I was hired by Microsoft as a fresh grad in 2005 for 84000 year. 84000 in 2005 according to CPI calculator (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl http://data.b

I was hired by Microsoft as a fresh grad in 2005 for 84000 year. 84000 in 2005 according to CPI calculator (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl) is $100,117.42 today. Add to that that two years ago Microsoft reduced stock grants and put more money into base salary and actual total compensation increase for fresh grads is negligible.