Career Path > Salary Questions

Where did the Money go?

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darkmatter:
I have a calculator and I’m not afraid to use it. Thanks to the internet, information from publicly held companies is freely available. Thanks to my anal-retentiveness, I have my budget ledgers from 30+ years ago. This has led me to perform a different kind of Rad-Con Math----see if this makes sense to you:

30 years ago before Computers for dosimetry clerks, Telemetry, DRDs, PADs, Robotics for S/G jumping, a Sr Tech not playing “hide & seek” would take home about a grand a week. It took about 5 people then to provide the RP support for what it now takes one.

Current public info access of one of the Nuclear “engulf & devour” conglomerates lists in their annual shareholders reports the compensation/salary for the top executives.  It also lists the total number of hourly employees. Now then---to business, If I assume the CEO compensation would be limited to say just 1 million $, and the rest of the top 20 execs on a graded scale down to ----  say $200,000 for the low man. Then I take the difference between that and what they’re really getting and divide that difference into the number of hourly employees. It comes to approximately $1,000/week extra for the entire year (52 weeks) for each of the hourly employees.

Taking inflation into account, 30 years ago, $20 dollars would buy me a weeks groceries, a month’s take home could buy me a new car (low end vehicle). The take home today for a Sr Tech would have to be somewhere around $3,500/week to equal the buying power I had 30 years ago as a Sr Tech not counting the fact that a Sr Tech today  is doing 5 peoples work from 30 years ago.

I think I found out where the money went, what are your thoughts?

Content1:
Less money from deregulation

Bargaining down services for company bean cutters and like the frog in slowly boiling water, many Sr. techs just don't know when to jump out when the take home is not worth the effort.  I reached that point at Surry and north ana when they both had 2 week outages.  I jumped out  of the boiling water to be a house tech.

Cainnibl:
allow me to share a 2nd hand story...

years ago when friends of mine first got into the industry as Jr deconers at IP...

one of them asked an old school Sr. HP if he had change for a $50...

with a dead straight face the HP looked at him ans said "50 IS change." and walked away.

the 2 friends stood there in awe... LOL


I wish I hadn't missed out on the money days... I'm very close to being a 3.1 Sr. and still driving a 15 year old car with a 20 year old driveline....

Chimera:
The money days?  Way back then, we were paid $5/hr and $30/day perdiem.  Of course, back then, I could bank almost half of my perdiem each week and those paychecks were the biggest things I had ever seen.  However, the money didn't "go" anywhere between then and now.

The biggest single problem is the devaluation of the dollar.  Inflation isn't as big a problem as some people would have you think.  The real problem is that the dollar buys less and less each year.  Simply compare the "purchasing power" of a silver dime in 1960 to what that same amount of silver valuation can purchase today.  You can run the same comparison with the valuation of gold.

However, putting all that aside, comparing the purchasing power of my paycheck from the mid-70's to my paychecks today shows not much has changed.  I still need two 6-12's paychecks to take care of the monthly expenses.  And, if I'm careful (read penny pinching), I can still bank a significant portion of my perdiem each week.  It helps that I'm no longer supporting my children and that I haven't cluttered up my life with expensive toys.  Working about six months a year still gives me an acceptable yearly wage compared to most of those around me.

Michael

Jr8black3:
LMAO,, Were all going to live like Mike Getz before its all over... Just kidding folks..

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