Has your wage increases kept up with inflation/cost of living increases?

[jco]

In one year's time, we've had to up our food budget $200/month, gas $100/month, healthcare $150/month, off the top of my head I don't know the utilities, but they've also gone up. My husband's salary went up $50/month, but we're actually bringing home way less after taxes and healthcare is taken out, and our monthly expenses have gone way up.

[MeganAK]

We had our rent go up $600 in two years, food costs went up $200/ month, utilities went up about $50/month, and gas $80/month. My wage has not increased in those two years, my bonus got smaller, and they stopped contributing to my pension. We are still doing okay, but feeling the hit.

[davidt1]

Originally Posted by desertsun41

True but only one person in every 10 million population are a CEO

Your number is not correct. There are about 300M people in the US. If there is one CEO for every 10M people, then there would be 30 CEOs, according to your wild guess. There are approximately 17,142 public companies in this country.

[grannynancy]

I agree it has not kept up but I have been happy to get "merit increases" in the 3-4% range per year. I am very grateful to have a decent job and pray for co-workers who were good but lost theirs - -

I think you get the most money by taking the risk and moving between companies but I believe in what I am doing and my non-profit company is competitive with the "for profit" sector.

It does get frustrating when you know new hires are probably brought in at a higher base and you see a lot of jockeying for favor and brown-nosing. But I don't know how to play those games and simply want to do the best job I can.................

I do wish there was a cap on CEO pay or a tax structure that REALLY hit anyone in that range --- the discrepancy between worker bee and CEO has really become lopsided over the years.

[w1ngzer0]

nope, im on the poor end.

[Movie Lover]

I have a lot of money and no problem from any wife or girlfriend so no "extra cost" there! All I have is me and thats the way I like it.

[heydade]

I get an 8% raise every year per my union contract.

[HighPlainsDrifter73]

Originally Posted by heydade

I get an 8% raise every year per my union contract.

That's great. Too bad more of us didn't get those kind of raises.

[aiangel_writer]

I just got a raise this year, the first in three years. It averaged out as if I had gotten a raise of 5% per year the past three years. Yet, we are still feeling the crunch very much.

[HighPlainsDrifter73]

Originally Posted by aiangel_writer

I just got a raise this year, the first in three years. It averaged out as if I had gotten a raise of 5% per year the past three years. Yet, we are still feeling the crunch very much.

While that's an above average raise compared to most people, it still doesn't keep up with the cost of living. The cost of living is actually running around 10-11% after all expenses are counted, not the funny Washington math.