Labor Union Representation Levels by State

The BLS has data on Union affiliation of employed wage and salary workers by state

I pulled out the 2012 data on the % of employees who are represented by labor unions for each state.   Note I'm discussing the % of workers who are represented by unions and the % of people who are actually members of unions differs some.

Here's a graphic representation showing the varying levels of Labor Union representation by state:

I sorted the states into groups with :   under 5%, 5% to 10%, 10% to 15%, 15% to 20% and over 20%.   The light green states are low union states and the dark green/black states are >20%.

The five states with the highest labor union representation were :

New York	24.9%
Alaska	23.9%
Hawaii	23.2%
Washington	19.5%
California	18.4%

And the five states with the lowest union rates were :

Arkansas	3.7%
North Carolina	4.3%
South Carolina	4.6%
Georgia	5.4%
Virginia	5.5%

I'm not particularly surprised by any of these with maybe the exception of Alaska being so high.  I would guess that the higher union rate in Alaska is at least partially due to relatively high number of government jobs there.   For more specifics on Union membership and representation see the BLS news report.

--

Who Gets Bonuses at Work?

I get a profit sharing style bonus at work as well as another bonus based on hitting our company's internal performance goals. You often hear of people getting bonuses at work but most employees do not get any form of bonus.   The BLS has data on nonproduction bonuses   The information is current as of earlier this year.

Forty percent of workers get bonuses of some sort.  Heres how the portion of workers getting bonuses breaks down for various kinds of bonuses:

All nonproduction bonuses	40%
Cash profit-sharing bonus	5%
Employee recognition bonus	4%
End-of-year bonus	9%
Holiday bonus	7%
Payment in lieu of benefits bonus	6%
Longevity bonus	4%
Referral bonus	5%
Other bonus	11%

The sum of the categories adds to more than 40% as some employees get multiple types of bonuses.

Management is most likely to get a bonus and 45% of managers do and only 25% of teachers on the only hand get bonuses.

46% of Full time employees get bonuses while only 23% of part time employees do. 

Only 37% of union employees get bonuses while 40% of non-union employees do.  I suspect that is do to the way the unions and the employers negotiate labor contracts.

Lower income individuals are less likely to get bonuses than people making more money :

Lowest 10% earners	22%
Lowest 25% earners	27%
Second 25 percent	40%
Third 25% earners	46%
Highest 25%	49%
Top 10%	52%

Do you get a bonus?  What type?

 --

Machinists Do Not Make $100,000

 I just read another misleading article about high paying jobs that don't actually exist.   The piece in question is titled A $100,000 Factory Job. What's Uncool About That? from CNN Money via Yahoo.   As you can see right in the title of the article they are talking about $100,000 factory jobs.   But the problem with the article is that they don't point to any single such job making $100,000 or substantiate that $100,000 figure in any way whatsoever.

People do not make $100,000 in factory jobs

The article says :

"An aspiring machinist -- a popular factory job -- can start training at 18 and then do a one- or two-year manufacturing apprenticeship. In five years, he or she could be making more than $50,000. In 10 years, that could double to $100,000."

Sounds great.   But where is this $100,000 paying job?

Then just after that bit the article then say :

"Sedlak's [a company owner in Baltimore] top worker makes $30 an hour. And annual pay at his company ranges between $70,000 and $80,000 with overtime. In 31 years, only three workers have retired from his factory."

I don't understand how they quote a guy saying his "top" worker makes $30 an hour or between $70,000 and $80,000 with overtime and then talk about people making $100,000.    $30 an hour is not $100,000 a year unless you're working like 60 hours a week making overtime pay.    But they say that pay at the company ranges between $70,000 and $80,000 with overtime.   I don't see anything about $100,000 at all.
 
 Lets look at some real numbers.    The BLS has wage figures for machinists.

Employment estimate and mean wage estimates for this occupation:

Employment (1)	Employment RSE (3)	Mean hourly wage	Mean annual wage (2)	Wage RSE (3)
368,510	1.0 %	$19.48	$40,520	0.3 %

Percentile wage estimates for this occupation:

Percentile	10%	25%	50% (Median)	75%	90%
Hourly Wage	$11.73	$14.99	$18.86	$23.17	$28.49
Annual Wage (2)	$24,390	$31,180	$39,220	$48,190	$59,260

From that we can see that 90% of machinists make under $60,000.   I see no evidence of anyone making $100,000 a year.  Not even close in fact. 

Furthermore the outlook for the occupation in general isn't great.    The BLS forecasts that jobs for machinists and die makers will grow 7% in the 10 year period from 2010 to 2020 which is 'slower than average'.

Now its not as if I'm saying these aren't good jobs.   Making $40-$60k a year without college is pretty good wage.   But the pay is not $100,000 like the article claims.   Theres a giant difference between claiming people make $100,000 and actually seeing wages up to $60,000 or $80,000 levels at the top.   I mean would you like it if you were promised a $100,000 wage but actually ended up making $60,000?  I think not.

I don't know why news articles do this kind of thing, but I would challenge them to substantiate what percentage of machinists make  $100,000 a year or more.   I would hazard a guess that if any machinists make that much its a very small handful.    Now of course theres always exception to the rules and with over 300,000 machinists in the nation I'm willing to bet that you could probably find me one or two who did make over $100,000.    But if 90% of people make under $60,000 then its not realistic to act as if $100,000 wages are somehow common or normal.


Why don't people want manufacturing jobs?

The article also discusses the topic of 'why' people don't want to work in manufacturing.   They talk about a negative media image of manufacturing jobs.    They quote someone saying that 'public school' tells you that you have to got to college to succeed.  In my humble opinion those are stupid reasons and far from the real reason.    

The primary reason people don't want to work manufacturing jobs is that the American manufacturing industry has been dying a slow and painful death for decades.

Here is the reason people don't want to work in manufacturing :

Or better yet consider THIS reason :

The data in those two charts is from the BLS.

As you can see from the charts, the number of manufacturing jobs and the % of people working in manufacturing has been going down steadily in the past 30 years.  

You can't look at those charts and then tell me the reason people don'  'want to work in manufacturing is due to 'negative media portrayal'.    The fact is that manufacturing jobs have been cut steadily and people generally know better than to try and jump into a dying industry.    Everybody 'knows' that manufacturing jobs are being shipped overseas to countries like China with cheap labor.  

Bottom Line :   There are not $100,000 paying jobs in manufacturing.   People generally don't look to join the manufacturing industry since the industry is shrinking.


[edit note : The article in question was talking about machinists specifically and used the general term 'factory jobs' then I expanded that to 'manufacturing jobs'.   There are of course people in the manufacturing industry who make higher wages such as management and professionals like engineers.  But the context of the article is 'factory jobs' and specifically machinists and those are the kind of jobs I was referring to. ]

--

Lawyers Per Capita per City

When I've been to Las Vegas it has always seemed that there is a lot of advertisement there for lawyers so I've gotten the impression that the city must have a lot of lawyers.   Actually it turns out that the # of lawyers per capita in Las Vegas is actually below average for large metropolitan areas.    There are 3500 lawyers in LV and the population for the metro area is about 1.9 million.  Thats about 1.8 lawyers per 1000 people.  

DO you see a lot of TV ads or billboard ads for lawyers in your city?  Does it seem that there are a lot of lawyers around?    Whether or not you think there are a lot of lawyers around may or may not be the reality.   So what cities have more and fewer lawyers?  

Its fairly easy to get a number for lawyers per capita.   We just have to find the number of lawyers per city and divide by the population.   I pulled the list of 25 largest metropolitan areas and their populations for 2011 off of Wikipedia and I got the number of lawyers per city from the May 2011 metropolitan area occupational employment and wage data from the BLS site.  To make the numbers easier to digest I figured the number of lawyers per 1000 people.

Note : I do not think this data really MEANS anything.   I'm not trying to imply anything or show anything or prove anything.  Its just data.   This information is probably only useful to resolve bar room bets.

Here is the table :

	M popn	lawyers	per 1000
New York	19.02	69040	3.6
Los Angeles	12.94	29160	2.3
Chicago	9.50	25790	2.7
Dallas	6.53	11130	1.7
Houston	6.09	9960	1.6
Philadelphia	5.99	16890	2.8
D.C.	5.70	41050	7.2
Miami	5.67	17630	3.1
Atlanta	5.36	11830	2.2
Boston	4.59	14670	3.2
San Francisco	4.39	13850	3.2
Riverside	4.30	2360	0.5
Detroit	4.29	8750	2.0
Phoenix	4.26	7230	1.7
Seattle	3.50	7810	2.2
Minneapolis	3.32	8440	2.5
San Diego	3.14	5750	1.8
Tampa	2.82	7430	2.6
St. Louis	2.82	5570	2.0
Baltimore	2.73	6770	2.5
Denver	2.60	8350	3.2
Pittsburgh	2.36	5150	2.2
Portland	2.26	3480	1.5
San Antonio	2.19	2880	1.3
Sacramento	2.18	4980	2.3

The figure on the right is the number of lawyers per 1000 people. 

For the 25 largest cities, the median is 2.3, the average is 2.5, the high is 7.2 and the low is 0.5.

Not surprisingly the city with the most lawyers per capita is Washington D.C.    There are a lot of legal fields represented in Washington.  Most of the lobbyists and government law makers are lawyers.   After D.C. the highest grouping is in New York.  

The lowest concentration is 0.5 in Riverside.   However that is a misleading number.  Riverside is about 50 miles East of Los Angeles and is effectively a suburb of L.A.   I don't know if Riverside area is a suburb exactly but my understanding is that a lot of people live in the Riverside area and commute into L.A.

Does this mean there are too many lawyers in some areas?    No I wouldn't conclude that.  I don't have any reason to think that New York has 'too many' lawyers and that San Antonio has too few.   I would assume the number of lawyers is generally based on the demand in each city.

Other than the fairly obvious for why D.C. has a lot of lawyers, I don't know why individual cities or states would have more or fewer lawyers.   I would guess that it has to do with the system of laws in each state more than anything.   Despite what we see on TV, I don't think most lawyers run around chasing ambulances or filing multi million dollar frivolous lawsuits.   I would imagine that most lawyers are engaged in mundane things like real estate law, reviewing business contracts, handling estates and probate and stuff like that.

So what does all this mean?  Nothing much as far as I'm concerned.  I suppose if you're working on a law degree that you might consider this kind of data to determine where the jobs are. 

- -

How Many Employers Require Formal Attire

I work in the high tech industry where 'business casual' is standard and 'anything goes' is often accepted.   Generally high tech companies have pretty minimal dress standards.   My wife used to work in a finance job where more formal business dress is pretty much the standard.   Most of my family worked in construction and their dress code was more about safety features like steel toe boots.

It is my experience and opinion that formal business attire is usually not a common requirement at most jobs.   The only places I see people wearing suits are banks and maybe a car lot.   I'm sure there are other jobs where people wear suits but they seem pretty few.    This may vary some geographically as well since I'm sure that some cities are more likely to favor formal attire and some places are more casual in general.

As is my wont, I went to find some real data on the topic.   I couldn't find a lot of information saying how common formal versus casual attire really is in work places.  I did find a couple reports.  




This article from the Business Research Lab has results showing that only 9% of workers in their survey have a formal attire dress code at work.   Their data was from 2003 so its a bit old now, but I don't think things would have changed radically in the past 10 years.

% of employers with different dress codes

Typical business attire = 9%
Business casual = 50%
Very casual = 41%

They say that 'very casual' includes jeans and t-shirts.    I assume that 'typical business attire' means suits and such.  These numbers match my expectations. 

Salary.com also had a survey about dress codes and they report that 40% of employees didn't have dress codes at work.   I don't see a date on that article though so I'm not sure when that data is from.  

I'm not sure if the two results over lap or not.   Its possible the first survey is only among companies that have a dress code or it could be that companies without a formal dress code mostly have very casual or some business casual attire.



--

You Should Love Mopping Floors

Over on FreeMoneyFinance they wrote recently “Do What You Love” Is Bad Advice and in the comments someone quoted this :


"Your work is not supposed to make you feel amazing and wonderful all the time. It’s work."

Exactly.  It's work.   Its called work because its work.  Its not called "happy fun time".



I don't really understand why this expectation that we should love our work started and why so many people buy into it.

I mean what if I started preaching to everyone that you ought to love mopping the floors?   If you don't love mopping your floor then you must be doing it wrong.   Keep changing how you do it until you love it.  If you don't love it then you're the problem.   Is the floor too big?  Well maybe you should downsize your home.   Buy different mops.  Get one of those robot floor things.   I LOOOVE mopping my floors and you should too.   You don't like mopping?   Its you... you're broken.   The only true way to live your life is through loving mopping.

See how silly that sounds? 

Yet so many people want to accept the idea that we should love our jobs.  Why should I be expected to love work any more than I love household chores?

Right about now theres someone out there thinking how they actually DO love household chores.  That person will comment how they love mopping.   This just adds to the silly argument.  Of course some people love mopping floors and some people love their jobs.   But you people are in the minority and that doesn't mean the rest of us are supposed to change our lives to match you.  But those people will be held up as the example.  See?  If Bob loves mopping floors then it can be done.  Look at how happy Bob is.  Why are you so miserable?   You must be doing it wrong.  Have you tried a different brand of cleaner?

We mop the floors because its necessary.   We don't have to love doing it, but we do have to do it. Jobs are similar.   People work at a job because its necessary to earn a living.   You don't all have to love your job but you do have to make a living somehow.



--

Follow Your Passion ( to something useful which has value and demand and ...)

An often cited formula is :

Passion = Success

The idea is a simplistic concept that if you follow your passion that you'll end up with success.   I'm sure the people pushing this idea really don't intend it to be misinterpreted such that 18 year old kids assume they can go get a bachelors degree in 13th century Norwegian literature at some obscure private school and then somehow become gainfully employed and pay off their $80,000 in student loan debt.   But without some ground rules and basic common sense application of the 'follow your passion' mantra, individuals may misapply the idea and assume that they need nothing other than passion for the success to follow.

Lets at least make sure someone else cares about your passion.  I used to joke that I didn't think that my passion for playing video games on my couch would make me rich.    Clearly your passion has to be associated to something someone else would want to pay for.   This is where the usefulness requirement comes in. 

Chris Guillebeau recently wrote on Get Rich Slowly that :

Passion + Usefulness = Value

Better.  Thats an important step in the right direction.    It should make it clear that I will not get rich any time soon by following my passion for video gaming on my couch.     Its definitely very important that people realize that simple passion doesn't equate to monetary success.   Your passion has to be combined with something of use.   Again, this should really just be common sense.   But unfortunately I don't think the point is emphasized enough when some people preach the 'follow your passion' mantra.   Readers may mistakenly assume that passion alone is good enough.  

Just because something is valuable doesn't mean it will lead to a good job or success.   Is passion and usefulness sufficient to create success?   No.   There are numerous factors in success.   You won't find success if you're creating something of no value, but just creating something of value won't always lead to success.

There is so much more to success than simply providing value.   Maybe the formula should look more like this? :


(Passion + Value + Novelty + Demand + Risk + Capital + Time + Luck + Timing ) / ( Competition + Costs) = Success

--

Almost Half of College Grads Wished They'd Picked a Different Major

Unfortunately lately the recent college grads are having a real tough time finding a job or at least a job in their field.  I think part of that is due to many grads having chosen majors that are not in high demand or in fields with keen competition.   It appears in hindsight that nearly half, 48%, of the college grads realize after the fact that they made a poor choice of major.   At least that was the findings in the report Unfulfilled Expectations: Recent College Graduates Struggle in a Troubled Economy   I assume a lot of that second guessing about choice of major is due to being shocked when the 'real world' doesn't fill their email inboxes with job offers.


Here's the full list of 'regrets' and what % of grads wished they'd done it differently : 

Been more careful about selecting major or chosen a different major	48%
Done more internships or worked part time	47%
Would have started looking for work much sooner while  still in college	38%
Would have taken more classes to prepare for college	27%
Would have gone to a different college	14%
Something else	9%
Would not have gone to college	4%

Notice that the 2nd item on the list at 47% is related to internships or more part time work.   I had that regret myself when I first graduated from college without any useful work experience.   The same study's data also shows that graduates with internships have 24% higher starting wages on average.  

I'm a little surprised that students didn't regret not having studied harder and partying less, but maybe they enjoyed the partying too much to regret it or maybe those regrets were filed into the 'something else' category.

Choice of major is huge and has a massive impact on your future career and employment prospects.   If you're going to college or know someone who's doing so then make sure to carefully research and consider the employment prospects of the field in question.


--

How Do Employers Find Hires?

You might know that newspaper job listings are no longer very relevant to job hunting.

I found this report from CareerXRoads that they published in 2009.

Here is their list of 'source of hire' or the route by which the employers found the people they hired  for 2008 :

Referrals	27%
Corporate web pages	20%
Job Boards	12%
All Other	10%
Direct Sourcing	8%
College	4%
Print	3%
Search Engine Marketing	3%
Career Fairs	3%
Temp to hire	3%
3rd party recruiters	3%
Rehires	3%
Walk ins	1%

Keep in mind this is just one survey and the data is a few years old already.  

Job Boards include sites like Monster.com, Careerbuilder and Linkedin.   Direct Sourcing is described like internal recruiting staff actively going out to find people directly.  

Addendum : I should point out that this survey is not scientifically representative of the entire population.  They surveyed 45 companies and the demographics were not equivalent to the entire labor force.   The jobs in question were all full time positions and mostly salary, exempt.  

--

Impact on Starting Pay From Regional Pay Variations and Schools Reputation within Major

I've been working on a series of posts about how starting salaries vary across universities for various majors.   First I presented all the data I found.   Then I stated that I thought major choice mattered more than university choice.  Most recently I made the observation that highly ranked universities often didn't relate to higher salaries.

At the end of the last article I made a couple points.   The U.S.News rankings are university wide rankings and schools have different reputations in specific fields of study.  For example Purdue is ranked #62 among national universities but they are ranked much higher at #11 for engineering schools.  If you're looking at engineering degree holders then looking at the U.S.News best Engineering schools ranking list would matter more than the general national ranking of the university.

Second major factor to consider is that pay rates vary considerably based on location.    Pay is going to be higher in an expensive state or city versus a low cost area.   You would expect that graduates of California schools would likely end up having higher wages since most of the alumni would end up working in California.  On the other hand students of Kansas schools may end up with lower average wages if more of them ultimately work in Kansas.

To examine the impact that these two factors have I'm going to look at civil engineering specifically as a case.

Impact from ranking for Engineering

Here is the civil engineering information sorted by the ranking for engineering schools :

engr rank	us rank	school	Civil engr
6	23	Carnegie Mellon	$51,000
8	45	Texas, Austin	$57,454
11	62	Purdue	$52,850
24	71	Va Tech	$50,000
27	43	U. Washington	$51,016
100	143	Kansas St	$48,985
102	111	S. Carolina	$49,917

There seems to be a little more correlation between the rankings of the engineering schools and the starting salaries, but its still not that strong.   The top school in engineering ranking still gets lower salary than three of the schools below them.  However the 3 lowest paid schools are in the bottom half ranked schools and the 2 highest paid are in the top half.

Starting Salary versus Average Local Wages

Lets look at the starting salaries versus the average wage for the civil engineers in the state.  I got the average wage for civil engineers from BLS state level wage data.

school	Civil engr	state avg
Texas, Austin	$57,454	$89,110
Va Tech	$50,000	$82,340
U. Washington	$51,016	$80,430
Carnegie Mellon	$51,000	$76,190
Kansas St	$48,985	$75,540
S. Carolina	$49,917	$75,090
Purdue	$52,850	$71,720

There is some correspondence between the average wages for civil engineers and the starting pay.   In Texas for instance they have a relatively high starting pay of $89,110 and the U. Texas starting salaries are also quite high at $57,454.    High wages in the state of Texas for Civil engineers might at least partially explain why U. Texas grads have such high pay.

Engineering ranking versus Starting salary as % of Average salary

We can normalize for the variation in regional wages by looking at the starting salary as a percent of the average wage for civil engineers in the state.    Lets look at the schools sorted by engineering school rankings and see how the % of wages compares:

engr rank	school	Civil engr	state avg	%
6	Carnegie Mellon	$51,000	$76,190	67%
8	Texas, Austin	$57,454	$89,110	64%
11	Purdue	$52,850	$71,720	74%
24	Va Tech	$50,000	$82,340	61%
27	U. Washington	$51,016	$80,430	63%
100	Kansas St	$48,985	$75,540	65%
102	S. Carolina	$49,917	$75,090	66%

If you look at it this way, Purdue actually fares the best in starting wages versus average salary.    Theres still not much of a correlation.    The school with the highest and lowest starting wage versus average local wage are both in the middle.

For Civil Engineering at least I still don't see much of any solid correlation between university rankings even when looking specifically at the reputation of the engineering school itself and when controlling for the average wages in the area.

I ran all the same numbers for Chemical Engineering as well and heres the result from them.

engr #	school	start	state mean	%
6	Carnegie Mellon	$66,800	$91,260	73%
8	Texas, Austin	$72,234	$105,200	69%
11	Purdue	$61,299	$82,370	74%
24	Va Tech	$65,000	$86,390	75%
27	U. Washington	$57,280	$92,840	62%
100	Kansas St	$67,344	$93,650	72%
102	S. Carolina	$67,350	$90,150	75%

Again I don't see strong correlation between engineering school ranks and the starting wages even when normalized to state average wages.

It certainly makes more sense to look at the reputation of a school for the specific field of study than to look at the national level university rankings.   But even there it doesn't seem to show a strong correlation between starting wages and school rankings.  

The average pay for a state can certainly impact starting wages.   You would assume there would be a relationship between the two.  I think we can see that to some degree in for some places like Texas where state average wages are the highest and the starting wages for U. Texas grads are also higher.
--

University Rankings Often Have Little Impact on Starting Salaries

 Earlier this week I shared some data I compiled showing starting salaries for several majors across a number of different universities.   Then yesterday I made the point that the major choice matters more than the university choice.

Another very important finding from the data I saw was that the ranking of the university  often had little or no correlation to the starting salaries for each major.


With only a couple clear exceptions, it seemed that the university rankings often had very little direct proportional relationship to the starting salaries of graduates.

One might expect that if you have 3 schools, ranked #5, #43 and #110 that the salaries would be highest at the #5 ranked school and the lowest at the #110 school.    More often however in the data I looked at this kind of relationship between school ranking and pay rates did not show up.  You were just as likely to see the highest pay for the #43 school or the #110 school as the #5 school.

I'll look at each major a little closer.

For Computer Science, the rankings mattered

The one major I saw with a pretty solid correlation between the ranking of the school and the wages was computer science.  In general the higher ranked schools all clearly had higher average wages and the lower ranked schools had lower rages.   Graduates of highly ranked schools had salaries that were significantly better than the students from lower ranked universities.  

Psychology majors also benefited at higher ranked schools

The Stanford grads with psychology degrees made substantially more than the psychology majors at other schools.   For psychology the top 3 ranked schools all had higher average starting wages than the lower ranked schools.

Nursing almost has a correlation with one notable exception 

Nursings highest wage was at Pace U. which out earned four schools above them.  However if you set Pace aside then the other 5 schools do get generally higher wages for higher rankings.   The top two schools had higher pay than the middle two which and the bottom ranked school had the lowest pay.  

For all other majors there was no clear correlation between ranking and salary

For the seven other majors of Civil engineers, Chemical Engineers, English majors, Elementary teachers, Communications, Accounting and Nursing, I saw no real correlation between the U.S. News university rankings and the starting salaries of the students.   In these majors the students did not see higher wages when going to higher ranked schools.   Lets look at some examples for each major :

Civil Engineering :  The highest wages were at University of Texas which is ranked #47.    Carnegie Mellon #23 and University of Washington #43 both had higher rankings and lower wages.    Purdue at #62 also had higher wages than CMU or UW even though it was even lower ranked than Texas.  

Chemical Engineering : The lowest average wage was at U. W. ranked #43.   The highest wage was at Texas ranked #47 and the two bottom ranked schools had the 2nd and 3rd highest wages.  

Elementary Education :  Wages for teachers were all over the place.   I assume that the wages are mostly dictated by how much teachers are paid in the given state on average more than anything.  Teachers simply don't make a lot so theres no ta lot of room to get fat paychecks from having an impressive school name on your resume.   Central Michigan had the highest average wages yet they were the lowest ranked school.  Wages at highly ranked U. Penn. were lower than several lower ranked schools.

Communications and English:    The wages for these two majors were up and down across the school rankings.   Unranked C. Michigan had higher wages than 6 higher ranked schools in Communications.   The highest pay for English was at #170 ranked Pace University.

Accounting  :    For accounting the wages seemed to show no relationship to the university rankings.    The wages actually went up as you went down the ranking for the four highest ranked schools for accounting.  

There are other factors involved than simply the U.S. News rankings.

Two big Factors :  Rankings for specific programs and Geographical location.

The U.S. NEws rankings  are a top level ranking of the entire university.   However some schools excel in some areas more than not.   For example Purdue and U. Texas are well thought of engineering schools.   The schools quality and reputation in the field of study may have more impact on salary than the overall U.S. News rankings.

Geographical location also has a big impact on starting salaries.  I would generally expect starting salaries for Kansas State and Wichita graduates to be lower than the pay for Pace University (in New York City) simply  due to the different average pay rates for the state of Kansas versus NYC.    You could also expect that students from Stanford and Cal Poly would have a bit higher wages simply due to living in high cost and high wage California more than not.

The reputation of a school in a specific field of study as well as the varying wage  rates and cost of living for the city or region the school is in could easily have more impact on starting wages than the general U.S. News rankings.

--

Major Matters More than The University

Yesterday I presented some data that I compiled showing the variation of different starting salaries for several majors across a number of different universities.

One thing that stands out in the data is that :  

Choice of major has a larger impact on starting salaries than the  choice of university.

Certain majors make considerably more than other majors regardless of the university attended.

The average starting wages for civil engineers, chemical engineers and computer science were all higher than all the English, Communications, Psychology and Elementary school teachers.   If you're looking for a higher wage then getting a degree in engineering would serve you better than humanities.     The choice of university does not appear to change this.

This may come as no surprise to some people and others may be doubtful.   We are often told that the very best universities offer networking opportunities and the expectation is that simply graduating with those names on your diploma will ensure a high income.   There could be some truth to this and I'm sure it is often easier to find a higher paying job with a Stanford degree than one from Central Michigan.  However from the data I found the highest wages are based on degree and not choice of school.   The evidence I found is that the psychology majors at Stanford have lower starting wages than the engineering majors at Central Michigan.  The choice of majoring in engineering has a heavier impact on starting salaries than the quality and prestige of a Stanford education.

I'm sure nobody is really making the choice between majoring in engineering at Central Michigan or majoring in English at Stanford.    However some people may feel that choice of major doesn't matter as much as their choice of university.   Some people think that if they just go to the right school then they'll get a high wage no matter what they major in.   I have a friend who had that exact assumption going into college.  He majored in humanities at a respected private school assuming that the school name alone would get him a good job. Unfortunately he only really learned the truth after he graduated and failed to find anything more than minimum wage level jobs.

It is important to understand that the choice of major is the primary factor in your future earnings.   Choice of college can have an impact on earnings but it does not outweigh choice of major.

--

Sick Leave : Who gets it, how much do we get, how much do we use it and why?

In the comments over at The Simple Dollar someone wondered how much sick leave people normally get and how much they typically use.   I found some data on the topic to answer the question.   I figured it is something worth writing more on, so here you go...


Who Gets Sick Leave?

The BLS has good data on sick leave benefits for workers.Its one of the benefit categories they track.

 In March 2010 they published the article Paid Sick Leave in the United States

Most people do get paid sick leave.   61% of all private workers get paid sick leave.    It varies a lot across occupation, pay rates, employer size etc.   Here is how the % of people with sick leave varies across different characteristics. 

All workers	61%
occupational group:
Management, professional and related	84%
Service	42%
Sales and office	66%
Natural resources, construction and maintenance	49%
Production, transportation and material moving	52%
full vs part time
full time	73%
part time	26%
Union affiliation
union	69%
nonunion	61%
Wage percentile
Lowest 25% wages	33%
Highest 25%	81%
Employer size
1-99 workers	52%
100-499 workers	67%
500 or more	80%

How Much Sick Leave do People Receive

The same BLS report also tells us how much sick leave people get on average.   The private average worker gets 8 days of paid sick leave after 1 year service.    The amount of sick leave varies however depending on the job and employer.

All workers	8
full vs part time
full time	8
part time	6
Employer size
1-99 workers	6
500 or more	11

How Much Sick Leave do People actually use?

I found a couple sources to answer the question of how much sick leave people typically use.  
The Employee Benefit Research Institute published some data in 2000


"Among those firms that did track it, the average number of sick days used per year by a salaried exempt employee was 3.8 days; salaried nonexempt employees used 5.6 days; nonunion hourly employees used 4.8 days; and union hourly employees used 5.5 days."

Also CCH Incorporated studies absenteeism and their 2007 data found a 2.3% absenteeism rate for that year.   If people are absent 2.3% of the time then that is around 6 days in a full time work year. 


The numbers vary but it should be safe to say that workers typically use 4-6 days of sick leave per year.

Why do People Use Sick days?

CCH also has data on why people were not at work.

In 2007 the reasons for unscheduled absences  were :

Personal illness	34%
Family Issues	22%
Personal needs	18%
Entitlement Mentality	13%
Stress	13%

Personal illness is pretty straight forward.  That means the person missed work because they were sick.

Family issues could cover a number of things.  I assume a lot of it is childcare related.  Parents often have to care for their sick children.   An article from the National Partnership for Women and Families says   "On average, school-age children miss at least 3 school days per year due to health reasons."   So if you have a kid or two then its likely you'll need to miss some work to take care of your child.

Personal needs is pretty vague.  I don't know if that means "I need to go to the football game" or if its more along the lines of non illness things like court appearances,  religious reasons, or what have you.

I like that they have a category for "entitlement mentality".  Thats the people calling in sick for no other reason than because they have unused paid sick days to use.

Its pretty bad that stress causes 13% of the stick days.   Whats that say about our work environment in this country?



--

You Don't Have to Love Your Job

A couple months ago The Simple Dollar wrote  Switching Jobs / Switching Careers  about what to do do if you love your job but hate your career or vice versa.   His article was really meant for people who hate their job or career.   But the mention of "loving" your job or career made me consider the notion of loving your job.

I do not love my job.    I like my job.   And thats just fine with me.

You do not have to love your job for it to be a good or even a great job.     Its fabulous if you do love your job.   However loving your job shouldn't be the expectation.   If you go about life with the thinking that you ought to love your job or that loving your job is the measurement of a successful career then I think you're setting the bar too high and setting yourself up for a failure.

Loving your job is not the norm at all.   In fact lately most Americans aren't even satisfied with their jobs.  In a poll earlier this year only 45% of Americans reported that they were satisfied with their jobs.  This may not be news to you that most people aren't happy with their jobs.   But if you listen to much to the career advice gurus you might get the idea that everyone should be passionate and love their careers or jobs and that this is somehow typical, but it just isn't.  I'm not saying we should all be satisfied with jobs we hate or that disliking our jobs is good enough.   But the point here is that its not normal to love your job and in fact if you merely like your job you're doing better than most.

Not loving your job isn't a mandate for change.   On the other hand if you hate your job or simply dislike it then that may warrant some change.   Hating your job isn't automatically a reason to quit the job or change careers.   You have to examine exactly why you hate or dislike your job.   What do you dislike about your job exactly?  Why are you unhappy.   Sometimes you can fix things by some changes in how you do your work or interact with your coworkers.  

You should also seriously think about your own state of mind and consider if the reason you are unhappy at work might be due to other things going on in your life more than the job itself.   If you're getting 5 hours of sleep, dealing with constant headaches, have a spouse that you fight with regularly and are behind on your car payment then its unlikely you'll be in a wonderful mood from 8am to 5pm.   Maybe its not the job as much as your poor mood.   OK before you get mad ... I'm not trying to blame the victim here, but merely suggesting that you step back and look at what might be influencing your moods.   Are all your coworkers equally unhappy with the job as well or do they all seem satisfied?

Personally I think that liking or enjoying your job is a realistic goal.   Loving your job would be pretty nice, but I'd consider that a 'stretch goal' rather than a realistic expectation.   Plan to like your job and consider anything above that as a bonus.

Jobs for High School Grads

In general I think that a good college education is the best route to getting a good job.   But college isn't for everyone.   What if for one reason or another you don't go to college, then what kind of jobs should you pursue?

Here is a list of what I'd consider to be decent jobs / careers for individuals with high school diplomas but without college degrees (in no particular order):

Electrician, plumber, carpenter, etc.
Elevator installer, repairer
Waiter/ waitress
cook/chef
Military
Truck drivers, UPS driver, taxi drivers, etc.
Railroad workers
Casino dealer
Postal workers
Flight attendant
Real Estate agent
Auto mechanic, auto body repair
Salesperson
Policeman
Firefighter
Meter reader
Locksmith
Insurance claim clerk
Business owner

See the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for details on wages and employment outlook for these and other jobs.

Jobs on this list may start out with relatively low pay, but all should offer the chance to make an OK wage at least after you have some experience. In any of the fields listed you can also potentially work up to a manager or supervisor role and then earn even higher wages.  

In some cases a few of these jobs might require some college at least in some areas.  For example police and firefighters sometimes require some college.    Certain jobs on the list may require apprenticeship training which may include some community college courses like Electrician for example.   Some of the jobs may be competitive and hard to get.   Jobs like waiter, casino dealer, salesperson and realtor would all have variable wages that are based on tips or commissions.   You could make very little money or pretty good wages depending on how much tips or commissions you get.

I have business owner on the list.  Of course starting your own business doesn't require a college degree but being a business owner isn't suited for everyone and generally requires some start up funding.  Still there is a lot of opportunity in owning your own business.

The Sad State of American Vacation Benefits

I'm happy to work for a company that gives pretty good amount of paid vacation time.   Many Americans aren't so lucky to have good vacation benefits..  Most of Dad's vacation time was called "being unemployed". 

USA versus Other Countries

Compared to almost all other industrialized nations, Americans get and take very little vacation time off.     We get no guaranteed vacation and the average amount of vacation given by employers is around 10-15 days.   By comparison many of the European nations get 4 weeks paid vacation every year mandated by law.

These countries all get 20 days of vacation or more :
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom

Canada and Japan are both similar to the USA in the amount of vacation time people get.   They both average about 10 days vacation time.

This CNN article from back in 2007 discussed a report by the consulting company Mercer that shows the amount of vacation and paid holiday time that people get in various nations.   The USA ranks pretty close to bottom.     Also the Mercer report gives the numbers that are 'typical' in America.    There is a big fat asterisk by the US numbers and at the bottom of the table it explains the asterisk as: "These numbers reflect typical practice among large U.S. firms. There is no federal law requiring employers to give a minimum number of vacation days and holidays off, paid or unpaid."

We don't Use what we Get

This ABC News article from last summer reported that "only 57 percent of people here are taking all of their vacation time"     By comparison 89% of the French and 77% of the British use all their allotted time.  This older article from Businessweek in 2007 says "more than half of American workers fail to take all their vacation days. Thirty percent say they use less than half their allotted time. " and "42% claim they have to cancel vacation plans "regularly."  

Now these reports don't specify if the vacation time is 'banked' or paid out in cash or simply forfeited.   Some of the people not taking vacation may simply be saving it for later.   Still going long periods without time off is not very good for your productivity.


Vacation Days  Per Years Seniority

The amount of paid vacation time goes up with seniority as a general rule.   The BLS table for the number of annual paid vacation days by service time breaks down the numbers.

Number of vacation days for private (non government) workers are as follows: 

	mean	median
After 1 year	10	10
5 years	14	15
10 years	17	15
20 years	19	20

You might expect that government workers in the USA get big fat vacation time but they only average 1-3 days more than private employees.  Extra 1-3 days is nothing to whine about but its not like they get 3 extra weeks or anything.

For government workers the number of vacation days are :

	mean	median
After 1 year	12	12
5 years	15	15
10 years	18	18
20 years	22	22

Percent distribution of number of days off 

BLS has a page on the Paid Vacation Benefits 2009   They give the percentage distribution of the number of paid vacation days based on years of experience.

Here is that data in a chart :

	After 1 year	After 5 years	After 10 years	After 20 years
<5 days	7%	2%	2%	2%
5 to 9	35%	9%	7%	6%
10 to 14	39%	36%	15%	12%
15 to 19	11%	36%	43%	17%
20 to 24	6%	11%	23%	38%
over 24	2%	6%	12%	25%

As you can see, in general the more experience you have on the job the more vacation you get.   But there are variations there.   A minority of people with 20 years experience get a week or less of vacation.     On the other end some people with just 1 year on the job get as much as 4 or more weeks paid vacation.

Nature of Job

The data table for private employees on the BLS site breaks down paid vacation data further.

78% of workers got paid vacations
22% of workers received NO paid vacation

Only 44% of the people making wages in the bottom 10% got paid vacation.
88% of the highest 10% earners got paid vacation

91% of full time workers got paid vacation
38% of part time workers got paid vacation

69% of employees of companies that have 1-49 workers got paid vacation
90% of employees for large companies with 500 or more workers got paid vacation


Bottom Line:  Relative to other industrialized nations we don't get much vacation time in America. On top of that Americans use their available vacation less as well. 

The Hazardous Road of Following Your Passion

Do you know anyone who would like to pay me a six figure salary to sit in a La-z Boy, play video games and watch sci-fi television?     No?  Bummer.   I guess that following my passion isn't going to be very lucrative.

One of the common mantras in the personal finance realm nowadays is that you should "follow your passion" when it comes to selecting a career path.  That sounds great.  The logic is that if you do what you love then you'll naturally be good at it and therefore it will be successful for you.   Well the reality isn't always that pretty.   I think that following your passion into a lucrative career is a fabulous idea if it works.   I'm a pretty practical person myself and I think we should all at least have a realistic plan and ideally a 'plan B' in case our passion doesn't work out.

I actually know several people who have tried to follow passions as careers.   It has usually not worked out all that well.   In each of these cases I think we can learn something.

My friends and their passions...

I know someone who's passion was music.   She started a degree in college that was in music. She dropped out of college and now has loans to pay and no degree to show for it.   She has never made any money by performing music.   Following your passion can backfire if you're not really sure about your passion in the first place.

Don't they look rich and famous?

My cousins' husband always wanted to be a rock star.   He pursued that dream well into his 40's.  As far as I know he may still have aspirations at finally hitting it big.  He never gave up on the dream and never settled down with a real job.   Sometimes you have to face reality and know when to call it quits.

A friend of mine followed his passion for history.  He got himself a degree in history at a local well regarded private school.   Then after graduation he got himself a job as a motel night clerk and a large student loan debt.  He had assumed that if he got a degree from a 'good' private school that the jobs in his chosen field would just follow.   He assumed wrong.   He also didn't realize that the local private school wasn't well known outside our region.    A poor plan and heavy student loans can make following your passion a mistake.

One of my friends got a degree in drama in college.   I think he's actually made some money in the theatre or performance arts.  He has not made anywhere enough to live on however.  His day job is in computer support fields which he self taught himself.   Its a job he could have obtained without that drama degree.  My friend in this example did a fair job by having a decent paying day job and continuing to follow his passion on the side.  If he continues this then at minimum he'll enjoy his acting part time and at best he may finally break through and hit the big time.

Not my nephew.

My nephew really loves basketball.  He is pretty talented athlete.   I love him but he has no shot whatsoever making a living at professional basketball.   There are probably at least 100,000 kids aged 8 to 18 today who think they can make a living as a professional athlete who will never have successful careers in sports.   Most kids grow out of this phase in their lives.   But if you have a real shot at a sports career then at minimum you should ride your athletic ability to a free college degree.   Make sure that degree is in something useful that you'd like to do for the rest of your life.

A relative of mine got a bachelors and masters degree in psychology.  She makes below average wages as a counselor.   At least she has a job in her field that pays the bills which is not the case for many of her psychology classmates.  Getting a graduate degree can help you stand out in a very competitive field.  

Ok thats enough of my examples of when following your passion isn't a good plan financially.   I think I've beaten it into the ground so you should get the point.

So what to do?     I certainly don't want people to abandon their dreams and pick their careers and jobs based on pay rates alone.   On the other hand I don't think people should be unrealistic while they pursue their passions.  You need to find a good balance between happiness in your work and career and financial stability.

At least find a job you enjoy, if not love.  I certainly agree that it is ideal if you can find a career that you love.  But if you can't make that work then at least pick a career that you enjoy.   There is definitely something to the idea that you will be more successful if you are interested in your work and enjoy it. 

Follow your passion part time, on weekends.  

There is no reason that you *have* to follow your passion as your day job.  If you have a passion that doesn't pay the bills then there is nothing wrong at all with following your passion on the side and doing a job that pays money during the day.   This tactic worked out pretty well for my friend the actor.

Double major.
One way to pursue your passion and get a job that pays the bills at the same time is to get a double major in college.   One major is your passion and the other major is a acceptable day job field that will pay the bills.  This way you have a job to fall back on if the passion doesn't work out so well.  My acting friend who does computer work by day would have benefited from this tactic.   He's doing OK in his computer related job but he would be doing better if he had a degree in the field.

Try it with a deadline
Another way to go about following your passion is to give it a try for a few years.   Say you absolutely want to be a rock star when you grow up.   If you really have a passion for music and have the ability to succeed then delay college for a few years to try it.  This way you will give yourself a chance to follow that passion but limit it so that at some point if you don't succeed you will instead follow a more practical day job.   This tactic would have greatly benefited my aging cousin.


Photo of musicians by eschipul and kid with basketball by kitykity