<p>What are your thoughts? I always used to think that engineering was one of the only "useful" majors in this world. Only the best, and the hardest working, can thrive in this field. What are your thoughts on engineers' compensation and respect in our society?</p>
<p>Everyone should be paid whatever people are willing to pay them.</p>
<p>that’s akin to saying “they should be paid what they are paid…”
it doesnt really add anything of value to this topic… sorry!</p>
<p>They tend to dominate “top paying degrees” lists. That said, I doubt anyone would answer “do you think you should be paid more” with “no”.</p>
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<p>They tend to dominate “top initially-paying degrees” lists. I haven’t seen a list that would put them very high for mid-career salaries.</p>
<p>what would the mid-career salaries look like?</p>
<p>"Everyone should be paid whatever people are willing to pay them. "</p>
<p>Actually, student01, Buddy had it right. Economics says the people should make <em>exactly</em> what people are willing to pay them. If the market price for engineers is $xxx, then that’s what they’re worth… not by chance, but by definition.</p>
<p>Let the market defines the pay… I’m sick of the gov’t propping up salaries or bailing people out…</p>
<p>The discourgaging thing for us as structural consultants is seeing the hourly rates of other professions climb quickly, while ours stagnates. We started our business in 1998. At that time, we charged exactly the same rate per hour as our accountant. Now he charges 43% more than we do! </p>
<p>And people still complain. DH made a 1 1 /2 hour site visit to a house, did some caluclations, and then wrote up a report with his engineering stamp on it. He billed the guy for 3.5 hours. The guy called up and said, “I was just appalled at this bill you sent me!” DH didn’t have time to argue, so he said, “Fine, just send me what you think it’s worth,” and the guy paid him for 2.25 hours.</p>
<p>We also deal with owners who call constantly and want instant service - site visits, job meetings, etc. So we send them a bill for our time, and they complain - “Can’t you keep the costs down??” We explain the situation, but they don’t “get it.” Geez, I wish they could see our attorney’s bill - the woman answers one SHORT email and sends me a bill for $108!</p>
<p>Sometimes I think owners think of structural engineers as closer to blue-collar workers, since we’re climbing around construction sites when they see us work! They have no idea what we do. I still think structural engineering is one of the harder professesions, because on the one hand you’re dealing with a lot of math, but on the other you have to come up with nuts-and-bolts details. Two very different skill sets.</p>
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<p>its actually the only thing of value in this thread</p>
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There are very few (if any) undergraduate degrees which lead to a higher paying salary at the mid-career point.</p>
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<p>Hey, it might even be better that way! Some blue collar workers make more money than some engineers.</p>
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<p>…and that type of response is exactly why some people don’t get paid enough. The answer to the OP should always always always be “No, I don’t get paid enough” regardless of your pay, qualifications, what you’re worth, what value you bring to the company, or what’s fair. No exceptions.</p>
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Just curious, but what are those few degrees you’re referring to?</p>
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<p>[Do</a> Elite Colleges Produce the Best-Paid Graduates? - Economix Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Do Elite Colleges Produce the Best-Paid Graduates? - The New York Times”>Do Elite Colleges Produce the Best-Paid Graduates? - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Economics/Physics. More importantly than all this, of course, is <em>career track</em>. If you have a history degree and you get into an investment banking career track, then you are looking good.</p>
<p>It just so happens that Engineering is the best career track for a pure undergraduate. Once graduate school comes into play, all bets are off.</p>
<p>what we need to do is unionize =).</p>
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That’s a liberal mentality that’s destroying the economy such as the state of CA… what we need is for engineers to become lawyers and lobbyists in the gov’t to protect our jobs from cheap H1Bs…</p>
<p>Protectionism… because it’s always worked out for every country that’s ever tried it.</p>
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<p>That’s actually incomplete. The more complete answer is that economics would say that, given the current market structure, given a perfect market at equilibrium, engineers make what they are worth.</p>
<p>But that then opens the door to three possibilities:</p>
<p>*You can change the structure of the market.<br>
*The market for labor may be - and in fact, is always - imperfect
- The market may not be in equilibrium, and in fact, real-world markets almost never are. </p>
<p>The fact is that all labor markets, engineering included, are riven with imperfections, the most important being the asymmetric information between employers and employees. Each engineer has a different skillset and therefore differing levels of productivity than do others, with some engineers being far more productive than others, and a perfect market would pay each engineer exactly according to his productivity. The problem obviously is that employers have great difficulty distinguishing amongst the varying productivity levels of each engineer. The best engineers are therefore inevitably underpaid, as their high productivity levels are masked by the lower productivity of their less capable colleagues. </p>
<p>Furthermore, labor markets are locally fragmented. Perfect labor markets would imply that employers had no market power and that engineers could relocate frictionlessly to wherever in the world the best-paying jobs were available. The reality is that there are always more engineers than there are employers in any given geographic space and hence employers have some local market power to dictate wages, and relocating is obviously highly costly, and highly restricted in the case of immigration to another country.</p>
<p>But I think even a straight application of economics is not apt, for wages are often times set by *social and political * factors rather than purely economic reasons. Companies, internally, are dictatorships, not markets. Companies generate revenue via market forces, but then allocate pay from that revenue according to sociopolitical forces. For example, surely we’ve all seen certain employees at the office who, frankly, don’t really do much work at all - but are consistently paid well anyway, and in fact, may actually be promoted. Their skill - a key skill in life - is in office politics. They know how to work the system.</p>
<p>Sakky got it right. A perfect market doesn’t exist, and usually the market is imperfect in the direction that brings down the engineer’s salary…not always.</p>
<p>After working as an engineer for a few years, I’ve certainly seen some crazy stuff. For example, managers in a mid-size town from the few different engineering companies in the town cutting a gentleman’s agreement not to poach engineers from each other. This is perfectly illegal. It is against 100 year old antitrust laws. It happens anyway. It keeps salaries low.</p>
<p>I’ve also seen engineers leave the field because the pay vs. lack of security ratio is not high enough. I’ve seen engineers get MBAs and go into finance or consulting. I’ve seen them become dentists, high school teachers, IT specialists, etc. I’ve also seen engineers want to go back to get a Phd because it may lead to a tenure track position. The pay may be lower, but at least they won’t be laid off and will have some limited freedom to study what they would like to study.</p>
<p>engineering not only pays well initially, but it also opens the door to many other job opportunities such as management, venture capital, sales, and entrepreneurship to name a few. I think it is worth it because it will get you in the door with a good salary and the rest is up to you</p>