Nine Out of Every 10 Silicon Valley Jobs Pays Less Than In 1997, Report Finds

[DamianTV]

https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/...lley-jobs-pays-less-than-in-1997-report-finds

Nine out of every 10 Silicon Valley jobs pays less now than when Netflix first launched in 1997, despite one of the nation's strongest economic booms and a historically low unemployment rate that outpaces the national average. While tech workers have thrived, employees in the middle of Silicon Valley's income ladder have been hit hardest as their inflation-adjusted wages declined between 12 and 14 percent over the past 20 years, according to a study from UC Santa Cruz's Everett Program for Technology and Social Change and the labor think tank Working Partnership USA, which examined the economic impact of technology companies.

Technology workers saw a median wage increase of 32 percent over the past 20 years, the study found. But Silicon Valley workers in virtually all other areas lost ground during that time. Across all jobs, wages for even the highest-paid 10 percent increased just under 1 percent, the study found. Meanwhile, the region's economy has been booming. Since 2001, the amount of money generated per Silicon Valley resident -- the area's per person GDP -- has grown 74 percent, the study found. That's more than five times faster than the equivalent national growth.​

Also, a smaller percentage of wealth is going to workers. "In 2001, about 64 percent of the money generated in Silicon Valley went to workers," reports Mercury News. "By 2016, that was down to 60 percent. The drop translated to $9.6 billion -- about $8,480 in potential pay and benefits per worker -- that instead went to investors and owners, according to the study."

 

[Swordsmyth]

This is why we NEED more H1Bs.

 

[Madison320]

This is why we NEED more H1Bs.

My first thought is that maybe salaries are lower because the cost of government is too high, so we need to lower the cost of govt. Your first thought is that we need govt to restrict the supply of labor. in other words my first thought is that we need less govt, your first thought is that we need more govt.

 

[Swordsmyth]

My first thought is that maybe salaries are lower because the cost of government is too high, so we need to lower the cost of govt. Your first thought is that we need govt to restrict the supply of labor. in other words my first thought is that we need less govt, your first thought is that we need more govt.

We are both right.

 

[fisharmor]

Or it could be that in 1997, IT was still a blooming industry and nowadays there are tons of IT jobs that are the functional equivalent of wage slaves.
This is before Google and Amazon we're talking about. You could still find good deals on ebay in 1997 that didn't involve drop-ships from China.
Hell, *Napster* was a thing. Companies were starting and dying (or getting killed when the government didn't like them) and the IT drones that existed all worked for AOL. The result was you had to know what you were doing, you had to be good at it, and you probably got a good wage for it.

Today, I make my living generally by herding sheep, and I bet everyone else in IT has a similar experience at least to some extent. It's possible to keep an IT job where 30% of the work you do is reliant on someone with either more talent, smarts, or cajones directing what you're doing.

I don't think I've seen someone fired for incompetence in over a decade. There's tons to do and a limited pool of people who deserve a living wage to do it.

 

[Madison320]

Or it could be that in 1997, IT was still a blooming industry and nowadays there are tons of IT jobs that are the functional equivalent of wage slaves.
This is before Google and Amazon we're talking about. You could still find good deals on ebay in 1997 that didn't involve drop-ships from China.
Hell, *Napster* was a thing. Companies were starting and dying (or getting killed when the government didn't like them) and the IT drones that existed all worked for AOL. The result was you had to know what you were doing, you had to be good at it, and you probably got a good wage for it.

Today, I make my living generally by herding sheep, and I bet everyone else in IT has a similar experience at least to some extent. It's possible to keep an IT job where 30% of the work you do is reliant on someone with either more talent, smarts, or cajones directing what you're doing.

I don't think I've seen someone fired for incompetence in over a decade. There's tons to do and a limited pool of people who deserve a living wage to do it.

That's true, I was going to mention that. It's possible that the IT jobs just aren't as valuable for whatever reason.

 

[DamianTV]

That's true, I was going to mention that. It's possible that the IT jobs just aren't as valuable for whatever reason.

A ton of those jobs have gone overseas. Its still cheaper to pay people in India that barely speak english than it is to pay minimum wage to people here. Same thing for non minimum wage jobs too. Since programmers can work remotely, who would want to pay anyone a decent salary in the US when you can pay a bunch of people in very poor nations to do "just good enough" work?