The Monster Blog

Pro Athletes Do Earn Their Millions

Weep not for Brett Favre and Philip Rivers, whose respective NFL squads, the Packers and Chargers, were bounced from the NFL playoffs over the weekend.

Though Rivers is headed to the operating table and Favre is once again pondering whether to hang up his cleats for good (my prediction: He won't), it's not as if the two men will need to work a second job this offseason just to make ends meet. Favre ($11 million total compensation package) and Rivers ($5 million) were among the NFL's highest-paid quarterbacks this season, according to data provided by Salary.com, which powers Monster's Salary Wizard.

I used to resent the exorbitant salaries that top athletes routinely command. For example, I once would have wailed against the fact that Tennessee Titans QB Vince Young took home just over $13 million (No. 1 among all NFL quarterbacks) in 2007, even though he's played only two seasons and hasn't exactly put up Canton-worthy statistics just yet (21 touchdowns, 30 interceptions and a meager rating of 69.0 through his first 30 games).

But with almost a decade of work experience now under my belt, it no longer bothers me that baseball, basketball, football and, to a lesser extent, hockey players just want the biggest portion of the lucrative pies that owners in today's money-making machines of professional sports leagues are willing to give them. In today's age of multimillion and multibillion dollar TV contracts, state-of-the-art playing facilities and non-stop sales of sports merchandise, you can be sure there's plenty of revenue to go around.

Today, I'm fine with the reality that guys who throw farther, run faster and jump higher than the rest of us can parlay their unique skills into astronomical salaries and a comfortable lifestyle for themselves. After all, if you were in their position, wouldn't you be trying do the same?

And while we're talking NFL, how about a little Super Bowl XLII prognosticating? I see the underdog New York Giants, led by Eli Manning ($6.45 million in compensation in 2007), keeping the score close for a while, but in the end, Tom Brady ($6 million) and the vaunted New England Patriots offense will pull away and win by 10, 31-21.  And hey, come to think of it: A Super Bowl title means a bonus check for the winning team, too!

Meanwhile, here are a few Monster resources that can help you in your next salary negotiation -- even if it isn't for six figures a year:

• "Salary Negotiation Know-How"
• "Be Paid What You're Really Worth"
• "The Negotiation Dance"
• Salary & Negotiation Tips message board

 

Are You Thankful for Your Benefits?

This past Labor Day, I was watching the "Today" show, and in between stories, they were doing some labor trivia. And when they discussed how employers are not legally obligated to provide paid vacation, it just struck me.

I know that paid vacation is not legally required, but I realize that’s a benefit I take for granted. I’d never work somewhere that doesn’t offer vacation to full-time employees. It’s such a must-have for me, that in my head it’s become a given.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a study on leave benefits, and as of March 2007, only 77 percent of workers had paid holidays and vacations available to them. And this doesn’t even go into other benefits like health insurance.

What benefits make or break a job for you?

For more information, visit our Salary & Benefits section.

Offshoring and You: Why Economic Statistics Matter

The week's BusinessWeek cover story headline, "The Real Cost of Offshoring," promises a tale nearly as juicy and exciting as an offer to see Paris Hilton relaxing in her new digs -- will they call it the Slammer Hilton? -- courtesy of the LA County sheriff. Well, OK, maybe not. That's why they call economics "the dismal science."

But we should all pay attention anyway. BW's offshoring piece is, in fact, about a study of an arcane portion of the economic statistics underpinning the calculation of the US gross domestic product (GDP). Ho-hum? Think again. Susan Houseman, senior economist at W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, has been looking into the impact offshoring has on the calculation of manufacturing productivity statistics, and by extension, US productivity as a whole.

In case you don't read the political policy wonks, rising productivity is a cornerstone of US economic policy and one of the most closely watched economic statistics by Wall Street and Washington. Dr. Houseman's paper "Outsourcing, Offshoring, and Productivity Measurement in U.S. Manufacturing" suggests the impact "mismeasurement and cost savings from outsourcing and offshoring have had on measured productivity growth in manufacturing...is significant." This means the last 10 years of economic policy assumptions and decisions affecting broad areas of the US economy -- like jobs and trade -- might be based on faulty numbers. Oops.

In his blog "Economics Unbound,"  cover story author and BusinessWeek chief economist Michael Mandel describes the issue this way: "Cost gains and productivity improvements in the global supply chain are being credited to the US economy -- in effect, creating 'phantom GDP.' In reality, both domestic GDP and domestic productivity have been growing slower than the official statistics show, and manufacturing is in much worse shape."

Yes, economics matter. And for some resources to help keep your career from being washed offshore, check out:

• "Offshore-Proof Your Career"
• "Ride the Offshoring Wave or Get Washed Away"
• "Where the (Few) Manufacturing Jobs Are"
• From the Monster Blog: "Global Layoffs: Not Just About IT Anymore"
• From the Monster Blog: "Offshoring, Literally"

Related Blog

Careers: You vs. Offshoring   
 

Attention Workers: You Have 180 Days to Rectify Your Paycheck

Have you ever wondered if your current employer (never mind past employers) is providing you with equitable pay? If so, you can file a discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. If you intend to act, however, please note: You must do so within 180 days of your last paycheck, or so sayeth the Supreme Court, in a rigid ruling handed down last week.

The ruling came out of a case filed by Lilly Ledbetter against her former employer, Goodyear Tire and Rubber. Ledbetter claimed that Goodyear underpaid her for years. To her dismay and others, while the Court recognized the wrong done against her, the majority decision rejected Ledbetter’s claim. In his majority comments, Judge Samuel Alito said that Ledbetter should have acted within a 180-day window "after each allegedly discriminatory employment decision was made and communicated to her" to file her suit.

In other words, American worker, the onus is on you to find out if your employer is providing you with equal pay, and if they are failing to do so, you must act within a six-month window of your “paycheck accrual.”

How many of us would be willing to push the envelope with our employer, and in doing so in such short order, essentially risk our job security? What if you discovered, as Ledbetter did, that you’d been below your pay scale for years? Well, dear worker, you’d simply have to fuggedaboutit.

In the Court’s dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination,” noting that even a small difference in pay “will expand exponentially over an employee’s working life if raises are set as a percentage of prior pay.”

Perhaps judges Alito, Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy and Roberts are unaware of this compound math, or of the continuing pay inequities of working women, to say nothing of discrimination cases that impact the paychecks of minorities in the workplace. What about the majority of working America, workers who, much like Ledbetter, are living paycheck to paycheck, trying to provide for their families? Does the Supreme Court expect them to come forward in a “timely way” to confront the company boss about their paycheck?

Note to the aforementioned Supreme Court judges: Fuggedaboutit.

Informative articles on salary negotiation:

Are You Underpaid?

Renegotiate Your Hourly Rate

Determine Your Value

Related Blogs:

"4Her Information: What she needs to know"

“The Supreme Court Doesn’t Have to be the Last Word”

Summer Movie Economics

The last few weeks in May mark the start of the summer movie season, when Hollywood places big cinematic bets and hopes the seats in front of the screen will be filled with the likes of you and me.

The business of the movie business has always fascinated me, especially after my stint as a theater usher a number of years ago. In fact, I was present for the first great summer movie event -- Jaws -- which began the current summer blockbuster movie approach to filmmaking. I learned that while movie ticket revenues mattered to the studios, sales of popcorn, candy and soda mattered to the folks who run the theaters.

According to this index, the average cost of a movie ticket in the mid-’70s was about $2. Last year's average was $6.55 -- though most of us can't get in to see a film for less than $9 or so. So how long do you have to work to afford a movie ticket?

According to blogger Gary Picariello (looks like I'm not the only person interested in these statistics), the Cinema Index shows the US is the second-cheapest place to go to the movies, after India. It takes just 24 minutes of work to pay for a ticket, based on an average US net hourly income of $15.20. Hmmm.

How about comparing to the minimum wage? Back in the mid-’70s, the minimum wage was $2.10 per hour, so a ticket cost just about an hour's work. But at 2006 prices and minimum wage rates, the average ticket costs more than an hour and a quarter of work time. Add in those snack bar goodies, and the total could be three hours or more.

With budgets now exceeding $300 million per film (or more than the entire GDP of a small country like the Federated States of Micronesia), it's worth considering what a movie is worth to you.

So here are a couple of plugs: You can find the blockbusters everywhere -- but try to go and see Away from Her and The Lives of Others before they leave your neighborhood art cinema. Both are worth the ticket price, no matter how long you have to work to pay for it.

If you'd like to work less to earn the cost of a ticket, consider these salary negotiation resources:

• “Power Relationships and Negotiation”
• “Salary Negotiation Know-How”
• Salary & Negotiation Tips message board 

Related Blogs

• Thompson On Hollywood
• Green Cine Daily
• Movie Economics

Working on Thanksgiving

I've had several jobs that required working over a holiday (movie usher and newspaper reporter, to name two), so I'm always cognizant of those who aren't sitting around the table at home on the holiday. If you stop to think about it, there are lots of people out there working, such as:

• Public Servants: Police, firemen, ambulance drivers, 911 dispatchers, plus all those transit workers.
• Utility Workers: Those who work on power plants, gas pipelines, water and sewer systems, not to mention emergency plumbers on call for those holiday drain catastrophes (been there, unclogged that).
• Travel Workers: Everyone from airline pilots and baggage handlers to turnpike toll takers and, our current favorites, the TSA screeners.
• Hospitality Workers: Hotel staff and, of course, restaurant chefs, waitstaff and helpers, for whom this is one of the big money days of the year.
• Healthcare and Pharmacy Workers: They help us recover from Aunt Minnie's pie -- or worse -- and the caretakers for friends, like Fido, who must stay where they are.
• Soldiers and sailors, spacemen and submariners.
• Reporters and entertainers, sports figures and all the supporting cast members (count me among them).
• Even retail workers and the USDA's Meat and Poultry Hotline staffers are working on Thanksgiving Day.

While my thanks are not exactly in the same vein as the American Management Association's paean to the Puritan work ethic or Tom Peters' "Tribute to Brand Yous," I'm happy to offer my modest thank you to everyone whose work this and every holiday keeps us safe, on-the-go, well-fed and entertained.

Happy Thanksgiving -- and enjoy your alternate day of celebration -- whenever.

Your Pet Project: On ‘Hiatus’

I found out some disappointing news late last week: One of my new favorite TV shows, "Six Degrees," has been put "on hiatus" by ABC. The network says the show will return in January.

What a bummer. I don’t watch much television these days -- I spend far too much time on the Internet -- but I really enjoyed plopping myself down on the sofa to catch “Six Degrees” every Thursday night.

I experienced a similar disappointment here at Monster recently, when a new-media project I was working on was also shelved until the new year. It’s a project I’m very passionate about, too, but it needed to get knocked down a couple of rungs on the priority ladder as we focus on completing another major company initiative.

So what did I do? I made sure to let my boss know that I understood the important reasons for postponing the project while also expressing an interest in taking a leading role in reviving it, when the time was right.

Still, having to put the brakes on a venture –- work or otherwise -- that you’ve poured your creative energies into can be a major letdown. Has it ever happened to you?

Here’s some advice on getting good projects in the first place and how to execute once you’ve got one:

• “Propose a Special Project”


• "Dodge a Hopeless Project”


• “Project-Planning Checklist"


• “Collaboration: Overrated?”

What's in Your Wallet?

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released third-quarter productivity statistics. Members of the Business Commentariat, such as blogger James Picerno on the Capitol Spectator -- "Productivity's Disappearing Act" -- noted the labor productivity numbers for the third quarter were flat; output gains were matched by wage cost increases. This is bad news from an inflation standpoint. The implication? Those darn workers are getting more money without working harder  -- again.

But the labor wage growth doesn't look all that terrifying to me - my paycheck certainly hasn't been outgrowing its envelope. So I did a little digging. From 1997 to 2005, general business productivity grew by nearly 27 percent, measured by output per hour worked. Over the same period, overall labor compensation grew by 23 percent. So over the past nine years, productivity has increased faster than wages. This is a good thing -- at least if you're a business trying to increase efficiency.

Of course, averages can hide a lot of details. Like this one: According to the Economic Research Institute's (ERI) August 2006 executive compensation survey, the highest-paid executives in America were paid 38.21 percent more this year than they were in 2005. Ouch! Sitting on a wallet that fattens up that quickly could be very uncomfortable.

ERI goes on to say that from 1997 to 2005 -- the same period labor wages went up 23 percent -- executive compensation more than doubled (up 112.6 percent), which also matches the change in corporate revenues for the same period. So at least the execs were not losing ground against the growth of their companies. Growth which just happens to depend on those nice productivity numbers too.

All this is worth considering as we head towards the end of the year and the annual review season. Here are a few resources to consider:

• "Salary Negotiation Know-How"
• "The 3 Legs of a Salary Negotiation"
• "Top 10 Tips for Salary Negotiations"
• "Know When to Hold 'Em: Negotiating Can Be a Bit Like Poker"
• "Negotiation Tips from a Professional Mediator"

Working for a Kitten

About eight years ago, when I first adopted my cat, Winnie (here she is with my friend Anjanette), I was working at a now-defunct interior design magazine. Just a couple of weeks after bringing her home, the already-malnourished cat refused to eat. I tried heating up the food, giving her milk (she did eat that, but it made her sick) and getting her to breathe more easily by running the shower.

The first vet gave me antibiotics, but they didn’t seem to help. Then I brought her in again, and another vet wanted to quarantine my cat and keep her for observation. The vet also suggested running numerous tests. I had already spent more than a week’s salary to save my little kitty, whom I had already fallen head over heels for, and I didn’t know what to do.

The animal hospital, Angell Memorial, is run by the same humane society Winnie came from. I left the cat there and called the shelter from work the next day, begging them to help me pay for the tests -- I could only afford so much based on my pay and expenses. It was the first and only time I’ve ever cried at work. The happy news is that the shelter helped out. A few days later, I got to bring Winnie home and had to give her fluids under the skin with a needle until she finally started eating on her own.

She made a rough transition from the streets to living with me, and she’s been in quite good health -- until a couple weeks ago. That’s when Winnie started sneezing.

After a week and a half of constant kitty sneezes and unacknowledged bless-yous from my husband and me, Winnie had to visit the vet. While the vet could not determine an obvious source of sneezing, she did find a heart murmur -- evidently common in cats above a certain age -- and suspected hyperthyroidism. The vet reviewed a number of things that might be wrong and suggested trying a number of different diagnostics testing. Starting with a blood test seemed the simplest place to start to me.

While I was waiting for the write-up, I sat in the waiting room as a young man with a cat was told the cost of his visit was more than $300 -- it turned out his cat was getting blood tests done, too. The poor guy looked at the vet tech and said, “I can’t afford this. I don’t make that kind of money.” I quickly asked for a quote as well, and discovered Winnie’s tests would be a bargain at $250.

The blood tests showed that Winnie’s in good health, and the other day she just stopped sneezing on her own. Of course, the payments don’t end there. She’s at an age where she needs a teeth cleaning (approximate cost: $150-$175). This simple procedure requires anesthesia, so before we can have it done, Winnie needs an ultrasound to determine the reasons for the heart murmur ($250-$300). I’m thinking it’s about time we start looking at pet insurance.

And here’s one fun link for cat lovers.

Who Sets the Pay Scale?

We live in a weird world. Long ago (OK, six years ago or so) when I first met my husband and was sad about him being out on the road so much, I asked him, “Why don’t you become a school bus driver? You’re a great guy, and I would totally entrust you with children.”

He laughed at me, and then explained how the bigger the vehicle, the more you earn. I was so naive. “But school bus drivers transport children; you transport goods, right?” I asked. He continued to laugh.

According to The Salary Wizard, the median salary for a tractor-trailer driver in our area is $47,554 per year, but the median salary for a bus driver is $18,884. That falls right in line with my husband’s claim that school bus drivers are lucky to pull in $9 an hour.

So what makes one job worth more than another? Is it the work? The value society places on the work? The risk involved?

If that’s the case, why is the median salary for a software engineer $56,740? What danger is such a worker in?

What do you think people should really be paid for?