salary increases and inflation

As a member of a faculty that has received only one salary increase in the last three years, I understand the pain of salary increases that don’t keep up with inflation. Further, as a member of the lowest-paid discipline in higher ed, theology and religious vocations, I suspect that I can claim greater vulnerablility than many to the ravages of inflation.

Still, I can’t in good conscience complain about salary increases that fall short of the inflation rate. For one, I respond to rising prices by redirecting my spending toward cheaper products and services. When food prices go up, I tend to buy cheaper foods. When fuel prices go up, I drive less and turn down the thermostat. Only a mindlessly rigid lifestyle prevents me from cushioning the effects of inflation by responding to the marketplace rationally.

Second, the present round of inflation reflects things that I want to encourage. I’m glad that gasoline prices are higher because I want people to drive less and take public transportation more. I’m glad that food prices are higher, since right now the rise in prices is driven mostly by the improved incomes of people in the developing world. Why should I be isolated from those effects so that I can continue to consume more than my share of the world’s resources? Or why should I expect to keep up with inflation if others do not? And if all kept up with inflation, how could the market adjust demand to fit supply except with hyperinflation?

Third, I am very conscious that over recent years the tuition paid by my students has risen much faster than the general rate of inflation. I can complain about where some of that money has gone, but in the end I know that an increase in my salary has to come from tuition dollars paid by people no less subject than I to inflationary pain.

SWNID, at 8:20 am EDT on March 10, 2008

perspective

Thanks for adding a response here that acts as a voice of reason. It’s easy to complain, but when our salary issues are put in perspective (to students, to developing nations), it reminds us that, yes, we’d all like to get paid more, but we are pretty lucky to just get paid. And there’s a lot that we can do to make that salary go further if we just adjust our lifestyle.

As an instructor (no asst professor status yet) in one of the lowest paying fields, these words helped me stop feeling sorry for myself.

instructor, at 8:40 am EDT on March 10, 2008

We are professionals, after all, not recent college graduates

We are educated people, so let’s stop making false analogies. We are not recent grads. I have a Ph.D and have been teaching full-time for two decades. I am not a developing country nor do I live in one. If I did, chances are that I would be treated with more respect because I would be viewed as a resource and not as yet another service provider in a university whose student center is a mall.

It is not a question of just grinning and bearing it, of playing the “glad game” (gee, it’s bad but it could be worse). There is no reason why any of us should accept the increasing de-professionalization of our work. There is no reason why I should accept a standard of living that is CONTINUOUSLY declining, why I should be content with a salary that has, for the past decade, never risen above 3.9% per annum and for three years did not rise at all.

Yes, I would like to see folks using less gas. But I do want to be the only one on my block who has to think twice about filling up my fuel-efficient vehicle. And a hybrid—which I’d like to own—is way beyond my means.

This is about deprofessionalization. This is about the fact that our legislatures want to keep tuition down by keeping our raises down and not raising taxes, so that we are effectively subsidizing our students’ education. As long as we take it on the financial chin; as long as our administrators and law-makers are more interested in building new buildings (and thus helping local contractors); as long as we are not able to make our case because our college presidents are more worried about the investors (who ever they are) and the other “stake holders” (and we, it seems are not “stake holders") we will face ever diminishing returns, both in terms of our salaries and in terms of our place in the university.

Fartig, at 9:30 am EDT on March 10, 2008

Tough Year for Workers

A lot of private companies are doing away with bonuses this year and holding salaries flat. Basically, that’s a pay cut when the cost of living is going up more than usual. Of course, this doesn’t include all the job cuts (including >100,000 private jobs in Feb.)

As bad as 4% sounds in the current price climate, its better than any industry perhaps other than medicine. Education is still adding jobs overall — that alone makes it a “strong” career.

Well, there are probably some CEOs who will do better in 2008 than they did in 2007, but that story is few and far between...Its promising to be a great year for politicians, too.

John McDonald, at 10:50 am EDT on March 10, 2008

SALARIES

I cannot believe that such highly educated people do not know how to take care of their profession. Don’t we learn from the Doctors and Lawyers about how they raise their prestige by higher salaries, limited enrolments, and legislature pressures? Just because we have jobs we enjoy does not mean that we have to be “martyrs". Keep complaining, keep the pressure on the fat pigs of university administrators and do not forget the old saying “if you are so smart, how come you aint’ rich?”

Alex, at 11:30 am EDT on March 10, 2008

Retired baseball players

I remember when baseball players complained about their salaries too. The ball clubs make a lot more than we do, sniffle, sniffle. Did all the former baseball players become faculty? As a lower man on the totem pole it sounds like the same whining to me. I hope I get a raise at all in the next 18 months let alone one this year. Of course that’s compounded by the fact that faculty already make more than I do. There is a reason I don’t attend professional sporting events.

Befuddled, at 3:40 pm EDT on March 10, 2008