Well.
I’m a little disturbed average pays tops out by 45, but I guess for the vast bulk of the public, who aren’t professionals, that sounds accurate.
While I don’t really disagree with your point, if age is the thing that disturbs you most about that chart, you’re not really paying attention.
I know! Tan and cerulean? Really?
The age thing is survivable, it’s the fact that they put the comma inside the parentheses that kills me. I realize that it’s correct, it just looks wrong.
Is that what you were talking about, Hawkeye?
I know, it’s a scandal, women’s average income is about half of the men’s!
If this trend continues, soon they won’t have to marry to make a decent living, and I’m sure, as a society, we don’t want to get there.
People making that top income bracket are retiring by 55, leaving only the lower wage earners still in the workforce.
That matches my experience (I’m 41). There’s only so far to advance in a company and only so much room if you want to become a manger. Most people will get raises and promotions for their job and hit a peak. 20 years of experience, if you can find a company that even values experience, just isn’t that much better than 15 years experience. 7 years experience though is heaps more valuable than 2 years experience. Consequently you move up fairly noticeably for the first 10-15 years, then level out.
I know I’ve hit my peak. My hope is just to ride it as long as I can and keep age discrimination from leaving me short of setting myself up for retirement.
No one will admit to it because of the age discrimination, but I thought it was pretty obvious companies look to axe older staff cause their salaries are higher. Oh, the reason is never because they’re “old”, it’s always some other thing.
The place I used to work at had a sudden wave of senior staff suddenly exit within weeks of one another, just when the belt was being tightened by corporate. It was pretty shocking. You had very little turnover at that place for years, and then suddenly every week there’s another “Farewell” message on Facebook. They essentially got kids out of college to replace them; you know, the ones who’ll work for peanuts. Of course, the executives who are almost all the same age as most of the senior staff that left are still there. Every single one of them.
I think we’re still in the range where a sizeable minority of 62-65 year olds have pensions & are retiring early (or being forced out b/c of age discrimination). So I think it would be interesting to see 55-60 and 60-65 split out in age range, as well as observing what will happen as the baby boomers retire. I suspect the 55-60 range will be the maximum median salaries once the bulk of the pension generation retires. But women will still make less than men, because of their smaller brains*.
*And the sexism thing.
Yeah, the graph matches my experience as well. I’m in my late 40s and have had what amounts to inflationary raises(raise matches the rate of inflation) the last six years despite doing a consistently good job, troubleshooting critical problems, and continuing to learn. My main goal is to maintain my wage level until retirement and avoid any long term periods of unemployment. The good news is that I have always lived under my means. So I am comfortable.
A lot of places will fire staff when they hit around 55 if the economic times are a little tough. This has just happened to my Dad and a whole lot of his, around 55 year old, co-workers for example. I wouldn’t trust any company to keep me employed to retirement these days.
Does this include people not in the workforce, ie stay-at-home mothers? Because last I checked the difference in pay betweeen full time workers was much less, and I’m less worried about this graph than that one.
The graph doesn’t compare income for the same professions and positions which makes the male/female separation rather meaningless. Women are much more likely than men to work part-time and in certain low-paying service jobs… and not because evil men force them to. Note that the gap is smallest at the youngest age which is when both genders are usually students, working similar low-paying part-time jobs. Later in life women take higher-paying jobs much less often than men, but that’s a choice of these women more than anything else.
The overall decline with advancing age shown in the graph is also somewhat misleading. The really big drop-off doesn’t occur until the age of 65+ years which could simply mean that a large part of the sample have already retired, or perhaps reduced their working hours, or perhaps are on sick leave longer and more often. Does the graph account for these things? Who knows? Someone would have to check the source…
Agreed. My mother and stepfather both retired at 55. It’s the new age of retirement among professionals. Oh, my aunt and uncle also did that, and I suspect my other aunt will retire soon (she’s actually 58 or so).
Yeah, these are good points. Wage discrimination by gender is still pretty bad, but this graph probably isn’t a good representation of it.
Agreed, that data representation is very deceiving. When you look at graphs the compare male and female salaries in the same jobs, the delta is much less.
And, in the UK, that’s now illegal, of course. [1] Damnably tricky to prove, I admit, but straight forwardly against the Equality Act, and on the same basic rules as sex discrimination…
[1] I was seconded to a large oil major at the time this test came in in 2006/07 - lots of older staff forcibly retired before it came into force…
Also illegal in the U.S. When I was let go from a huge global company as the new CEO cut a huge percentage of the senior people to reduce expenses, I had an employment lawyer look at my separation paperwork (which they tried to pressure me to sign quickly.) He pointed out in the demographics of those let go (which they had to provide, by law) vs. those in the peer group who were not let go, that there wasn’t a single person under 49 that they laid off. He also pointed out how, on the page that said I wouldn’t sue them under the following laws in exchange for the money they were giving me, that the “old age act” was in boldface and a font larger than everything else on the page. He said that is because the age discrimination was so blatant that they expected some people to come back and sue, and they could point out to the judge that you signed a form and there was no way you could have missed that on the page.
He went back and negotiated a larger separation package, not a huge amount (didn’t want to take the time to actually go to court) but enough to make me feel like I’d at least landed a goodbye punch. ;)
