Worldwide Salaries Comparison

[FIREdreamer]

Have any of you come accross this site before?

International Average Salary Income Comparison

It lists the average salary income by profession and by country and uses Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) calculations to make the numbers comparable from one country to the next.

For example, in a US a general physician makes on average $8189 net a month. In the UK, that number goes down to $4874, in Italy $3160 and in Portugal $ 1973. Remember those numbers are normalized so that they should be directly comparable.

For a postman, the average net monthly income is $2638 in the US, $1701 in the UK, $1331 in Italy and $868 in Portugal...

[dmpi]

I'm supprised that the USA Teacher makes so much. And don't they get the whole summer off?

[summer2007]

Where I'm at in Pennsylvania we had an article in our local paper that one of the nearby high schools the teachers made 100k per year.

And yes they get the summer off and yes our taxes are through the roof!

Jim

[mickj]

Seems like it would be more useful if it had salaries after taxes were paid.

[FIREdreamer]

Originally Posted by mickj

Seems like it would be more useful if it had salaries after taxes were paid.

The first column lists NET (after tax and compulsory deductions like SS) monthly incomes.

[lets-retire]

Originally Posted by dmpi

I'm supprised that the USA Teacher makes so much. And don't they get the whole summer off?

It looks like they figured the teachers salaries based on not haveing to work during the summer. The list shows the teachers working less than 40 hours per week. Their pay isn't all that bad for a part time job.

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by lets-retire

It looks like they figured the teachers salaries based on not haveing to work during the summer. The list shows the teachers working less than 40 hours per week. Their pay isn't all that bad for a part time job.

Where's newguy88 to set us all "straight"??

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by summer2007

Where I'm at in Pennsylvania we had an article in our local paper that one of the nearby high schools the teachers made 100k per year.

And yes they get the summer off and yes our taxes are through the roof!

Jim

At our local tech college, the average instructor makes $117,000. So the guy teaching shop class is paid more than the 30 year professor at UW Madison with a PHD and 100 research articles.........

[dmpi]

I've noticed in Japan the teacher makes more than the Engineer. Of course they all women, all hot, and all get attacked by horny students.....

[barbarus]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

At our local tech college, the average instructor makes $117,000. So the guy teaching shop class is paid more than the 30 year professor at UW Madison with a PHD and 100 research articles.........

Guess that shows who is really smarter!

[Want2retire]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

At our local tech college, the average instructor makes $117,000. So the guy teaching shop class is paid more than the 30 year professor at UW Madison with a PHD and 100 research articles.........

Pay (including benefits) is the main reason why I left the LSU faculty for a more boring but secure government job. The salaries paid to university professors are abysmal, and in fact shameful, when the years of preparation and the hours necessary to meet "publish or perish" requirements are considered.

My second job, back in the 1960's, was working at a bookstore. I found out that "glamor jobs" (such as a bookstore job in a university town) tended to pay less than other jobs with similar requirements. The same is true for professorships. They have a certain glamor to young graduate students, who would like the opportunity for research and intellectual discourse. But many universities do not pay very well.

[Hamlet]

I suspect the tech college guy may actually produce more value than some of the professors that I had.

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

At our local tech college, the average instructor makes $117,000. So the guy teaching shop class is paid more than the 30 year professor at UW Madison with a PHD and 100 research articles.........

[Marquette]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

At our local tech college, the average instructor makes $117,000. So the guy teaching shop class is paid more than the 30 year professor at UW Madison with a PHD and 100 research articles.........

The Professor and the Plumbers

A professor of mathematics noticed that his kitchen sink at his home leaked. He called a plumber. The plumber came the next day and sealed a few screws, and everything was working as before. The professor was delighted. However, when the plumber gave him the bill a minute later, he was shocked. “This is one-third of my monthly salary!” he yelled.

Well, all the same he paid it and then the plumber said to him, “I understand your position as a professor. Why don’t you come to our company and apply for a plumber position? You will earn three times as much as a professor. But remember, when you apply, tell them that you completed only seven elementary classes. They don’t like educated people.”

So it happened. The professor got a job as a plumber and his life significantly improved. He just had to seal a screw or two occasionally, and his salary went up significantly.

One day, the board of the plumbing company decided that every plumber had to go to evening classes to complete the eighth grade. So, our professor had to go there too. It just happened that the first class was math. The evening teacher, to check students’ knowledge, asked for a formula for the area of a circle. The person asked was the professor. He jumped to the board, and then he realized that he had forgotten the formula. He started to reason it, and he filled the white board with integrals, differentials, and other advanced formulas to conclude the result he forgot. As a result, he got “minus pi times r square.”

He didn’t like the minus, so he started all over again. He got the minus again. No matter how many times he tried, he always got a minus. He was frustrated. He gave the class a frightened look and saw all the plumbers whisper: “Switch the limits of the integral!!”

[Spanky]

Originally Posted by dmpi

I'm supprised that the USA Teacher makes so much. And don't they get the whole summer off?

They receive the pay as engineers do - wow. They also have very attractive pensions and retirement health benefit.

[Independent]

Originally Posted by Want2retire

Pay (including benefits) is the main reason why I left the LSU faculty for a more boring but secure government job. The salaries paid to university professors are abysmal, and in fact shameful, when the years of preparation and the hours necessary to meet "publish or perish" requirements are considered.

My second job, back in the 1960's, was working at a bookstore. I found out that "glamor jobs" (such as a bookstore job in a university town) tended to pay less than other jobs with similar requirements. The same is true for professorships. They have a certain glamor to young graduate students, who would like the opportunity for research and intellectual discourse. But many universities do not pay very well.

Yep, the total compensation for any job includes both financial and non-financial rewards. "Just plain more interesting" is one of the non-financial rewards to some people. I wish I had explained this more clearly to my kids.

Given that, I don't find professors pay either "abysmal" or "shameful". If there are more people who find research or college-level teaching non-financially rewarding than there are jobs, then wages will be lower than what the same people could earn elswhere.

I'd call that result "fair".

[Marquette]

Originally Posted by Independent

Yep, the total compensation for any job includes both financial and non-financial rewards. "Just plain more interesting" is one of the non-financial rewards to some people. I wish I had explained this more clearly to my kids.

that's got me wondering... I wonder if the fashion photographers who work for Playboy make less than the product photographers who work for Philip Morris.

[Independent]

Originally Posted by Spanky

They receive the pay as engineers do - wow. They also have very attractive pensions and retirement health benefit.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has a different set of numbers.
They have civil engineers (for example) at $72,120 and elementary school teachers at $48,700. Those numbers are before tax.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#b21-0000

[Want2retire]

Originally Posted by Independent

If there are more people who find research or college-level teaching non-financially rewarding than there are jobs, then wages will be lower than what the same people could earn elswhere.

I'd call that result "fair".

Absolutely, let the free market prevail - - unless you happen to want your faculty to be the cream of the crop, in which case many fitting that description will (and do) head elsewhere.

Perhaps you end up with the same dilemma facing the public when trying to figure out what to pay politicians. If the pay is too low, the wealthy or those with other income sources may be more inclined to stay, than the person who is not wealthy but could be the best representative of his constituency. But then is there much difference between them? Maybe not.

[barbarus]

Depending on their field, many professors can find no other w*rk than teaching. It's a very hard pursuit to break in to. Most will never find a permanent full-time position.

Salaries are a particular interest of mine and I have yet to find a decent blog that covers the topic. I have to gather data in bits and pieces. Most employment figures are bovine feces. They are generated by government hacks to supply a demand that is none to critical. BoL statistcs have all the validity of a fairy tail and none of the charm.

Better to actually obtain the documentation on public salaries directly. Since this type of w*rk is funded by taxes, it should be available to ordinary citizens.

Most of the salary levels quoted by politicians or journalists have no basis in reality and are no more than self-serving drivel.