So when I started as an entry-level developer, I moved up very quickly because I could take on a lot more of the non-technical parts of the job (like meeting with product managers, deducing requirements, on-boarding new developers, etc). I was promoted to intermediate less than a year after I started, which meant a big jump in salary much earlier in my new career than otherwise.

    1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

      Yeah, I like that Alison had the two fields to make that distinction.

  41. Spreadsheets Are Life*

    The Excel nerd in me desperately wants to make this a Pivot table. How can I get this into Excel?

    1. Keymaster of Gozer*

      I saw it and immediately began thinking of SQL queries, or pivot tables I could make. And data compiling (so UK, United Kingdom, England etc are all together) and…..I should probably turn off the computer for the day.

    2. Generic Name*

      I think you can do a “save as”, but the formulas in sheets don’t directly translate to excel, unfortunately, so that may cause issues.

    4. LabTechNoMore*

      SELECT email
      FROM salaries
      WHERE title=’Data Analyst’;

      One of them should know how to export into Excel ;)

    5. Kes*

      Yeah I really would like to be able to filter or at least sort, for example to easily compare with others in my field

  42. irene adler*

    Thank you for this!
    And, I was pleasantly surprised to see Middle Eastern as a category under race. Felt good to select that!

      1. pancakes*

        Sorry, that was supposed to be a stand-alone comment about the survey! An early happy birthday to you.

  44. QuinleyThorne*

    Trying to sort by industry A-Z, but it keeps sorting by age instead. I think it might be because the cell with the link to the survey at the top of the spreadsheet is the first two cells merged together, so it keeps selecting both instead of just the one. Is there any way around that?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      I took out that link. Try now?

      (And if anyone knows how I can have “to add your salary to this spreadsheet go to URL” at the top without having to merge cells to make it fully visible, and without having an oddly tall row for that text, please let me know!)

    2. Free Meerkats*

      That may be related to how Google Forms work. Don’t sort using the normal Excel way of right clicking on the column number. Instead, sort by clicking on the column title in Row 1, then click on the three lines in the column title where you want to sort by. That will also give you more options for sorting.

      1. QuinleyThorne*

        I tried that too but the box kept disappearing when I tried to select anything, so I ended up just downloading a copy. I’ll keep this in mind for next time though, thank you!

    3. Elizabeth Proctor*

      I’m having a hard time sorting (or doing anything) because of the volume of people in the sheet. You may want to try later.

  45. A*

    What should we put if we work remotely for a company in another state? Do we use our city/state of residence or the city/state of the company?

    1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

      I used my city/state, but I should have written in Remote Work for the field that asked what state we worked in and then picked the city where I live because I’m not sure people with my title in my actual city/state make what I do (according to Glassdoor and Indeed, they make less). So my entry may be misleading.

    2. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      I put my company’s HQ’s location, as they base our salaries off the demographics for their home market.

    3. Sambal*

      Yeah – I would have liked a “remote: yes, no, partially” category. Some companies that are moving completely online are increasing salaries so that they can hire better talent. It would help paint the overall picture!

  46. Starbuck*

    Very cool! Looks like the traffic has already overwhelmed the spreadsheet interface, since I don’t see a way to sort (or download it). Looking forward to checking back in a few days as responses keep rolling in!

    1. The Rural Juror*

      Same! Was just coming here to see if anyone else had the same issue. I’ll give it some time to smooth out!

    2. LCH*

      i think the functionality is limited because of all the activity on it. i’d also like to download in order to sort it in Excel since Google sorting is kind of meh.

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        Yes, this happened last time too — it had so much new data coming in the first two days that a lot of functionality was limited. It’ll be easier to play around with a few days from now.

    3. Meep*

      Control + A and Control + C makes easy work of moving the information over to an Excel spreadsheet. Just sayin’! :)

    4. Annie Moose*

      If you go under File > Make a copy, you should be able to make a copy of it to save to your own Google Drive. Caveat, the copy will NOT update, it is just a snapshot of the data at the time you make the copy. But once you’ve done that, you should be able to sort/filter/etc. without problems!

      1. Starbuck*

        That option still isn’t available, my browser (Google Chrome) still isn’t loading any sorting features or file options. I tried copying the whole thing and pasting it into Excel, which promptly crashed, lol.

    5. Lizard*

      Go to File > Download. You can choose the format you want to save it as, and .xlsx is an option. FYI, this is for desktop… and I’m guessing the options would be the same on a mobile device?

  47. the cat's ass*

    I’m fairly new here (well, newer than the last salary survey, anyway), so thank you so much for this!

  48. Somebody*

    I’ve gotten a pretty significant raise the past two years and I am still way underpaid, so I seriously appreciate this!

    1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

      You should probably do separate entries for both since the salary info for both could be useful to others.

  50. LaVonn*

    So excited to see this poll get re-done! I was absolutely fascinated by the data that was collected last time (data scientist here)! I’m happy to see there are some updated question types for this one. Can’t wait to take a look in a few days and try and figure out how much I should be paid for my location/ skills/ industry.

  51. MissKatietheTeacher*

    Yea, as an elementary school teacher, can’t look at that spreadsheet without getting enraged. Why do we pay teachers so poorly?!?!

  52. Philly Redhead*

    Hmmm. I work in the financial industry, but my actual function is Art & Design. I’m not sure which to check.

    2. LaVonn*

      I couldn’t figure that out either. I work in the education industry but I do computer/ tech.

  54. balanceofthemis*

    Looking at the results, I have learned that I am woefully underpaid for my work. I knew that already, just not by how much. Luckily I was already looking.

    1. Anon For This*

      Same. I am one of the lowest earners in my field. Which I kind of suspected, but WOW.

  56. Meep*

    Just getting a pre-look at the information is very interesting. I am loving seeing information from somewhat local jobs.

    And there is some disappointment on several levels but I don’t need to get into that!!

  58. Snow*

    Does an employer match to 401(k) contributions count as monetary compensation? I filled out the form with the assumption that it does not, since that’s a benefit rather than a bonus payment. But on the other hand it is an amount of money that they pay into an account with my name on it.

  59. SometimesALurker*

    Could you use “check all that apply” instead of radio buttons for gender questions in the future? As a nonbinary woman, it’s really disheartening to have to misgender myself or to use the “other” button when my genders are right there but I can only click one.

    1. Case of the Mondays*

      I’m asking so I can get this right in the future when making my own surveys – are you saying that you want to be able to check “woman” and “nonbinary”?

  60. Pesky Pandango*

    Would you mind changing the format of the compensation columns to include a comma as a thousands separator? It would improve the readability.

    2. fhqwhgads*

      I’m not necessarily disagreeing since it’s a US site, but commas aren’t a thousands separator everywhere, and since the survey is asking for country, and we know this site has a lot of non-US readers, the presence of a comma actually may be hindering readability for some. For example most (all?) of Scandinavia uses . as thousands separator are , as decimal.

  61. Wednesday*

    I’m just sitting here trying to comprehend that some people are getting more than my annual salary as a bonus. And I’m one of the highest paid people in my field for my state so far!

  62. Me (I think)*

    I had to stop, because as soon as we got to “what city do you live in” it’s no longer anonymous. There are exactly two people in this mid size city with my job.

    1. no city please*

      I have a similar issue. I just put “small city” to emphasize that I’m not working in a major metropolitan area.

    2. Not So NewReader*

      If you scroll down you’ll will see people leaving a dash or vague wording as an answer.

      For example, I see people saying upstate NY. That is what I would have to put because to write my town’s name in would totally out me. A piece of mail addressed solely with “last name, zip code” would probably get to me.

  63. Lizy*

    curious how I should list my industry… I’m customer service/admin for a fuel company, so definitely agriculture but also property/construction and definitely transportation and also utilities. Should I check all of them????

    1. Sacred Ground*

      I had similar confusion about my job: taxi driver. Is it transport or hospitality? It’s both, but I picked transport because you only get one.

      1. Sacred Ground*

        Prior to that, I worked as a limo driver. For that, I’d have put hospitality first.

  64. The Ginger Ginger*

    Man, I knew I was underpaid for my role, but it is incredibly disheartening to see HOW underpaid.

  65. Mr. Cajun2core*

    I am having trouble sorting it. I get a message saying “Some some tools may be unavailable due to heavy traffic.” Hopefully that will be resolved soon. Is anyone else having this issue?

  67. EmilyG*

    Would love to have “number of direct/indirect reports” as a field (which could be left blank). That’s something that will definitely figure into my next negotiation, but I have few points of comparison.

  68. no city please*

    I didn’t put my company’s city (just said small city) because even on its own, the city would likely identify the company and would certainly ID it based on my job title.

  69. LP*

    I liked how there were options to elaborate on some questions. I would have loved to have the same for the what state and city do you work in. Also, it could be helpful to note if people are WFH. I live on the East Coast of the US, but my employer is in the Midwest. I’m permanently WFH.

  70. Owlette*

    What location do I put if I work remotely in X state, but my company is located in Y state? My pay is based on the going rate for Llama Herders in Y state, which means I’m doing pretty well in X state, which has a lower cost of living.

  71. VERY interesting*

    There are some blank rows at the top of the spreadsheet that are causing it not to allow sorting/filtering. I made a copy and deleted those rows and now I can sort/filter offline, FYI.

    This is very interesting info! I knew the pay range was wide in my field, and I knew that working for the type of company/industry I do gives me a leg up, but I had no idea how much of a leg up. Because of this, in “industry” I put what my company does, not what I do.

    I question some of the salaries (in USD), based on job title, age, and years of experience given. I wonder if some of them typed an extra zero.

    1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

      I think the discrepancy you may be seeing could be more than typos and be more based on location and things like size of the employer, the latter of which isn’t a question on the spreadsheet.

  72. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

    Well, this spreadsheet was very helpful for me to confirm that I’m actually right smack dab in the middle of where the average person with my experience would be with my particular title (or an adjacent title). So that makes me feel better about the relatively small increase I received to my base salary recently (only a 2% bump, though my quarterly bonus total increased by 7% – I wish those percentages are flipped! lol).

    But what makes me sad about this is that it pretty much confirmed something I already figured – I have to stay in tech to make big money in content development/technical writing/content creation and management. I desperately want to move into either the arts world doing this, or beauty and fashion, but the pay just isn’t there and I have ridiculous student debt to pay off. *sigh*

    1. Filosofickle*

      It’s such a bind. I’m a consultant so at least I can mix it up, but don’t feel like I can ever fully get away from tech bc that’s where the money is. Those projects are where I make my real money and they subsidize my smaller / pro bono projects for nonprofits and the arts and causes I actually care about. It’s a pretty good compromise, I still get to do some “heart” work, but… let’s just say if I never had to write about B2B IT software again yet could still afford to live where I live, that’d be even better. A content friend just moved from tech to fashion and had to give up 40K/year to do it.

      1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

        A $40k decrease?! Omg, I couldn’t do it. Bless your friend. I mean, it’s such a passion of mine, but one my lifestyle just can’t afford anytime soon.

        But I was thinking about the consulting thing. Are you independently employed or do you do consulting for a firm? Because if I could consult, I could do like you do and still get the arts/fashion/beauty experience I want while maintaining my tech salary. But I don’t want to work for myself for various reasons (main one being it’s too risky for my tolerance level).

        1. Filosofickle*

          I work for myself. For now I get most of my projects through other consulting partners/agencies, as a sub-contractor, so I’m not the one that has to do all the biz dev. But the risk is still mine all mine! Working in a staff position for a creative studio/agency is another way to do it, where there might be some diversity in the clientele while also having a paycheck. I never thought I’d have the risk tolerance for it, but I got laid off in the dot com bust and didn’t find a job but did find freelance work. Honestly, I view it as risky the other way now — if you lose your job, you lose 100% of your income. If I lose a client, I lose a fraction of mine.

          1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

            Oh, I like the idea of being a subcontractor so I don’t have to deal with the business side of things myself – the agency idea is also a good one. I have to look into these avenues….I’m still trying to figure out exactly what part of content development I like best and where my strengths are, so maybe looking into these options will help me narrow it down.

  73. WellHiii!*

    WHY DIDN’T I GO TO LAW SCHOOL LIKE I THOUGHT I SHOULD HAVE IN THE FIRST PLAAAAAACEEEEE??????

    2. pancakes*

      I’d give my JD back in a heartbeat if I could give back the debt as well. I enjoyed law school, in a weird way, but not enough to justify having to stay in this field forevermore.

  74. QuarantinePuppy*

    I’ve decided I would like to be mentored by each and every one of you. Please reach out at your earliest convenience :)

  75. Frankie*

    Won’t this be linked to our presumably logged in Google accounts? Chrome somewhat silently logs you in everytime you use and even if not, I generally always have gmail open.

      1. Anonymous Hippo*

        If you want to be anonymous, you should be able to count on that.

        Might I ask why you would though? I firmly believe the more you are open about salaries, the greater benefit to the workforce at large. Is it more of a random person that might hit me up for money thing? Just curious, I’ve never really understood people wanting money to be super private, when it tends to harm us more than anyone else.

    2. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Maybe there’s a way on the back end for me to see some kind of identifier (although I don’t see any and certainly wouldn’t release them if I did) but on the spreadsheet that’s publicly available (linked at the top) there’s no log of identities.

    3. Sun Tzu*

      To prevent this, before doing the survey, you can do one of two things:
      – clear all cookies and data stored in the browser (this will log you out of all your sessions and forget all your site preferences, though)
      – open your browser in Private Mode

    4. Case of the Mondays*

      I noticed that the spreadsheet said “recently edited by” and then a bunch of usernames so I think it is tracking from our Google accounts. With data of this size though, I think it is near impossible to link the user to the entry for the average person using the spreadsheet.

  76. Mr. Cajun2core*

    I have to wonder how useful this will be to me. So far I am the only person in my very small city/large town. I was sort of hoping that there would be other similar titles outside of my employer (which is a major employer in this area.)

  77. School Psychologist reporting in*

    I answered the best I could but my degree category isn’t represented—my field gives out specialist degrees (above a master’s, below a PhD), typically 30 hours over a regular master’s.

  78. Ana Llama Ding Dong*

    I kinda wish i hadn’t looked at the spreadsheet now. The only salaries I saw lower than my own were part time.

  79. Noodling Around 2341*

    THANK YOU for adding “Middle Eastern or Northern African” as a field ! It was so nice not to have to quietly agonize over putting White vs. Other vs. Two or More Races. Made my afternoon.

    1. Overeducated*

      I appreciated that as well as being able to choose more than one (I’m White and Middle Eastern).

  80. StudentA*

    I filled this out on my phone and can’t see the spreadsheet too well. If I were to try to pull this up on my desktop, would I have to redo the survey? I don’t want to have to do that.

    1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

      No, I filled the survey out on my phone and was able to download the spreadsheet on my laptop just fine without having to redo the survey.

  81. Tussy*

    On the list of races, you probably should have said “Indigenous” rather than specified Native American and Alaskan because that covers Canada, Australia and can cover Polynesians in Hawaii and New Zealand as well. Adding Polynesian as its own thing would probably have helped too though.

  82. Get me out of this joooobb*

    I’ve just accepted a new job- same title, but a huge 36% pay bump. Should I put my new job or previous?

  83. Sleeping Late Every Day*

    I’d like to see not-for-profits broken into a few categories. There’s a lot of difference between things like private social work agencies, museums, the Red Cross and similar biggies, and tiny town youth sports programs – and so many more. Maybe break down by size or service vs. cultural (plus others I’m blanking on)?

  84. Megan*

    I’m the social worker who makes $101,500… I am shocked at the extremely low wages in America! And some of the directors/team managers make less than me, and I am not a manager. Would be keen to connect with other AAM Social Workers!

    1. Luffi*

      How do you make so much money as a social worker? Why do you make more than your directors/team managers?

  85. LF*

    How come “AUD/NZD” is one option? The two currencies have as much to do with each other as USD and CAD (ie, nothing).

  86. Qui*

    Next time, could we have a category or categories for Scientific Research? Right now, people are entering in anything from “STEM research”, “Research”, “Science”, “R&D”, “Pharma”, “Biotech”, etc

  87. Paperdill*

    Australian and New Zealand currencies aren’t the same.
    Also, it won’t let me tel you that I am in Australia.

  88. RowanUK*

    This is so interesting and useful!

    It’s helped me realise that I need to ask for a pay rise. I work for a small business and we’ve all worked here for 10-15 years. We’re all friends with the boss/owner and I think I’ve felt a bit “well, this year we lost x client so I can’t ask for a pay increase”, “this year there’s been a pandemic, so I can’t ask for a pay increase” etc. The result is, I haven’t had even a cost of living increase for around five years.

    I really need to advocate for myself more.

  90. Pocket Mouse*

    Suggesting a question in the next round: How do you think your compensation compares for your role, industry, and location? Response options: below average, about average, above average.

    1. Anonymous Hippo*

      oh, that would be interesting…to compare perception with (at least this segment) of reality.

  91. Madame X*

    For those of you who work in clinical or basic life science research, what did you put down for your field? I work in clinical research in the pharmaceutical industry and i put down OTHER – Clinical Research. The work I do affects patients but I do not directly work with patients, so healthcare didn’t seem correct to me.

  92. hangry little mouse*

    Hey Alison – this is really cool! The spreadsheet isn’t sortable, though. Did you mean for us to copy the info into our own spreadsheet for sorting, or did you mean to make the publicly linked spreadsheet sortable?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      It’s sortable but you might need to wait a day or two; when there’s a lot of data coming in at once, the public sorting temporarily stops working.

  93. BizarroStormy*

    What’s the best way to record company stock as part of my income? I receive x number of shares in RSUs and purchase stock via ESPP, but the dollar amount of both of those depend entirely on the current stock price – I guess it makes the most sense to just extrapolate out how much I’d get annually if the stock price stayed where it is currently?

    1. Fran Fine (formerly Diahann Carroll)*

      Stock isn’t intended to be included in this survey – just salary, bonuses, and/or commissions.

    2. Overeducated*

      Haha. I wonder if some of these are typos, especially in the seven figure USD salaries.

  95. Time for Tea*

    Professional survey writer here (including 4 years writing compensation survey)- just want to say this instrument is really well done! Great job!

    Only one suggestion (sorry, there had to be one)- break out FT vs PT, and possibly exempt vs non-exempt

    Thank you for this!

    1. Confused*

      Um I would respectfully disagree. The amount of confusion/typos in the income bracket has made a lot of the data useless. I would have recommended that she do a drop down with brackets (i.e. 80,000-90,000, 90,000-100,000) to make this more accurate.

      Also a former professional survey writer/M&E practitioner :-)

  97. Ada Worcester*

    It may be a bit late to retrofit now, but I note that this doesn’t provide any way to indicate whether you’re trans (but not non-binary). I realize you can’t include everything, but this is a major axis of discrimination in the workplace that isn’t really documented here.

  98. Larz*

    I’ve ctrl+f’ed but didn’t see anything about adjuncts here…websites like Glassdoor tend to make colleges and universities look like they pay AMAZINGLY well, because they pay $50-some/hour for class time (“Wow, adjuncts
    make over $100k!”) What that doesn’t reflect, however, is the fact that no one’s allowed to work (well, get paid for) more than 29 hours a week since the ACA went into effect. And even if you’re allowed up to 29, it’s almost impossible to piece together a schedule that gets you anywhere near that. Oh, and credit hours are not the same as hours; one credit hour counts as 2.25 hours as far as those 29 are concerned. But not as far as your pay is concerned!

    I’m probably explaining this horribly, but maybe someone else in higher ed will see this and jump in.

  99. Michelle Smith*

    The survey is a bit flawed with the ranges of experience, as there are gaps that aren’t included (e.g. person who has 4.5 years experience has to arbitrarily select something smaller or larger than their actual experience).

  100. Sophia*

    I feel like a number of people accidentally added an extra 0 at the end. A lot of the high 6 figure salaries make sense but a lot of them seem shocking but make sense with a 0 taken off. I wonder if there’s anyway in future iterations to reduce the occurrence of that (maybe drop down options or some form of verification before submitting.)

    1. Anotherteapotmaker*

      This is a great tool! I have to say that I thought that was underpaid in my current position, but seeing these survey results helps me I’m right on par. Not that it stops me from wanting more money, but that’s another story.

  101. Angel S.*

    There is no option for A.A. degrees. I put ‘some college’. I am working on my B.A.
    Thanks.

  102. Sammy*

    I would suggest adding another option for indigenous peoples of other countries outstide of the US (unless there was one that I did not see). Personally I would be interested in seeing that represented.

  103. Jonathan*

    Hi, as a trans-masculine person in the workforce, I was glad to see that your gender options were inclusive on non-binary people, but I would also like you to consider something that is more holistic, especially since there is discrimination against trans people in the workplace. When I’ve run survey’s like this in the past, I’ve done checkbox options rather than radio buttons (so that people can choose multiple), and have laid them out like this, including the helper text in parentheses:
    * Cisgender (gender matches sex assigned at birth)
    * Transgender (gender is different from sex assigned at birth)
    * Female
    * Male
    * Non-binary

    For example, personally I’ve experienced misogyny as a trans-masculine person, esp. when I was not always perceived as male earlier in my transition, and I think allowing for that info creates more nuance. Thanks for reading!

    – Jonah

  104. HugMeImVaccinated*

    Some things I think would be helpful:

    – Remove the “Nonprofit” industry and break it into what area the nonprofit serves, e.g. education, human/social services, animal care/services, NGO, etc. Then add a radio button for profit or nonprofit.

    – Add an “Average hours worked per week” column. If one person makes $100k working 80hr/wk, and another makes $100k working 40hr/wk, that’s a huge difference in rate of pay and flexibility for life priorities. This will also highlight the “just under benefits” range phenomena that plagues some fields. If you have someone good at coding, you could even have an auto-fill box that takes from their annual income and hours worked field, and divides it out into $ per hour, and have the person check a box that says, “Yes, I make roughly $__/hr.” That should also catch mistypes, because someone may have trouble counting all the zeros, but they’ll know whether they make $200/hr, $20/hr, or $2/hr.

    1. Sophia*

      Some good feedback except a lot of high earners don’t have hourly wages and don’t work a consistent set of hours. I only have a salary which when asked I’ll break in to an hourly rate by applying a standard 40 hour work week. But some weeks I may work 70 hours and other weeks I may only work 15. Either way, I’m getting my salary.

  105. I need a better username*

    Can I suggest 2 more fields? # of staff at the organization and # of staff you directly supervise (if any).

    I would want to compare similar sized organizations and responsibility levels.

  106. SEM*

    Is anyone else unable to open the google doc? Maybe just a google issue but every time I click the link it freezes up or crashes and won’t let me see the spreadsheet

  107. Director of Alpaca Exams*

    Thanks as always for running this.

    Suggestions for future years:

    – With so many people working remotely, “what city do you work in” becomes unclear. You may want to separate out where people are located and where their companies are located.

    – Please consider collecting data on disability, which can substantially affect earnings but is often overlooked as a category in demographic surveys.

  108. Shiny*

    Thanks so much! I may be too late to ask this, but are you planning on doing any analysis? If not, but you’re interested, I’d love to volunteer to do some basic stuff, such as medians and means by industry, gender, country, etc. It’s a fascinating data set!

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