There is no 'wages go up 20%'. That's not how the economy works. Wages are renegotiated on an annual basis and most people have to job hop to get anything close to a 20% raise.

Inflation affects everyone rapidly. But to get the claimed wage increase people have to do work to find new jobs.

▲

taylortbb 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> There is no 'wages go up 20%'. That's not how the economy works. Wages are renegotiated on an annual basis and most people have to job hop to get anything close to a 20% raise.

The example was not meant to be a single year. Over the 2020-2024 timeframe we did see movements around that size (though the gap between average wages and inflation was smaller than my example, where I rounded the numbers).

▲

manlymuppet 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It was only an example though, not a claim.

I think you're being overly critical here.

▲

pasquinelli 3 hours ago | parent [-]

yeah but it's not a great example, because actually wages aren't going up. maybe people would be able to psychologically handle inflation if it wasn't out-pacing wages. actually, now i think about it, that's not psychological at all, so the whole premise is kind of out the window, isn't it?

▲

manlymuppet 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Though I disagree with your conclusions, that part is irrelevant to whether the example works.

An example is not bad simply because it's unrealistic. I'm sure you've heard plenty of examples which allow you to understand the main point without being perfectly representative.

The point of this example in particular was to illustrate how wages work alongside inflation. As long as you understand the point--that inflation is relative--the specific numbers don't matter.

	▲	pasquinelli an hour ago \| parent [-]
		the point of the example was to illustrate how people fixate on the increased cost of living fron inflation and ignore their increased earnings, even if the increased earnings out-pace the inflation in their cost of living. my point is that's a bad example because we couldn't say that that's true given that the cost od living has been out-pacing wage inflation for a long time. so yeah, the example illustrates the idea, but it also underlines how the idea contradicts reality.

▲

fcarraldo 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Outside of tech, seeking a 20% increase would be relatively uncommon.

▲

Loughla 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't work in tech, and hopping jobs will get you 5% at most, usually. Maybe it's because I'm in the public sector and wages are public information? Either way, it always comes across as VERY out of touch when people here talk about massive increases just by changing jobs.

	▲	alpinisme 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not to mention how casually they talk about changing jobs. As though there weren’t pressures (and desires) keeping people at one workplace, and that those people form a large enough percentage of the population that their resentment of inflation has political force.

▲

austin-cheney 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That falsely turns your experience into an imagined generality.

There was one year I received 3 raises at Travelocity and nearly doubled my compensation. I was hired as a web designer and after 3 months was involuntarily reassigned to a developer role and told to “figure it out”. I got a negative annual review that year and then ended up in Afghanistan on a military deployment. When I came back to Travelocity I was still classified as a developer but was reassigned from marketing to product development where to wages are higher, but I was earning as a junior designer. After eagerly looking for other internal jobs they gave me a raise to catch me up. Several months later I was promoted to a senior developer position and became the company A/B test engineer, which also came with a raise. A little after that another company gave me a better offer and Travelocity countered. This was like a million years ago.

Because most of my career is in writing JavaScript if I want to continue to increase my wages I would have to do the most beginner level shit work because that is common expectation for JavaScript developers.

	▲	Supermancho 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> That falsely turns your experience into an imagined generality. > There was one year I received 3 promotions at Travelocity and nearly doubled my compensation. I was hired as a web designer and after 3 months was involuntarily reassigned to a developer role and told to “figure it out”. This is obviously an aberration where you are doing exactly what you claimed the gp did. Moving jobs is the single best way to get a raise and has been for decades. Leveraging the experience at a company (which is relatively static) for a higher wage at another where that new and different experience has more value. Notably, how company leadership changes are less likely to be from internal candidates than a transplant from another company.

▲

3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]