[WorldMaker]

"Should" being a huge keyword there. Labor wage growth in general has barely kept up with inflation, on average. The software industry bubbles have kept it largely immune to this and overall still seems to be seeing relatively strong wage growth in certain cities and sectors, but there's no guarantee that will continue.

Not to mention that with the time value of money, 20% of your first paycheck isn't just immediately a lot (which it is), it's also a potentially much larger chunk of long term savings and investments potential.

But the main argument here remains that a lot of the complaints are the overall slow delay in people with student loan debt engaging with other economic concerns (buying homes, starting families, etc), and all you've done is exactly illuminate why it is considered such a crisis, people are rationally waiting for that "year five" when student loan payments are less than 20% (or whatever high water mark) of their income, rather than starting bigger projects earlier than that.

[hellogoodbyeeee]

Those wage growth numbers discussed are an average. It would be very strange to have someone not have any significant raises between year 0 of their career and year 10.

[WorldMaker]

On a bell curve there are as many people below the average as there are above it. Given the overall wage growth in software industry it's very easy to assume that has largely propped the average up over the last couple decades of statistics and that there are lots of people in other industries that have suffered wage loss more than wage growth.

You could argue that wages do not follow a bell-curve distribution, but there isn't a distribution out there without people falling at or below the average. "Significant raises" in one's career seems to be the outlier statistic, not the norm.

[hellogoodbyeeee]

I agree with everything you just said, but its also an average across age groups. It would not surprise me to see many 40year old workers getting 1% yearly raises for the rest of their career. What would surprise me is if there are a significant number of 25 year olds only making 1% raises until they are 35. Most industries will pay a premium for an individual with ten years of experience over someone with no experience (a recent graduate).

[WorldMaker]

My continued disagreement is with "most industries". I think software, especially in "tech hubs" like Silicon Valley has been extremely privileged in raises and I think that colors a false perception of other industries here.

Historically, it seems to be a nice privileged outlier for white collar positions, at most; blue collar work has rarely paid a premium for any individual, much less for experience, and in general has worked very hard to avoid thinking of labor in terms of individuals.

Anecdotally, I've yet to see this "significant raise" for ten years of experience in my own career, and among peers I've straw-polled neither have they. Some have only gotten that cost of living raise through complicated job hopping. Admittedly, I've prioritized overall standard of living over raw income for most of my career to date. I could be doing better, but I'm doing alright.

It does very much look from my cynical point of view that industries that will pay a premium for individuals with experience are few, and increasingly disappearing/extinct in an overall marketplace that hasn't respected labor in decades. The only guaranteed "industry" in current American economics with significant raises of any sort is the C-Suite fraternity. Software has been very fortunate to keep getting good table scraps, with luck, in tech hubs, before cost of living and work/life balance are adjusted for. Lawyers and Doctors with collective effort have done okay protecting their wage gains. I don't think there are many other industries beyond those that can claim the same, even (and maybe especially) adjusting the averages for age.

[mywittyname]

Lots of professionals earn 1-2% raises their entire career. I'd say it's the norm, and also the reason that job-hopping is seen as the best way to increase your salary.

[notfromhere]

the problem is that lots of careers that require degrees don't have 75k ceilings