7 ms·

Are STEM Workers Overpaid?

52 points by 31reasons 13y ago

droopyEyelids 13y ago
A withering brilliance shows through this casually abusive headline. I feel like this is a few steps away from some sort of revolutionary political speech. Did Greenspan really say that shit while representing the country I'm supposed to love?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kbenson 13y ago
> Significantly opening up immigration to skilled workers solves two problems. The companies could hire the educated workers they need. And those workers would compete with high-income people, driving more income equality. TL;DR Income equality is being redefined as cost cutting through wage suppression. W. T. F. If you want to define income inequality as the "problem" of different skills demanding different wage premiums based on demand, then sure... If you want to define it, as it has been in almost every report I've seen on the matter, as the widening gap between the rich and everyone else, then that doesn't help at all, it just exacerbates the problem. STEM work is still a quick, mostly egalitarian way to allow movement from the lower to middle classes. Defining middle to upper-middle class as high-income earners might technically be accurate, especially with a shrinking middle class, but then making decisions based on them being "high-income" when it's so relatively different than it was in the past seems the exact wrong way to go about things.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  It's like that short story, Harrison Bergeron, where everyone has the mental inhibitors. It's much easier to drag everyone down to the same level, than lift them up to the same level.
- jmspring 13y ago
  We need downward pressure on wages so that the executives can make more money and the corporations can profit. Clearly borders should be open to throw away any avenues to prosperity that still exist in this country still. A mix of corporate and union greed f'd up previous iterations of the middle class, clearly we should follow the same path in all cases to the benefit of the 1%. Yeah, that works. I believe in the global economy, but I also believe that local markets have their demands and wages should be commensurate. If I were to live in San Francisco working as a full stack developer, I should expect one wage. If I was in Berlin, Stockholm, Singapore, etc. I would expect something commensurate that maintained the similar lifestyle in the community I work. There are cultural/societal tradeoffs, but personally, I am pretty tired of the "US IT wages are too high, let's open the borders" argument. The opposite side of that argument -- corporate america promised X, but failed to deliver for aged populations, oh well...just moves along doing it's thing. Between my age and that of my parents, there was a shift of "spend your life working for a company, you would get training to your potential, and your efforts would be reciprocated"; to today it is "fend for yourself, the contract you enter in is at will on both sides with no guarantees" with the caveat of "hopefully we are both striving for the same thing for an acceptable duration".
  - wildgift 13y ago
    How can you compare corporate greed to union greed? The best paid union workers were autoworkers and longshore workers, and the companies they worked for were still huge and profitable. So as "greedy" as these well paid workers were (and I mean "were," because autoworkers make a lot less today) they weren't greedy enough to destroy the company. If it weren't for this so-called "greed" there wouldn't have been a middle class at all. And now that unions are shrinking to almost irrelevance, the middle class is vanishing. The old attitude of companies holding onto workers was created by unions making demands. Now that unions are few, and in many sectors, were never present, the "fend for yourself" at-will contract is the standard. The unions made those "good old days". The labor strife of the 20s and 30s set the conditions for the middle class of the 50s and 60s.
    - jmspring 13y ago
bayesianhorse 13y ago
No.
carsongross 13y ago
Comrades: Either get lean, or seize the means of production. Which, mirabile dictu, is yourself.
frozenport 13y ago
Gut Reaction: Do non-STEM workers do anything useful?
- potatolicious 13y ago
  You have got to be joking.
- opendais 13y ago
  I hope that was sarcasm. ;) 'cause they do.
  - CmonDev 13y ago
    That morning coffee ain't gonna make itself.
  - nickthemagicman 13y ago
    Hahaha keep telling yourself that.
- WesternStar 13y ago
  A better question might be.Can we automate away the jobs of sales people, middle management and strategic directors? Yes, I believe we can.
  - kbenson 13y ago
    The real question; Can we automate the job of corporate officer? The cost savings would be enormous...
    - WesternStar 13y ago
      Thats is a really hard problem. How do we define priorities and goals? There is certainly an argument for a company where the only goal is to make money and there is no overriding authority between divisions but there is so much sociopathic behavior in companies already.
opendais 13y ago
They really should have picked a different title and hinted at the conclusion which was STEM workers are suffering the same wage stagnation as everyone else and the only companies with hiring problems want STEM workers on the cheap. :/
bdcravens 13y ago
Alan Greenspan made approximately $180,000/year as Chairman of the Fed. Perhaps Presidential-appointee salaries could be made equal to non-Presidential-appointees by opening up those positions to foreigners.
dvanduzer 13y ago
I would gladly take a pay cut if we also raised the minimum wage to $30 an hour, got rid of most welfare programs and replaced them with a $10k/year minimum income, and simplified to a flat tax rate (I think Dick Armey liked 17%).
- pixie_ 13y ago
  I would take a pay cut to work only 35 hours a week.
  - khyryk 13y ago
    How much do you currently work?
    - pixie_ 13y ago
      9 to 6. I'd rather work 9 to 4 and enjoy the evening a bit more.
      - wildgift 13y ago
        Can you go on strike with your coworkers?
- jcnnghm 13y ago
  Given that the mean wage was only $43,460 in 2009, in order to raise minimum wage to $60,000 per year, your pay cut would be to minimum wage. The government would have to confiscate all income, supplement it with printed money, then redistribute it evenly across the population. In that kind of scenario, why would anybody do anything but the absolute minimum? Isn't that largely why the Soviet Union wasn't competitive? If there was no economic incentive for hard work, I'd wager many of the presently most productive people would optimize for work minimization.
  - dvanduzer 13y ago
    That's assuming a lot of things about the present level of productivity of everyone working. Also, your number sounds like "household income" and I'm making my assumptions based on GDP per capita[0]. Generally though, yes, I'd assume most people would end up working ~20 hours a week. I'd assume most employers would prefer this, and would also optimize the use of their employees' time. I think your understanding of Soviet economic policy is probably a bit naive, but for a high level overview of my philosophy, I'd recommend Russell's In Praise of Idleness[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... [1] http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
spamizbad 13y ago
If there's downward pressure on salaries in Software development, you're going to see two things that will counter-act this long-term: 1) An exodus of developers. Devs will be likely be leaving either as the result of fat getting trimmed or by transitioning into management and analysis roles that offer better career prospects. 2) Less "young blood". A big reason why everyone is pumped these days to learn to code is due to the career opportunities it provides: the great salary, the job perks, and working for companies that are perceived cool. Most aren't looking to become entrepreneurs. If software shops lose their charm and gains a reputation for long hours with mediocre pay, people will seek opportunity elsewhere. I saw the same thing happen in the early '00s after the dotcom crash and the outsourcing craze. Startups became a punchline instead of an aspiration and everyone thought most of the world's code would be written in Bangalore. CS enrollment tanked. People lost their appetite for learning programming. But by '05 we were back into a "shortage" again after believing the first-world programmer had gone extinct. But I'm not surprised business and political leaders think STEM workers are overpaid. The general attitude is that exceptional salaries should only be doled out to exceptional individuals - if you're just a mere mortal that's in demand, well, that's clearly just an inefficiency in the market.
short_circut 13y ago
Given the skill level and investment required to get a competitive STEM degree and the amount of profits a STEM person can produce for a company's long term profits I think that they are actually potentially underpaid.
- darcrossito 13y ago
  They should've written an article titled "Are Financial Analysts Overpaid?"
- CmonDev 13y ago
  I would say "severely" instead of "potentially".
mzahir 13y ago
Wages are so skewed towards the top earners - A typical corporate CEO gets paid $7000/hour. Suppressing tech wages isn't going to make a dent in income equality. Tech is already more egalitarian with the offering of shares to employees at most (if not all) levels. http://moneymorning.com/2013/04/19/ceo-pay-now-7000-an-hour-350-times-the-average-workers/ http://moneymorning.com/2013/04/19/ceo-pay-now-7000-an-hour-...
prostoalex 13y ago
One thing that gets overlooked in this debate is the survivor bias. STEM people have a pretty good way to drive down incomes in certain STEM occupations by automating them out of existence. WordPress alone probably killed a good portion of formerly gigantic market of HTML programmer, CMS companies and consulting companies installing and configuring the CMSes. Potential income from building simple HTML Web sites nowadays is roughly zero, so people with those skills don't stay in the industry (and get counted in surveys) - they either upgrade their skills or move into other careers.
freyr 13y ago
It entirely depends on perspective. When I moved from the west coast to the east coast after completing a STEM PhD, my perspective changed completely. My girlfriend worked for a hedge fund, where her co-workers and bosses received bonuses that were multiples of my annual salary. I had a few friends who landed law jobs with lockstep compensation, where, within just a few years, they'd be make more than I could ever hope to make at my research lab. Another friend, an english major from a second-rate college, was hired to manage a team of programmers. She had no STEM skills but great people skills, and was eventually chosen to head up a new west coast division. She's compensated extremely, extremely well. We'd occasionally travel down to DC, where there are many, many people feeding off of government excess who make far more than STEM careers pay. That's what they don't tell you when picking a college career. You'll get paid relatively nicely out of college, sure, but you'd better not expect to make much more than that if you want to be a "STEM worker" no matter how hard you work or how good you are. The glass ceiling is very low compared to many other careers. Not only that, a $100,000 salary was, not very long ago, the key to a comfortable upper middle class life. The cost of living, housing, everything has gone up so fast in proportion to income that it just doesn't feel that way anymore. I cannot provide my family with the material comforts my parents enjoyed and provided me (and neither worked in STEM... or had college degrees!). Yes, there are exceptions at the moment if you're considered a "rockstar programmer". Still, that (and programming in general) represents a tiny slice of the overall STEM pie.
- crash78 13y ago
  Agreed - many of the comments (naturally, given the location) focus on the tech part of the pie. From experience in both science and technology industries, I'd say there's definitely some difference between the two in terms of starting and average salaries, and most certainly in the potential for top salaries.
- georgemcbay 13y ago
  I totally agree and have made similar points here on HN in past threads. It is nice that you can fairly easily make $85k or higher in some regions as an entry level developer, but it sucks that outside of a few exceptions that prove the rule you're unlikely to ever make more than about $150,000 (and I'm talking Bay Area, CA dollars here) without moving into a pure manager role or playing the lottery ticket of starting your own company. Granted, $150,000 is a lot of money relative to the average income globally, even when you factor in cost of living adjustments, but to have bankers(!) and politicians(!) saying it is too much is a fucking slap in the face.
freyr 13y ago
>> Greenspan is not alone in his thinking that STEM worker salaries should look a lot more like non-STEM worker salaries. In March, over “100 executives" [wrote an open letter begging Obama to increase the number of H1-B visas] Perhaps, as STEM workers, we should suggest that executive salaries should look a lot more like non-executive salaries? >> And those [immigrant] workers would compete with high-income people, driving more income equality. Really, Greenspan? You're going to paint STEM workers the posterboys for income inequality? Not your banking brethren making 5X, 10X, 50X the average STEM salary? It's a cheap, transparent ploy by those at the top to increase corporate profits at the expense of the workers and the middle class.
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  From an economist's perspective, STEM workers are still just labour. 'Bankers' represent investment, and their compensation is based mainly on the fact that they take on risk by allocating money... Compensation is based on supply (which itself is based on many factors, including education and demographics), demand (number of businesses in a market, demand for the products created by those businesses), and risk. Assuming no government meddling, an efficient market will properly price workers wages. What Greenspan is suggesting makes sense from a macro perspective, but of course on a personal, human level, isn't ideal for many people.
  - afterburner 13y ago
    Banks, not bankers.
  - dvanduzer 13y ago
    I don't understand why you put 'bankers' in 'quotes' like that. Saying bankers represent investment isn't exactly non-controversial.[0] Perhaps that's exactly what you're saying? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_aftermath_of_the_repeal_of_the_Glass–Steagall_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_aftermath_of_the_repeal_of...
    - chc 13y ago
dsugarman 13y ago
> Likewise, tech companies are definitely not interested in paying higher wages Most tech companies understand that the best engineers are 10x better than the average, but you rarely have to pay them 10x the salary. Most are happy to pay the higher wages if it means they are winning the 10x guys. If the argument is all about the average -> poor engineer, I don't know that I entirely disagree
briancaw2 13y ago
It's cute that the income inequality Alan Greenspan is worried about threatening capitalism is between regular engineers and everyone else, instead of between executives\owners and everyone else. Explains why I see so many documentaries about STEM workers and their lavish 2 bedroom homes they own after 20 years.
EricDeb 13y ago
I'm not sure I agree that STEM workers are overpaid. I mean, I make a bit more than the customer support, PMs, and sales people in our company, but I'd rather do their jobs if the pay was equal.
tankerdude 13y ago
So basically, Greenspan and other companies think that us STEM folks are beneath lawyers, doctors, and most people in the financial industry? That we should be "put in our place"? Anyone who knows anything about the H1B rules knows it's all a bunch of hogwash that there is a "skills gap". The corporations simply want higher profits. It's just simply a known fact. Better profits for the promise of a green card. Let's see the companies prove that there truly is a skills gap. Instead of paying the 'prevailing wage', H1B workers should get the _top_ pay for non H1B engineers in the company + 20% or at that the 90% mark of engineers + 20%, which ever one is greater. Then I say, please open up as many H1Bs as possible. I'll tell you one thing, H1Bs applied for will go towards near zero...
sremani 13y ago
That is how your bosses look at you, IT workers are a cost center - whether you are a programmer or sys-admin or db. The simple fact is the MBA dude hates you.
nohuck13 13y ago
Quick refresher on what the word "shortage" actually means. SHORTAGE: Below market rent-controls. If more people want housing than there are apartments, and the price can't adjust, that's a shortage. SHORTAGE: An oil supply shock as in the 1970s, and gas stations choose to ration fuel rather than profiteering by jacking up prices. More people want gas at that price point than there is gas. That's a shortage. NOT A SHORTAGE: The lack of first-class flights from London to Chicago for $1,000. That ain't a shortage, it's a market-clearing price I don't want to pay. I like the BCG quote: "Trying to hire high-skilled workers at rock-bottom rates is not a skills gap."
- k__ 13y ago
  You're so right. In Germany this is called "Fachkräftemangel", which translates to "Shortage of Specialists". But it can also translate to "Mangle for Specialists".
rybosome 13y ago
I am incapable of discussing this rationally, obviously, but this feels silly. Why do these 100 executives who wrote an open letter to Obama care so much? Obviously they don't want to pay the prices they're paying, but would they be campaigning so hard if the work wasn't important? Ok, so the work is important; they also can't just hire someone off the street, because the skill requirement is high. Sounds like a normal market to me - your demand is high relative to the supply, so the cost rises. Again, being in this field, I'm wildly partial...but I have very little sympathy for an executive who wants to pay below-market rate for business-critical work. Why not cut your own salary if you are so concerned with profitability? OH, that's different; you _deserve_ it.
kenster07 13y ago
I can play this game too: Are bankers, lawyers, and doctors overpaid? Well, it depends on what you want to pay people for -- what if we argued for the value they added to society on average? What about the banking industry during the financial crisis? What about the price of lawyers in California staying stable even though the supply has increased multi-fold in the past few decades? What about the people who design, validate, and erect the buildings in which these guys work? The people who created the private jets in which the questionably wealthy have always flown? The internet through which information became significantly more accessible (aka affordable)? The people who truly enable the good parts of modern life? I know where my vote is going.
Daniel_Newby 13y ago
These STEM salary stories seem empty. They are all price and no value. What is the price elasticity curve for engineers? How much of the salary loss would be offset by increased prosperity from more workers?
alexgolive 13y ago
Over the past few years I have seen starting salaries at top tech companies (Google, Dropbox, Twitter) increase by huge amounts. This may not be true at all companies, but it is definitely true at top companies. I also know that these companies will hire anyone who can pass their interviews. I feel like many times the argument is that preventing high-skilled workers from staying in the US will help US citizens. This assumes that there's a fixed pie of jobs and that basically bringing talent from outside will burden the US economy. I definitely don't think that's true. It also assumes that top tech companies have no option but to hire people in the US. I have many friends who had trouble with getting a visa and instead went to work in Canada for Google. This basically means the US lost one job, plus the taxes and economic stimulus that a high paid worker would bring in.
nnq 13y ago
Of course governments and current social elites from all parts of the world want us overworked and underpaid! "STEM workers" can be the base of the new "over-middle" class - educated, well-off and with good social mobility plus political mobility and geographical mobility (this is fucking dangerous for governments and elites!). You wouldn't want the class underneath you to have "well rested minds" and time to think about the world and their proper place in it (at the very top that is, because same as in old military societies warriors were the "natural rulers", in the new info-tech society techies will be the new "natural rulers"). Let's overwork them and stress them with unemployment so they don't get any funny ideas in their heads... Though to be honest, all this sounds good for us STEM workers outside US in lots of indirect ways... I'll bet US will have a nice civil war / revolution soon, and more immigrants moving in any directions will only mean that the enlightening ideas from such a conflict will be easily exported worldwide.
eli_gottlieb 13y ago
Oy gevalt. Either there is a shortage, in which case STEM workers' salaries need to go up to attract more people into the field, or STEM workers are overpaid, which can happen if and only if there is an oversupply. It can't work both ways. You can't have a shortage of overpaid, useless employees. Unless, of course, you're a capitalist begging the government to let you manipulate the labor market to deliberately suppress wages below the natural market-clearing level set by supply and demand. Capital, capital uber alles! Fuck the markets and fuck the workers! /s
rusabd 13y ago
I cannot believe you guys even discuss this. We are grossly underpaid. Mainly because we are (en masse) not able to negotiate the compensation. That would be a problem if we were able to organise, so someone else would do that for us. Look around, everything is driven by computers now. EVERTHING. Even bloody banks. And we are still not sure are we underpaid or not. En masse IT person is shy, ready to accept lower pay, and easy to accept more hours.

52 points by 31reasons 13y ago

A withering brilliance shows through this casually abusive headline. I feel like this is a few steps away from some sort of revolutionary political speech. Did Greenspan really say that shit while representing the country I'm supposed to love?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kbenson 13y ago

> Significantly opening up immigration to skilled workers solves two problems. The companies could hire the educated workers they need. And those workers would compete with high-income people, driving more income equality. TL;DR Income equality is being redefined as cost cutting through wage suppression. W. T. F. If you want to define income inequality as the "problem" of different skills demanding different wage premiums based on demand, then sure... If you want to define it, as it has been in almost every report I've seen on the matter, as the widening gap between the rich and everyone else, then that doesn't help at all, it just exacerbates the problem. STEM work is still a quick, mostly egalitarian way to allow movement from the lower to middle classes. Defining middle to upper-middle class as high-income earners might technically be accurate, especially with a shrinking middle class, but then making decisions based on them being "high-income" when it's so relatively different than it was in the past seems the exact wrong way to go about things.

sliverstorm 13y ago
It's like that short story, Harrison Bergeron, where everyone has the mental inhibitors. It's much easier to drag everyone down to the same level, than lift them up to the same level.
jmspring 13y ago
We need downward pressure on wages so that the executives can make more money and the corporations can profit. Clearly borders should be open to throw away any avenues to prosperity that still exist in this country still. A mix of corporate and union greed f'd up previous iterations of the middle class, clearly we should follow the same path in all cases to the benefit of the 1%. Yeah, that works. I believe in the global economy, but I also believe that local markets have their demands and wages should be commensurate. If I were to live in San Francisco working as a full stack developer, I should expect one wage. If I was in Berlin, Stockholm, Singapore, etc. I would expect something commensurate that maintained the similar lifestyle in the community I work. There are cultural/societal tradeoffs, but personally, I am pretty tired of the "US IT wages are too high, let's open the borders" argument. The opposite side of that argument -- corporate america promised X, but failed to deliver for aged populations, oh well...just moves along doing it's thing. Between my age and that of my parents, there was a shift of "spend your life working for a company, you would get training to your potential, and your efforts would be reciprocated"; to today it is "fend for yourself, the contract you enter in is at will on both sides with no guarantees" with the caveat of "hopefully we are both striving for the same thing for an acceptable duration".
- wildgift 13y ago
  How can you compare corporate greed to union greed? The best paid union workers were autoworkers and longshore workers, and the companies they worked for were still huge and profitable. So as "greedy" as these well paid workers were (and I mean "were," because autoworkers make a lot less today) they weren't greedy enough to destroy the company. If it weren't for this so-called "greed" there wouldn't have been a middle class at all. And now that unions are shrinking to almost irrelevance, the middle class is vanishing. The old attitude of companies holding onto workers was created by unions making demands. Now that unions are few, and in many sectors, were never present, the "fend for yourself" at-will contract is the standard. The unions made those "good old days". The labor strife of the 20s and 30s set the conditions for the middle class of the 50s and 60s.
  - jmspring 13y ago

bayesianhorse 13y ago

No.

carsongross 13y ago

Comrades: Either get lean, or seize the means of production. Which, mirabile dictu, is yourself.

frozenport 13y ago

Gut Reaction: Do non-STEM workers do anything useful?

potatolicious 13y ago
You have got to be joking.
opendais 13y ago
I hope that was sarcasm. ;) 'cause they do.
- CmonDev 13y ago
  That morning coffee ain't gonna make itself.
- nickthemagicman 13y ago
  Hahaha keep telling yourself that.
WesternStar 13y ago
A better question might be.Can we automate away the jobs of sales people, middle management and strategic directors? Yes, I believe we can.
- kbenson 13y ago
  The real question; Can we automate the job of corporate officer? The cost savings would be enormous...
  - WesternStar 13y ago
    Thats is a really hard problem. How do we define priorities and goals? There is certainly an argument for a company where the only goal is to make money and there is no overriding authority between divisions but there is so much sociopathic behavior in companies already.

opendais 13y ago

They really should have picked a different title and hinted at the conclusion which was STEM workers are suffering the same wage stagnation as everyone else and the only companies with hiring problems want STEM workers on the cheap. :/

bdcravens 13y ago

Alan Greenspan made approximately $180,000/year as Chairman of the Fed. Perhaps Presidential-appointee salaries could be made equal to non-Presidential-appointees by opening up those positions to foreigners.

dvanduzer 13y ago

I would gladly take a pay cut if we also raised the minimum wage to $30 an hour, got rid of most welfare programs and replaced them with a $10k/year minimum income, and simplified to a flat tax rate (I think Dick Armey liked 17%).

pixie_ 13y ago
I would take a pay cut to work only 35 hours a week.
- khyryk 13y ago
  How much do you currently work?
  - pixie_ 13y ago
    9 to 6. I'd rather work 9 to 4 and enjoy the evening a bit more.
    - wildgift 13y ago
      Can you go on strike with your coworkers?
jcnnghm 13y ago
Given that the mean wage was only $43,460 in 2009, in order to raise minimum wage to $60,000 per year, your pay cut would be to minimum wage. The government would have to confiscate all income, supplement it with printed money, then redistribute it evenly across the population. In that kind of scenario, why would anybody do anything but the absolute minimum? Isn't that largely why the Soviet Union wasn't competitive? If there was no economic incentive for hard work, I'd wager many of the presently most productive people would optimize for work minimization.
- dvanduzer 13y ago
  That's assuming a lot of things about the present level of productivity of everyone working. Also, your number sounds like "household income" and I'm making my assumptions based on GDP per capita[0]. Generally though, yes, I'd assume most people would end up working ~20 hours a week. I'd assume most employers would prefer this, and would also optimize the use of their employees' time. I think your understanding of Soviet economic policy is probably a bit naive, but for a high level overview of my philosophy, I'd recommend Russell's In Praise of Idleness[1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... [1] http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

spamizbad 13y ago

If there's downward pressure on salaries in Software development, you're going to see two things that will counter-act this long-term: 1) An exodus of developers. Devs will be likely be leaving either as the result of fat getting trimmed or by transitioning into management and analysis roles that offer better career prospects. 2) Less "young blood". A big reason why everyone is pumped these days to learn to code is due to the career opportunities it provides: the great salary, the job perks, and working for companies that are perceived cool. Most aren't looking to become entrepreneurs. If software shops lose their charm and gains a reputation for long hours with mediocre pay, people will seek opportunity elsewhere. I saw the same thing happen in the early '00s after the dotcom crash and the outsourcing craze. Startups became a punchline instead of an aspiration and everyone thought most of the world's code would be written in Bangalore. CS enrollment tanked. People lost their appetite for learning programming. But by '05 we were back into a "shortage" again after believing the first-world programmer had gone extinct. But I'm not surprised business and political leaders think STEM workers are overpaid. The general attitude is that exceptional salaries should only be doled out to exceptional individuals - if you're just a mere mortal that's in demand, well, that's clearly just an inefficiency in the market.

short_circut 13y ago

Given the skill level and investment required to get a competitive STEM degree and the amount of profits a STEM person can produce for a company's long term profits I think that they are actually potentially underpaid.

darcrossito 13y ago
They should've written an article titled "Are Financial Analysts Overpaid?"
CmonDev 13y ago
I would say "severely" instead of "potentially".

mzahir 13y ago

Wages are so skewed towards the top earners - A typical corporate CEO gets paid $7000/hour. Suppressing tech wages isn't going to make a dent in income equality. Tech is already more egalitarian with the offering of shares to employees at most (if not all) levels. http://moneymorning.com/2013/04/19/ceo-pay-now-7000-an-hour-350-times-the-average-workers/ http://moneymorning.com/2013/04/19/ceo-pay-now-7000-an-hour-...

prostoalex 13y ago

One thing that gets overlooked in this debate is the survivor bias. STEM people have a pretty good way to drive down incomes in certain STEM occupations by automating them out of existence. WordPress alone probably killed a good portion of formerly gigantic market of HTML programmer, CMS companies and consulting companies installing and configuring the CMSes. Potential income from building simple HTML Web sites nowadays is roughly zero, so people with those skills don't stay in the industry (and get counted in surveys) - they either upgrade their skills or move into other careers.

freyr 13y ago

It entirely depends on perspective. When I moved from the west coast to the east coast after completing a STEM PhD, my perspective changed completely. My girlfriend worked for a hedge fund, where her co-workers and bosses received bonuses that were multiples of my annual salary. I had a few friends who landed law jobs with lockstep compensation, where, within just a few years, they'd be make more than I could ever hope to make at my research lab. Another friend, an english major from a second-rate college, was hired to manage a team of programmers. She had no STEM skills but great people skills, and was eventually chosen to head up a new west coast division. She's compensated extremely, extremely well. We'd occasionally travel down to DC, where there are many, many people feeding off of government excess who make far more than STEM careers pay. That's what they don't tell you when picking a college career. You'll get paid relatively nicely out of college, sure, but you'd better not expect to make much more than that if you want to be a "STEM worker" no matter how hard you work or how good you are. The glass ceiling is very low compared to many other careers. Not only that, a $100,000 salary was, not very long ago, the key to a comfortable upper middle class life. The cost of living, housing, everything has gone up so fast in proportion to income that it just doesn't feel that way anymore. I cannot provide my family with the material comforts my parents enjoyed and provided me (and neither worked in STEM... or had college degrees!). Yes, there are exceptions at the moment if you're considered a "rockstar programmer". Still, that (and programming in general) represents a tiny slice of the overall STEM pie.

crash78 13y ago
Agreed - many of the comments (naturally, given the location) focus on the tech part of the pie. From experience in both science and technology industries, I'd say there's definitely some difference between the two in terms of starting and average salaries, and most certainly in the potential for top salaries.
georgemcbay 13y ago
I totally agree and have made similar points here on HN in past threads. It is nice that you can fairly easily make $85k or higher in some regions as an entry level developer, but it sucks that outside of a few exceptions that prove the rule you're unlikely to ever make more than about $150,000 (and I'm talking Bay Area, CA dollars here) without moving into a pure manager role or playing the lottery ticket of starting your own company. Granted, $150,000 is a lot of money relative to the average income globally, even when you factor in cost of living adjustments, but to have bankers(!) and politicians(!) saying it is too much is a fucking slap in the face.

freyr 13y ago

>> Greenspan is not alone in his thinking that STEM worker salaries should look a lot more like non-STEM worker salaries. In March, over “100 executives" [wrote an open letter begging Obama to increase the number of H1-B visas] Perhaps, as STEM workers, we should suggest that executive salaries should look a lot more like non-executive salaries? >> And those [immigrant] workers would compete with high-income people, driving more income equality. Really, Greenspan? You're going to paint STEM workers the posterboys for income inequality? Not your banking brethren making 5X, 10X, 50X the average STEM salary? It's a cheap, transparent ploy by those at the top to increase corporate profits at the expense of the workers and the middle class.

Mikeb85 13y ago
From an economist's perspective, STEM workers are still just labour. 'Bankers' represent investment, and their compensation is based mainly on the fact that they take on risk by allocating money... Compensation is based on supply (which itself is based on many factors, including education and demographics), demand (number of businesses in a market, demand for the products created by those businesses), and risk. Assuming no government meddling, an efficient market will properly price workers wages. What Greenspan is suggesting makes sense from a macro perspective, but of course on a personal, human level, isn't ideal for many people.
- afterburner 13y ago
  Banks, not bankers.
- dvanduzer 13y ago
  I don't understand why you put 'bankers' in 'quotes' like that. Saying bankers represent investment isn't exactly non-controversial.[0] Perhaps that's exactly what you're saying? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_aftermath_of_the_repeal_of_the_Glass–Steagall_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_aftermath_of_the_repeal_of...
  - chc 13y ago

dsugarman 13y ago

> Likewise, tech companies are definitely not interested in paying higher wages Most tech companies understand that the best engineers are 10x better than the average, but you rarely have to pay them 10x the salary. Most are happy to pay the higher wages if it means they are winning the 10x guys. If the argument is all about the average -> poor engineer, I don't know that I entirely disagree

briancaw2 13y ago

It's cute that the income inequality Alan Greenspan is worried about threatening capitalism is between regular engineers and everyone else, instead of between executives\owners and everyone else. Explains why I see so many documentaries about STEM workers and their lavish 2 bedroom homes they own after 20 years.

EricDeb 13y ago

I'm not sure I agree that STEM workers are overpaid. I mean, I make a bit more than the customer support, PMs, and sales people in our company, but I'd rather do their jobs if the pay was equal.

tankerdude 13y ago

So basically, Greenspan and other companies think that us STEM folks are beneath lawyers, doctors, and most people in the financial industry? That we should be "put in our place"? Anyone who knows anything about the H1B rules knows it's all a bunch of hogwash that there is a "skills gap". The corporations simply want higher profits. It's just simply a known fact. Better profits for the promise of a green card. Let's see the companies prove that there truly is a skills gap. Instead of paying the 'prevailing wage', H1B workers should get the _top_ pay for non H1B engineers in the company + 20% or at that the 90% mark of engineers + 20%, which ever one is greater. Then I say, please open up as many H1Bs as possible. I'll tell you one thing, H1Bs applied for will go towards near zero...

sremani 13y ago

That is how your bosses look at you, IT workers are a cost center - whether you are a programmer or sys-admin or db. The simple fact is the MBA dude hates you.

nohuck13 13y ago

Quick refresher on what the word "shortage" actually means. SHORTAGE: Below market rent-controls. If more people want housing than there are apartments, and the price can't adjust, that's a shortage. SHORTAGE: An oil supply shock as in the 1970s, and gas stations choose to ration fuel rather than profiteering by jacking up prices. More people want gas at that price point than there is gas. That's a shortage. NOT A SHORTAGE: The lack of first-class flights from London to Chicago for $1,000. That ain't a shortage, it's a market-clearing price I don't want to pay. I like the BCG quote: "Trying to hire high-skilled workers at rock-bottom rates is not a skills gap."

k__ 13y ago
You're so right. In Germany this is called "Fachkräftemangel", which translates to "Shortage of Specialists". But it can also translate to "Mangle for Specialists".

rybosome 13y ago

I am incapable of discussing this rationally, obviously, but this feels silly. Why do these 100 executives who wrote an open letter to Obama care so much? Obviously they don't want to pay the prices they're paying, but would they be campaigning so hard if the work wasn't important? Ok, so the work is important; they also can't just hire someone off the street, because the skill requirement is high. Sounds like a normal market to me - your demand is high relative to the supply, so the cost rises. Again, being in this field, I'm wildly partial...but I have very little sympathy for an executive who wants to pay below-market rate for business-critical work. Why not cut your own salary if you are so concerned with profitability? OH, that's different; you _deserve_ it.

kenster07 13y ago

I can play this game too: Are bankers, lawyers, and doctors overpaid? Well, it depends on what you want to pay people for -- what if we argued for the value they added to society on average? What about the banking industry during the financial crisis? What about the price of lawyers in California staying stable even though the supply has increased multi-fold in the past few decades? What about the people who design, validate, and erect the buildings in which these guys work? The people who created the private jets in which the questionably wealthy have always flown? The internet through which information became significantly more accessible (aka affordable)? The people who truly enable the good parts of modern life? I know where my vote is going.

Daniel_Newby 13y ago

These STEM salary stories seem empty. They are all price and no value. What is the price elasticity curve for engineers? How much of the salary loss would be offset by increased prosperity from more workers?

alexgolive 13y ago

Over the past few years I have seen starting salaries at top tech companies (Google, Dropbox, Twitter) increase by huge amounts. This may not be true at all companies, but it is definitely true at top companies. I also know that these companies will hire anyone who can pass their interviews. I feel like many times the argument is that preventing high-skilled workers from staying in the US will help US citizens. This assumes that there's a fixed pie of jobs and that basically bringing talent from outside will burden the US economy. I definitely don't think that's true. It also assumes that top tech companies have no option but to hire people in the US. I have many friends who had trouble with getting a visa and instead went to work in Canada for Google. This basically means the US lost one job, plus the taxes and economic stimulus that a high paid worker would bring in.

nnq 13y ago

Of course governments and current social elites from all parts of the world want us overworked and underpaid! "STEM workers" can be the base of the new "over-middle" class - educated, well-off and with good social mobility plus political mobility and geographical mobility (this is fucking dangerous for governments and elites!). You wouldn't want the class underneath you to have "well rested minds" and time to think about the world and their proper place in it (at the very top that is, because same as in old military societies warriors were the "natural rulers", in the new info-tech society techies will be the new "natural rulers"). Let's overwork them and stress them with unemployment so they don't get any funny ideas in their heads... Though to be honest, all this sounds good for us STEM workers outside US in lots of indirect ways... I'll bet US will have a nice civil war / revolution soon, and more immigrants moving in any directions will only mean that the enlightening ideas from such a conflict will be easily exported worldwide.

eli_gottlieb 13y ago

Oy gevalt. Either there is a shortage, in which case STEM workers' salaries need to go up to attract more people into the field, or STEM workers are overpaid, which can happen if and only if there is an oversupply. It can't work both ways. You can't have a shortage of overpaid, useless employees. Unless, of course, you're a capitalist begging the government to let you manipulate the labor market to deliberately suppress wages below the natural market-clearing level set by supply and demand. Capital, capital uber alles! Fuck the markets and fuck the workers! /s

rusabd 13y ago

I cannot believe you guys even discuss this. We are grossly underpaid. Mainly because we are (en masse) not able to negotiate the compensation. That would be a problem if we were able to organise, so someone else would do that for us. Look around, everything is driven by computers now. EVERTHING. Even bloody banks. And we are still not sure are we underpaid or not. En masse IT person is shy, ready to accept lower pay, and easy to accept more hours.