Imagine if someone came up to you and started talking about money: "Hello, good to meet you. What do you do for a living? Oh, that sounds interesting. How much do you make? Do you get a pension? Are you investing in the stock market? You are? Great! What mutual funds and stocks do you own? Wait, you're not diversified? Let me tell you what you need to do!"
A dialogue like that could unlock all sorts of promising insights and opportunities. But at the same time, it sounds almost impossible. We've come to a point where it's generally considered inappropriate or even rude to discuss your income. In an attempt to change that, Redditor u/BigPlunk asked other platform users, "What is your job and how much do you get paid?"
Surprisingly, many of them replied! Gotta love the transparency and honesty of some people.
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I’m a bum and get $120 a week donating plasma, but plot twist I have an interview at the plasma place tomorrow.
Update: I went to the interview, they called and asked to push it back to 3pm which was completely fine as they had gotten their truck in. The interview went well, and I answered the questions as best as I could. They said it would be full time Monday-Friday 1pm-9:30pm and every other weekend 6am-4:30pm starting at $13-14 an hour. I hope to hear back from them in the next few days, as they mentioned getting my ID, Social Security Card, and High School Diploma so they could make copies.
I’m a farmer. My earnings are flirting with the breadline, but I have very little bills and my life is overall very happy and fulfilling
u/BigPlunk came up with the idea for their post through browsing Reddit. "I had been reading in the r/AntiWork subreddit about companies trying to shut down employees who were discussing their wages," they told Bored Panda.
"I was thinking about how secrecy about the money we make only benefits the companies and not the workers. I was thinking about how inflation without wage increases means that workers are actually taking a pay decrease and how discussing wages more openly might lead to more wage increases. I could go on about this topic quite a lot as it is something that has been top of mind for some time now."
NYC roll off dumpster driver under a Teamster union contract. $40 an hour in January + medical and pension paid 100% by my employer. There’s guaranteed overtime too, so gross around $130k + the other perks. We also get a 100k severance payout the day we retire. I have a bachelors in business, but fell in love with being outside all day. I also sell scrap metal if I can collect it and I have a thriving eBay business from other things I find in the dumpsters. Made another 20-25k doing that on the side.
It's ridiculous that some workers don't see the value of unions. Pay a small amount of dues every month. Pay attention to union call to action events and support them as best you can. Get a fantastic wage and competitive benefits. The end result is in your favor.
I do research with brain cells, HIV, cocaine, and fentanyl. $29,500/year aka ~$14/hr. Yes I'm sad that this is what a Master's degree got me.
I work in a leadership role in a commcial department of a SAAS company in Europe and I almost feel ashamed now. My salary is around 3 times that money.....Can't belive this is true.
After going through the comments, u/BigPlunk People thought people were generally quite eager to share how much they made.
"It seems as though many people want more transparency about wages," they said. "Many people were also saying that they wanted more specific information, including which country/state/province people were living and working in and whether they had healthcare/benefits provided. I think that this thread was the start of a larger conversation."
I'm a teacher in Zimbabwe. I make $150 (USD) per month. $150 is not enough. We’re just living day by day.
Officer on a container ship work about 6 months out of the year and make about 120k. For the most part my job is looking out a window at some waves.
The OP agrees that it has been made culturally inappropriate to discuss wages. But mostly because that would largely result in higher wages for all.
"It means there would be no more paying employee A and employee B different amounts to do the same job. Transparency in wages would likely result in issues like racism and ageism and sexism becoming more obvious," they said.
" I have been posting a lot lately on LinkedIn about the need for companies to include salary ranges and detailed compensation packages as part of job postings. Everyone claims 'competitive compensation' in their postings, yet very few are competitive enough to actually throw out a number. I think that many companies that do post a salary range tend to post a very wide range and then hire on the lower side of it."
Entrepreneur, negative 10k per year
Thank you for the honesty. Entrepreneurship is grossly glorified.
Emt 15/hr
Edit: u guys need to realize, I’m on the high end. 15/hr is starting wage here and that’s freaking nuts. I seriously met a guy who worked 20+ years as an advanced EMT over in Tennessee and he was legit making 10.50 an hour. The dude was 48 on, 24 off.
Actually y’all think I’m doing rough? Check out wildland firefighters haha
that is so sad. what does it tell us abot a society when jobs like that are getting salaries like this?
carpenter here, 67$ an hour with including my benefits.
Any bets this is union? (Edited to add, due to comments, okay, fine, it could be any carpenter. )
I am a paraprofessional in an elementary school. I spend most of my time in a self contained Kindergarten - 5th grade classroom of mostly "non verbal" students with autism. (Occasionally I float to other classrooms) I make around 20k a year. I love my job, but the pay is insulting.
This is insultingly low. Especially for the care and attention this requires.
I work at a recycling plant, I get $35 an hour to stand at a conveyer belt picking out glass
Damn. Reading some of these posts of people with really important jobs with very fancy degrees makes me feel drastically overpaid. I’m a dog walker/pet sitter/Gal Friday. $25-$50/hr. I average about 75k a year. Wear yoga pants and t-shirts to work every day, listen to my AirPods and do my Pimsleur while working, leave time in the middle of the day between my appointments for my violin/cello lessons each week, and am usually stoned most of the day. Love my job. No real benefits so paying for those myself eats into my profit margin, but the total lack of stress or any type of management for my line of work totally makes up for it. I honestly don’t feel like I work. It feels like I wake up and f**k around all day for really good money.
UPS package sorter at a warehouse, 22$ an hour plus time and a half pay for anything over 5 hour shift in a single day (so for example one shift is 5 hours if I work two shifts in a row the second one would be 33$ an hour)
Unlimited overtime too so if I really really wanted to I could triple shift everyday for an entire week (that would be like 15 hours straight everyday working though) and get a months worth of money in a single check
I did UPS in college. Good work for part-time employees and decent benefits while in school. Never have to talk to anyone and all you do is put packages either on or off a truck. Small sort is the best though. Small packages and you just organize them by postal code.
i just started a new job as a software engineer with 384k total comp. to be honest i don’t really know what to do with most of my money besides caring for my aging parents and saving. i feel very lucky and privileged to be here.
Underwater Welder. 296k annually.
sounds fair. not only is it dangerous, these guys are making sure that ships or docksides stay in use, so they are preventing outtages that are extremely costly, I suppose....
13 year old here, I take out the trash and take out of the dishwasher at home and get paid 78 dollars a month or 936 dollars a year by my mom.
I’ve never understood this. The 13 year old lives in the household right? So why should they get paid for doing something that benefits them too? Not judging any type of parenting, I’m just curious why, instead of paying them to do unusual chores that don’t necessarily benefit them, like babysitting a sibling or raking leaves, parents pay them to throw out the trash that would stink up the house for the teen too
I had this money earning scheme starting from when I was 5. Taught me some hard lessons about 'stuff I want = TIME'. I'll never forget what it felt like to have $100 and look at everything I could buy, and then to buy something and realize that money is GONE and there's no allowance that will just come to me. I have to go back and earn more if I want more.
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I had jobs to do around home everyday. I would get paid a certain amount for those jobs each day. Pay would happen at the end of the week. My mom, bless her was a bookkeeper back when it was paper and books. She bought a small ledger book and I recorded each day I did my work. At the end of the week we'd go over the ledger book. If there was a day I didn't do them I didn't get "paid" for that day. It would get added up and that's what I would get. Lessons: Responsibility, all of us living here in this home have responsibilities to help keep it nice. Mine was setting the table, doing the dishes and taking the garbage out. If I didn't do them there was no parental rescue. Don't empty the garbage it piles up. The house smells because I didn't do my job. If you don't do your job, the consequences are unpleasant and often affect more than just you. No work, no pay. Speaks for itself. This will sound nuts to a lot of Pandas, but it taught me exactly what it was meant to.
13 year old here, I take out the trash, clear and load the dishwasher, do the house's laundry, do grocery runs, and I'm paid 0 dollars a month, or 0 dollars a year by my mom.
We try and strike a balance here. The kids have to empty and load the dishwasher and set and clear the table every night, as well as help with the laundry on average once a week and other sundry tasks. These contributions are because they live here and we are a family that works together. They also get pocket money for 'extra' contributions like watering my plants, cleaning the windows or vacuuming the office.
Good to get paid for chores, but don’t forget about your all-inclusive benefits package ;)
Not really, she's teaching the kid that everything you do should have some financial gain, rather than the knowledge that it's everyone's responsibility to do their chores in a household.
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Parents teaching their kids about earning and managing money. Fabulous!
don't leave home and tell moon you want retirement income in twenty years
Back in the 80s, I did the dishes every night with my brother (my other brother was the cook), we did the laundry and cleaned the house, mowed the lawn, took out the garbage twice a week. In the morning, we got ourselves up, got dressed, got our own breakfast (usually cereal). Occasionally, we had big jobs, like reroofing the house or replacing the wallpaper, but there were grownups to help with that. My allowance was, I think, a quarter a week? I think in high school it was a dollar.
By 13 I cooked my own meals, washed my own dishes(plus whatever was in the sink.at the time), made my own packed lunches, and did any chores my parents asked me to and I considered myself lucky to get a few quid here or there to go swimming or to rent a movie. If I had tried to charge my parents £78 I'd be slapped and told to be thankful for the food and things they already give me(and they'd have been right).
That is a lot. My parents gave me $5 a week and my sister and I did all the chores in the house. Then my parents would borrow that $5 for gas money, so it was more like $0 a week. They did pay me $20 a week as a groom. We had around 30 horses we were training, back then a groom would make about $400 a week, parents couldn't afford it so I went to the track at 4am and mucked out the stalls, walked the horses, fed them, and even had the school bus pick me up at the racetrack at 7:30, then drop me off there after school for afternoon feeding. Parents borrowed that money to. So they got a free groom and free cook/maid. I would say they paid for my food but lived on food stamps and off and on homeless so they really failed to provide food and shelter as compensation too.
Sounds like it was a while ago. Nowadays $5 would buy you about 1.5 gallons of gas
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Licensed Nursing Assistant for a Home Care Agency- $13.50/hr. It’s embarrassingly underpaid, but the girl I take care of is so incredibly sweet (18F with cerebral palsy - nonverbal). Being able to help her and her family out means more to me than my actual paycheck.
Private jet captain. Varies with overtime, but this year will be around $360k.
I work in a steel mill that heats steel bars to a certain hardness. I get paid 18$ an hour and so far we haven’t had anyone die for a year (that’s a record)
Not just injured. Haven’t had anyone DIE for a year. For just $18/hour! 😳
Master of the custodial arts. $17.50/h.
This should be higher pay. I hate custodial work and appreciate anyone who can do it.
Inspect nuclear reactors under contract, ~$100k/yr but only work 10 weeks a year
I’m a line cook / manager for a busy restaurant, and I get paid $19 an hour +tip share + profit share from two recipes of mine on the menu.
Profit share is a nice touch. I don't think many restaurants credit their recipe creators like that.
Artificial intelligence/computer vision. About $230k.
I’m an English teacher in charity organization. 6$/h
How can this be?!? Isn't that below minimum wage even in the US?!?
Vet tech, $15/hr in Utah. Getting a raise later this month tho!
Senior IT analyst, a little under $100k. Not bad for a GED recipient.
Air Traffic Controller. Around $100k
Medical Coder - make $31/hr, about 65k annually.
Note: this post originally had 83 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Exchange rates are meaningless. We need to give these salaries in Big Macs. I'll tell you why. In the example I give above, our president gets around 200k per annum, which is lower than some of the people here doing relatively ordinary jobs. However, that salary here is huge and will buy a huge luxury house, several luxury cars, etc. So it's kinda meaningless unless you compare prices of normal daily items. Hence the Big Mac index. So for example, according to google, a big mac in NY is $5. Here it's ZAR 40 or $2.60. In our biggest city. So the *actual* exchange rate ought to be 7.8 : 1, not 15:1. So on that reckoning, our president's salary's buying power is actually more like $400k per year. To give a contrasting example, a floor cleaner might get about ZAR 2500/month or $166 per month. But if you factor in burgernomics, it's actually closer to $253/month. Still very low. Not giving your location is a bit meaningless.
What I noticed here is that the jobs that have been traditionally considered "women's work" are the lowest paid, think teaching, caring for others, typing, etc.
I think it's better to see which jobs are more monotonous, easily replaceable, and the amount of skill required. Once we consider these factors, it becomes clear why some jobs are paid as such.
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I honestly do not understand how they can justify paying footballers so much money.
I'm glad some of these mentioned location. I'd have gone nuts trying to figure out otherwise.
Don't come to a developing country you'll faint when you find out what we get paid. Here in Pakistan,a bachelors degree in anything and you'll start of with rs40-50k ($350-$450) a month, and that's being generous. Minimum wage is $150 a month but no one abides by it so people are working for much less. For this reason we don't move out of our parents house and we work collectively to support each other much throughout early adulthood. I want those of you in advanced economies to realize that this is why a lot of people are immigrating to your countries. The real wages are much MUCH higher. Someone working at customer service in Canada or the US is probably making much more than a software engineer in a country like mine.
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Certified Environmental Services Technician for a hospital...AKA the person who disinfects patient rooms and the entirety of the hospital to ensure you don't get an infection...$15/hr with a 12 cent raise for "exceeding expectations"...I quit a few months later and now work for myself. Best decision I ever made!
I have experienced both tails of the bell curve. In my teen years, I worked for a landscaper at $1.25/hour, shoveling mud while swatting mosquitoes. Then I delivered newspapers and netted $40 per week. Fast forward to later in life, I worked my way up in the IT Department of a Utility company from entry-level programmer to Team Lead for databases and ERP. I was earning a good 6-figure salary by the time I retired. The company could not find a replacement for me, so they hired me back to do my old job as a consultant for more than twice what they had been paying me before. So my story is an illustration of how situational compensation can be, not necessarily the skills you possess or the work you do.
Rachel, i am on disability also, for severe arthritis in my spine with 3 neck surgeries and one lower back triple fusion. It only pays about 21,000.00 a year and as I am married i have to pay taxes on 75% of it. I I weren't married I would be in dire straits and begging one of my sisters to live with them and affording my medication? Nope. Thank goodness, i am married. He is the one who took care of me after every surgery.
Load More Replies...
Motion Graphics Designer, £37K per year. To be honest I thought it is an OK salary while working from home, but clearly in the US it would be not enough.
Here that is ZAR 740 000 which is considered mid-to-upper level management. It would entitle you to buy a house for about 2.5 M ZAR, which is about a four bedroom house with a garden in a luxury suburb.
Load More Replies... Salaries are very arbitrary. They don't represent the amount of skill, training, education, or societal value of the labor. We all labor under this myth of merit, that compensation is based off of the market which rewards the most skilled, hardest workers, or work that produces the most societal benefit, but it is just wrong. There is a lot of research and theories being done in academics regarding the myth of merit if anyone is interested. Been around for a while but what seems like an unbiased system determined by the market is actually built upon a biased conception of what we perceive to be valuable. Big example is when men protested women joining certain fields because they knew if women enter into that field it would devalue the labor. AKA if a woman can do it, it has less value. We women really bring down the expected salary range with our existence.
Chemical Tech. Will probably end up with cancer. 65k/year w/ no OT, with OT probably up to 100k
Infection Prevention Registered Nurse in California, about an hour north of San Francisco. $110k/year. The cost of living is higher here than in a lot of other places, but if I was working in the city of San Francisco itself would probably be around $160k+
In our country, $110k/year is ZAR 1.6m which entitles you to buy a ZAR 5m house, or something with about 6 rooms and a garden in a luxury suburb. Or if you downgrade to 4 rooms, you can throw in two mercedes c-class cars.
Load More Replies... Market researcher - approx. $19,000 this year for F/T + health benefits, paid vacation. Not the most desired job but it's temporary.
That's ZAR 369/hour or ZAR 59 000 per month. You could buy a 3 bedroom house in a luxury suburb here, with a garden.
Load More Replies... Just looking at how much people get paid, US get paid a lot more than european employees.... and yet, it's never enough.
It's relative. USD20 is not the same as EUR20. The cost of living varies wildly between US States and even more between European countries. I earn fairly good money these days, own my own home and enjoy a comfortable life. If I converted it to US$ and moved to Washington I would be struggling to make ends meet and would certainly not be able to purchase a home.
Load More Replies... Reading this make me feel my country really underpaid everything lmao
Private event bartender/gig bartender(USA), make around $100 an hour, often much more but that's the average
Former federal employee in intel made a GS14 salary ~125k per year decided to take a break (maybe temporary or permanent we will see) to teach 2nd grade at a title I school where I make 55k per year
This is so sad! Our work force is severely undervalued and definitely under paid!!!
I work for employment service in Wisconsin. I drive employees to/from the same 2 businesses from service to site and back. Twice a day there and back just driving a van. $18.00/hr.
Does not make sense, some people in the SA are paid well below even a living wage and yet others have money to waste, does not even seem to rely on qualifications. Maybe unions? Maggie Thatcher virtually banned them in Britain, a mere trace of what they were and the stupid British allowed her to do it. Now we have Boris, undermining British workers even more.
I own a screen printing company & anywhere from $300 a day to $1000 a day. My day is usually no more than 4 hours
I was a medical record analyst for sixteen years, before my health forced me into long term disability leave (five months ago). My final hourly wage was $17/hr.
Sustainable technology research and product development was my vocation, but the cash flow was 90% negative. Capitalism hates efficiency.
I own an electric car manufacturing company, and dabble in space exploration and underground transportation. Salary : ~$23,700 plus bonus.
Exchange rates are meaningless. We need to give these salaries in Big Macs. I'll tell you why. In the example I give above, our president gets around 200k per annum, which is lower than some of the people here doing relatively ordinary jobs. However, that salary here is huge and will buy a huge luxury house, several luxury cars, etc. So it's kinda meaningless unless you compare prices of normal daily items. Hence the Big Mac index. So for example, according to google, a big mac in NY is $5. Here it's ZAR 40 or $2.60. In our biggest city. So the *actual* exchange rate ought to be 7.8 : 1, not 15:1. So on that reckoning, our president's salary's buying power is actually more like $400k per year. To give a contrasting example, a floor cleaner might get about ZAR 2500/month or $166 per month. But if you factor in burgernomics, it's actually closer to $253/month. Still very low. Not giving your location is a bit meaningless.
What I noticed here is that the jobs that have been traditionally considered "women's work" are the lowest paid, think teaching, caring for others, typing, etc.
I think it's better to see which jobs are more monotonous, easily replaceable, and the amount of skill required. Once we consider these factors, it becomes clear why some jobs are paid as such.
Load More Replies... I honestly do not understand how they can justify paying footballers so much money.
I'm glad some of these mentioned location. I'd have gone nuts trying to figure out otherwise.
Don't come to a developing country you'll faint when you find out what we get paid. Here in Pakistan,a bachelors degree in anything and you'll start of with rs40-50k ($350-$450) a month, and that's being generous. Minimum wage is $150 a month but no one abides by it so people are working for much less. For this reason we don't move out of our parents house and we work collectively to support each other much throughout early adulthood. I want those of you in advanced economies to realize that this is why a lot of people are immigrating to your countries. The real wages are much MUCH higher. Someone working at customer service in Canada or the US is probably making much more than a software engineer in a country like mine.
Load More Replies... Certified Environmental Services Technician for a hospital...AKA the person who disinfects patient rooms and the entirety of the hospital to ensure you don't get an infection...$15/hr with a 12 cent raise for "exceeding expectations"...I quit a few months later and now work for myself. Best decision I ever made!
I have experienced both tails of the bell curve. In my teen years, I worked for a landscaper at $1.25/hour, shoveling mud while swatting mosquitoes. Then I delivered newspapers and netted $40 per week. Fast forward to later in life, I worked my way up in the IT Department of a Utility company from entry-level programmer to Team Lead for databases and ERP. I was earning a good 6-figure salary by the time I retired. The company could not find a replacement for me, so they hired me back to do my old job as a consultant for more than twice what they had been paying me before. So my story is an illustration of how situational compensation can be, not necessarily the skills you possess or the work you do.
Rachel, i am on disability also, for severe arthritis in my spine with 3 neck surgeries and one lower back triple fusion. It only pays about 21,000.00 a year and as I am married i have to pay taxes on 75% of it. I I weren't married I would be in dire straits and begging one of my sisters to live with them and affording my medication? Nope. Thank goodness, i am married. He is the one who took care of me after every surgery.
Load More Replies... Motion Graphics Designer, £37K per year. To be honest I thought it is an OK salary while working from home, but clearly in the US it would be not enough.
Here that is ZAR 740 000 which is considered mid-to-upper level management. It would entitle you to buy a house for about 2.5 M ZAR, which is about a four bedroom house with a garden in a luxury suburb.
Load More Replies... Salaries are very arbitrary. They don't represent the amount of skill, training, education, or societal value of the labor. We all labor under this myth of merit, that compensation is based off of the market which rewards the most skilled, hardest workers, or work that produces the most societal benefit, but it is just wrong. There is a lot of research and theories being done in academics regarding the myth of merit if anyone is interested. Been around for a while but what seems like an unbiased system determined by the market is actually built upon a biased conception of what we perceive to be valuable. Big example is when men protested women joining certain fields because they knew if women enter into that field it would devalue the labor. AKA if a woman can do it, it has less value. We women really bring down the expected salary range with our existence.
Chemical Tech. Will probably end up with cancer. 65k/year w/ no OT, with OT probably up to 100k
Infection Prevention Registered Nurse in California, about an hour north of San Francisco. $110k/year. The cost of living is higher here than in a lot of other places, but if I was working in the city of San Francisco itself would probably be around $160k+
In our country, $110k/year is ZAR 1.6m which entitles you to buy a ZAR 5m house, or something with about 6 rooms and a garden in a luxury suburb. Or if you downgrade to 4 rooms, you can throw in two mercedes c-class cars.
Load More Replies... Market researcher - approx. $19,000 this year for F/T + health benefits, paid vacation. Not the most desired job but it's temporary.
That's ZAR 369/hour or ZAR 59 000 per month. You could buy a 3 bedroom house in a luxury suburb here, with a garden.
Load More Replies... Just looking at how much people get paid, US get paid a lot more than european employees.... and yet, it's never enough.
It's relative. USD20 is not the same as EUR20. The cost of living varies wildly between US States and even more between European countries. I earn fairly good money these days, own my own home and enjoy a comfortable life. If I converted it to US$ and moved to Washington I would be struggling to make ends meet and would certainly not be able to purchase a home.
Load More Replies... Reading this make me feel my country really underpaid everything lmao
Private event bartender/gig bartender(USA), make around $100 an hour, often much more but that's the average
Former federal employee in intel made a GS14 salary ~125k per year decided to take a break (maybe temporary or permanent we will see) to teach 2nd grade at a title I school where I make 55k per year
This is so sad! Our work force is severely undervalued and definitely under paid!!!
I work for employment service in Wisconsin. I drive employees to/from the same 2 businesses from service to site and back. Twice a day there and back just driving a van. $18.00/hr.
Does not make sense, some people in the SA are paid well below even a living wage and yet others have money to waste, does not even seem to rely on qualifications. Maybe unions? Maggie Thatcher virtually banned them in Britain, a mere trace of what they were and the stupid British allowed her to do it. Now we have Boris, undermining British workers even more.
I own a screen printing company & anywhere from $300 a day to $1000 a day. My day is usually no more than 4 hours
I was a medical record analyst for sixteen years, before my health forced me into long term disability leave (five months ago). My final hourly wage was $17/hr.
Sustainable technology research and product development was my vocation, but the cash flow was 90% negative. Capitalism hates efficiency.
I own an electric car manufacturing company, and dabble in space exploration and underground transportation. Salary : ~$23,700 plus bonus.
