Women Earn Less Than Men, but Why?

In a recent project with Catherine Rampell at the New York Times Economix Blog, we examine the pay differential between men and women across a set of 90 jobs.

Numerous studies have looked at the gender wage gap, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the New York Times, and the Census. However, the question remains, why does the gap exist?

Examining national pay differences across men and women, even by job title, can be misleading. Men and women in a sample may be different in ways that employers could legitimately pay differently.

Using our unique dataset here at PayScale, we are able to control for many outside compensable factors (experience, education, specialty, company size, etc.) in order to provide a more apples-to-apples comparison.

This allows us to give one of the strongest answers to date to the question, "If a man and woman are doing the exact same job with the exact same qualifications, responsibilities, and employer type, is the man still paid more than the woman?"

In this post, I will look at what our data says, and address some of the questions and misconceptions Economix readers have.

Are you curious if you're paid what you're worth, no matter your gender? Find out with a free PayScale Salary Report.

4-Year vs. 2-Year College Degrees: How does the Pay Compare?

With the rising cost of four year colleges, people may ask themselves whether the salary promised by a bachelor's degree is really worth the time and money required to complete the program. Why not complete an associate's degree program, and enter the workforce sooner and (mostly) free of debt?

Using the extensive PayScale salary database, in this post we will examine the pay differences across degrees and other characteristics. While our database has its limitations - for example, we don't track unemployment rates, which are much higher for less advanced degrees - it gives us insight into the value in salary of finishing 4 years at a college or university.

Will a bachelor's degree lead to higher pay in your career? Use the PayScale Salary Survey to find out.

Is Your Job One of the Best in America?

In a recent project with CNN/Money Magazine, we looked at all the factors, not just pay, that go into making the 100 Best Jobs in America. Is there a lot of growth in the field? Is the job low stress? Does it offer scheduling flexibility? And how many positions are even available?

The set of jobs is a mix: some require extensive medical training (e.g. Anesthesiologist); others offer a lot of schedule flexibility (e.g. Software Product Manager), and still others are sworn to secrecy about their day-to-day activities (e.g. Intelligence Analyst).

In this post, I will discuss the methodology used to determine the Best Jobs in America, and pull out some of the most interesting points from the data.

Is your job a "Best Job" and you are wondering if you are earning top dollar? Find out with a free PayScale salary report.

Private vs. Public Universities: Is CalPoly Better than USC?

Looking at the PayScale data on the pay of college graduates, I was struck again by how very different schools can produce graduates who earn similar salaries.

My favorite example is comparing the University of Southern California (USC) to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (CalPoly). All three are southern California universities. In our report, at mid-career, median total cash compensation of graduates is:

1. USC was at $103K
2. CalPoly at $102K
3. UCLA at $97K

While UCLA pay is 6% less, the differences are not particularly statistically significant between these three.

These are three very different schools: a selective private research university, a leading public university, and a state school whose "career orientation is evident in its programs in Agriculture, Architecture, Business, Design, Education, Engineering, Graphic Communication and Journalism." How can all produce graduates who earn nearly the same amount?

In this post, I will look at how this is possible, and see what it means for the cost/benefit analysis in choosing colleges.

Should you be earning like a USC grad? Spend 5 minutes completing the PayScale online salary evaluation survey and know.

Top Paying Undergraduate Degree Majors: Which List is Right?

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) released their annual list of top 15 paying undergraduate majors yesterday.

They are a little late: We released the PayScale list of salary by major last week :-)

While the top level take away - starting pay is highest for engineering and other technical fields - the differences are an interesting look into how a survey is defined affects the results.

Are you being paid all you are worth? Spend 5 minutes completing the PayScale online salary evaluation survey and know.

Predicting Future Wages is Hard, Even When Budgeted

World at Work released the preliminary results for the 2010 salary budget survey.

While its predictions for next year are interesting, what is really fascinating is the difference between predictions and reality for this year.

Back in May 2008, employers looked at their budgets, and predicted raises for the coming year. This survey contains the actual raises given as of May 2009.

In this post, I'll take a quick look the World at Work preliminary data, what our PayScale data show, and take my guess at what the future holds.

A raise is made up of two parts: changes in your abilities and responsibilities, and general market forces. While the big picture market is bleak, is your employer recognizing all you are worth? Use the free PayScale Salary Survey to find out.

Comp. Time and Overtime: Only After 45 Hours of Work a Week?

Things have been busy at PayScale - we have been adding new features to our flagship professional product, PayScale Insight, and our Research Center - so I haven’t had as much time to post on salary issues.

I did respond to a reader’s question about overtime; others might be interested in the question and answer:

I get paid a annual salary of $40,000. I am a maintenance person. I work on AC units and furnaces; I paint; I am a jack of all trades and a master of none. I work around 5 to 6 hrs overtime a week.

My employer says I can't get comp time until 45 hrs a week have been met; is this legal? I only get 1 hr comp time over 45 hrs. Should I get 1 1/2, if it is legal to allow the comp time over 45 hours? This must mean I’m non-exempt right? If I confront them with this issue, can they say you are exempt and work me to no end? Help!

These questions are about the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): what is a legal use of over-time, comp. time, etc.?

In this post, I will answer these, and also take a quick look at what FLSA says about breaks and meal time.

Wondering if you should be earning $40,000/year, like our "Jack" of all trades? Use the PayScale Salary Calculator to find out.

"Salaried, Non-Exempt:" When Hourly Rate is "Flexible"

First the important news: I am "micro-blogging" on Twitter. Follow my feed and see me struggle to limit my comments to 140 characters :-)

The question of "salaried, non-exempt" jobs came up again in my inbox (I have changed a few details to make the email not personally identifiable):

My classification was Salary Non-Exempt, and I am being told that I will not receive time and one half pay for these hours, such as a Non-Exempt employee would have, but only "Half Time" due to the Salary Non-Exempt classification.

Half Time is calculated by taking the weekly salary amount ($800.00) and dividing it by 40 hours in the work week; which equals $20.00 per hour. For any time worked over the 40 (example: 10 hours worked over 40 in a week for a total of 50 hours) and dividing it into the normal salary amount of $800.00, giving $16.00 per hour, then dividing the $16.00 by half resulting in $8.00 per hour for any hour worked over 40, or "Half Time" versus the traditional time and one half, in this example $30.00/hour for time and one half.

Is this accurate? Legal? Do I have any recourse? I answered the phone and supervised no one, swept the floors and cleaned the toilets. Is Salary Non-Exempt even accurate and should I consider a separate complaint to correct it to Non-Exempt?

When I first read this, I thought paying only $8/hour for overtime had to be illegal under federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations.

However, I was wrong: the above pay is legal under federal law. In this post, as previously promised, I will address how salary, non-exempt, pay works.

Wondering if you should be earning $20/hour for answering phones and cleaning toilets? Use the PayScale Salary Calculator to find out.

Key Determinant of Pay: Location, Location, Location

Companies frequently employ workers all across the nation, but how do they decide what to pay their workers located in different regions? Should they focus on a set of fixed geographical pay offsets? In other words, if pay for a Software Developer is 30% higher in New York than Chicago, should the same pay difference exist for Financial Analysts? The answer is a resounding "no!"

By using fixed geographical pay offsets, a company will fail to reflect the true variations in labor markets for employees by region. For example, the typical Higher Education Administrator in Chicago earns a pay ~24% less than one in New York, while a typical Urban Planner in Chicago earns ~30% more.

In this blog, I will show this extreme variation in pay exists across numerous jobs and locations. The results highlight the key reasons why fixed geographical pay offsets across all jobs simply do not make sense.

Does the location of your job lead to higher pay? Use the free PayScale Salary Survey to find out.

Cutting Hours and Pay: Hourly vs. Salaried II

Two month ago, I started to answer a few readers questions about cutting hours and pay for exempt and non-exempt workers. I promised a second post of the subject: this is it.

Here are the questions I still need to answer:

"[...] can a person be determined exempt for the reason of “Professional” when he/she only works 10 months out of the year, furloughed for 8 weeks to go on unemployment benefits, then return to work?"

"[...Given the downturn in our business] our exempt and non-exempt employees would be willing to trim their hours from 40 hours to 32 hours per week (get paid for 32). Having said that, I wanted to verify if this would violate any FLSA benefits and/or rights for either classification (exempt or non-exempt)."

"I am an exempt employee; can my company strongly request that I volunteer to take 2 days off without pay in order to help meet the annual budget?"

These questions are basically the same; can salaried employees "ready, willing, and able to work" be paid less than their full salary? The simple answer would be no, but nothing is ever simple.

Are you paid your full salary, or is your pay already on a furlough? Find out with a PayScale free salary report.