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Would someone just starting their career in 2021 in the Chicago area get defined-benefit pension plans? Also, does a new teacher get as much as a new software d

Would someone just starting their career in 2021 in the Chicago area get defined-benefit pension plans? Also, does a new teacher get as much as a new software developer? The $80k/year numbers that I keep seeing thrown around often apply to teachers with 20 or more years of experience, but software developers that level of experience make a lot more. In my state, older teachers get these, but newer teachers including some of my friends have been cut out of them and need to invest in a 401k like other job. Their wages are also much lower, around 35k/year to start with, peanuts when you consider that they take work home every night and weekend (correcting homework and lesson planning are mostly done on their own time).

paulddraper 5y ago
> teacher > software developers Those are very different jobs, with very different skill sets. I'm not sure how much you can infer about one from the other.
- tptacek 5y ago
  Nothing, except that nobody reasonable believes that software developers are grossly underpaid.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > I'm not sure how much you can infer about one from the other. You can certainly infer how much a largely capitalist society values each skill set at this point in time. The GP is claiming that "suburban Chicago teachers make as much as Chicago-area software developers do", presumably implying that capitalist society in the suburban Chicago area values the labor of teachers and software developers equally. This is a claim that I want to understand better, since I don't think it reflects the statistical reality. Typically, such claims cherry-pick tenured teachers with 15+ years of experience, and compare their wage with the average software developer wage, which is itself a very unclear number – for example, a lot of developers go on to be managers in 15+ years whereas teachers largely remain teachers. Glad to be wrong on this though, and might consider moving to an egalitarian society like suburban Chicago.

paulddraper 5y ago

> teacher > software developers Those are very different jobs, with very different skill sets. I'm not sure how much you can infer about one from the other.

tptacek 5y ago
Nothing, except that nobody reasonable believes that software developers are grossly underpaid.
quadrifoliate 5y ago
> I'm not sure how much you can infer about one from the other. You can certainly infer how much a largely capitalist society values each skill set at this point in time. The GP is claiming that "suburban Chicago teachers make as much as Chicago-area software developers do", presumably implying that capitalist society in the suburban Chicago area values the labor of teachers and software developers equally. This is a claim that I want to understand better, since I don't think it reflects the statistical reality. Typically, such claims cherry-pick tenured teachers with 15+ years of experience, and compare their wage with the average software developer wage, which is itself a very unclear number – for example, a lot of developers go on to be managers in 15+ years whereas teachers largely remain teachers. Glad to be wrong on this though, and might consider moving to an egalitarian society like suburban Chicago.