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I find it hard to believe someone couldn't even survive on $72,000 per year, even in the most expensive areas of America, surely this affords you a certain leve
by shanelja 14y ago
I find it hard to believe someone couldn't even survive on $72,000 per year, even in the most expensive areas of America, surely this affords you a certain level of luxury too?
To put my response in to context, I currently earn the equivalent of $6,350 per year in wages in the UK, plus $3000 in government benefits to make sure I'm not homeless and I manage to survive. Sure, I can't always afford to eat (I have enough food in for 4 more days, but don't get paid for 6) but I'm surviving, I guess people are just used to different levels of survival.
- ashraful 14y agoReally? $6k per year in the UK seems a bit too low. Thats what a junior programmer in Bangladesh (where I live) makes. I always assumed that salaries for programmers (even without any academic degrees) would be much higher in first-world nations.
- shanelja 14y agoUnfortunately it's my first job as a programmer (though not by any measure my first job) so I have to settle for less than what others get to get in to the business and make myself more credible and hire-able. I have adapted well though and I have the hope that things will be better soon.
- lumberjack 14y agoActually I'm surprised he got employed without a degree. From anecdotal experience, in the UK a degree is expected for most programming jobs; the rest will require formal qualifications of other means.
- shanelja 14y agoIt wasn't easy, I went through a lot of rejection before I finally found this job.
- ayers 14y agoIs that full time work? I really hope that it isn't as £3,992 a year, even for a junior is outrageous and well below the minimum wage. We currently have an intern working for us part time and he is on far more than that.
- shanelja 14y agoUnfortunately, it is around that, my maths was a little off, it's £4,100 per year.
- ayers 14y agoIs it full time, as in 5 days a week?
- shanelja 14y agoYeah, I work 30 hours + some overtime, 5 days a week, 6 hours a day, plus 2 hours travelling each way (on a bus pass which costs me around 850 pounds per year).
- ayers 14y agoI have just looked at your previous posts and see you are on some sort of apprenticeship. I guess this enables your employer to pay you below minimum wage somehow.
- shanelja 14y agoYeah, it's a strange one though - I was already freelancing for two years when I came in to this job, but couldn't find a job elsewhere without a degree in the time scale I had (I was jobless, broke and homeless at one point in the last 9 months) so I had to find any job I could in the field (I was determined, I came back to the UK to work in tech, I was going to do it, there was no compromise) and ultimately found this apprenticeship. It's a decent arrangement, he expected a tech illiterate teenager and instead got an experienced PHP programmer with Adwords and Analytics qualifications.