So the Federal Government just increased the minimum wage for Federal Employees to $10.10/Hr. Thinking about how much architects make, many of the junior staff (especially the intern architects) at architectural firms make just over that amount. I obviously know that we have to adjust for inflation and other economic factors, but it depresses me that even after this adjustment, architects starting out still make similar income to those who are employed by the Federal Government at a minimum wage... thoughts?
Welcome to architecture as a career path! Old joke; How to become a rich architect? Marry well... Seriously, I have friends who education stopped with a GED. They make more selling cars, selling houses than I do. Ever stop to think that your relator made 7-9% selling a house and you made less designing it? Don't even get into the liability and exposure differences either. The level of effort vs pay has never been great in our profession.
I was thinking though: what skills (other than maybe rendering and drafting and critiquing architecture); what other truly useful skills do recent architecture graduates have? The way the education system is set up is that the knowledge architects really pay architects for is not really taught in school. So where is the incentive? Where is the incentive for other architects to train other architects-to-be about their craft?
well thats the thing, the part of what we do that translates into a service you can sell is literally not taught at school. so starting wages are so low simply because nobody can do anything useful, and there are way more people than jobs. architecture grads also typically want to gain experience as architects, and nothing else. thats pretty focused compared to the wide variety of jobs people get with other degrees.
in reality what we really need to increase our own wages is to unionize. all the problems we have, engineers don't (low-ish pay, long hours with no paid overtime, sucky benefits, horrible job security, etc.) for basically the same type of work.
Granted things will level out and inflate just like they would bringing up the minimum wage, but as far as people doing the whole design/cad/project management thing our profession is on the crappy end of the scale.
On the actual subject of this thread, raising minimum wage for federal employees (only new ones) doesn't really affect anybody, and we're probably not going to see the huge, destructive wave of inflation that would come with raising the actual minimum wage. minimum wage not being enough to live on is a symptom of a larger problem, not the actual problem.
this article is half a year old but its pretty concise. beats me how we're going to fix all this.
additionally, everyone i know that's graduated school without a free ride from mom and dad is living at home with their parents and spending half their paycheck paying down loans. the price of college is getting more expensive, but the experience and quality of a college education itself isn't any different than it was 30 years ago. that half a paycheck is not going back into the economy (well, yes it is, but its probably going into someone's bonus). what's worse is that the government helps out the people that can't afford college. you might think its a good thing, but they're basically pacifying what would be a very loud and angry group of people that have been denied a college education and upward mobility. everyone they don't pay for that wants it ends up paying for it on their own by mortgaging their lives away. so we're left with this broken system because the people that would complain and create change are being appeased. i see it as one of the biggest reasons why the economy is where it is, and why there is a shrinking middle class.
Becoming an Architect is not a career path to wealth but to poverty. Not only you are hit with high students loans, insomnia after all those insane hours in the studio, If your are very lucky, not even talented, you will find a job. I could make more money working as a manager in a deli place. Most firms pay about $35-45 with a master degree. That is misery if you ask me!!
You should have worked harder while at school to acquire more useful skills during those "Insane hours" of studio time. Jobs and salaries are available to those who are worth the money. But, I guess it's easier to complain that the world is "unfair".
^ You sound like a person that is very satisfied with where they are in life. I bet you're a hoot to hangout with, can't imagine what your employers think of you. I bet you don't even gag!
Strange how being competent is seen as a negative trait here DeTwan. But, that's alright, I am sure your super unique killer sketch-up skills will make you stand-out of the rest when you're looking for that perfect job.
being competent on it's own doesn't give you a good job, a good living, or a good life at all. you need to somehow convince someone else that you're competent enough for them to give you a job, that person has to have the resources and work available to give you a job, and then that person/company has to maintain the incoming work and income to allow you to keep your job.
being competent is, of course, important. however, if there is an implied assumption that those in less fortunate positions are not competent, i think that's a failure of logic.
I think the failure in logic lies with those who assume that because they can't score their perfect job that everything everywhere in the field is a shit-storm, which is not the case. I am sure there are stellar people without decent employment but, from what I see (which is not exclusive to these forums), there is a loud minority of people who would rather claim the world is against them than make a effort.
Perhaps these are the same people as the students I've met who would rather complain about the prestige of their studio projects (museum vs strip-housing for example) then complete the work and learn something. The world/market won't bend because some whinny kid does not get what they think they deserve right out of school and I find it difficult to give such position an ounce of respect.
there are a lot of things actually happening in the world that would suggest the world is out to get people trying to enter or even stay in the job market. rosatti mentioned debt, which is a big one. the cost of education is rapidly increasing. a lot of young people are mired in debt in order to get an education that only provides a small shot at getting a job that will pay enough to cover that debt. if you're not born into a family that afford to cover the cost of your education, you really might be screwed.
add to that the unfortunate fact that architects don't really get paid that well compared to other jobs with similar education requirements. rosatti mentioned it might be possible for an architect to make more in a deli. that's probably true, which makes it very hard to start out in this career. this is in an environment where we're just coming out of a recession, so the job market is saturated after a number of people lost their jobs when a lot of architecture firms downsized or closed, while schools kept dumping more recent grads into the market to compete with for what limited job openings there were.
having said that, it does seem we're stepping out of the downturn and at least some things seem to indicate employment is starting to stabilize. at some point we should make an effort to complain less, but after 5 years of no new good news and a lot of valid reasons to complain, that might be difficult.
also, work does tend to look a lot like work. moreso than studio play. i fully agree with you that expectations should be tempered to match the real-world. i would say there is a big grey area spectrum, where some people probably have very valid reasons to complain on one end, and others are, as you mention, are just complaining for no good reason. i think it's hard to say competence is a significant factor until you're sure where any given individual sits on that spectrum.
Understood Curt, but given this is Rosatti's only post in these forums, it's not too far fetched to assume this is just another disgruntled fresh graduate discovering the working world for the first time and thinking their experience is the norm.
The last five years have been decent in my area. Loads of work and decent salary upgrades to go along (40%). I refuse to believe (without evidence) that my situation is unique.
Somehow, somewhere kids (& parents) need to understand that education does not have to be expensive and that it is an investment with risks, that salaries/cost of living is not equal everywhere (and therefore debt is relative to location as well as potential future salary).
In my experience, the expectation in architecture is more often unequal to reality than in other professions. As much as the starting salaries are unequal to education it's still better than a PhD in literature...
I'd rather the pressure be placed on legal issues (and liability) to help us take home more of our fees than we do now.
Minimum wage should be tied to cost of living (which is drastically different from region to region); and I'd prefer that SS be tied to life expectancy (as originally intended?)
@Non Sequitur The business world at large is not as certain as you make it out to be, that self-determinism will lead to professional success. If you ran your own business (which I have watched my boss do) and you go through all the trial and tribulations of success and failure with bids and project progression, without going bankrupt, failed client payments, investment capital being cancelled, architecture as a business is not that simple as you make out. There are so many factors for business success beyond personal effort. I don't think you have the experience to appreciate that and this is evidenced in your views.
Aristotle, I'll let my license and quarter-billion dollar projects speak for themselves. Don't forget to look both ways when you cross the street tonight, I feel you often forget to.
Minimum Wage and Inflation
So the Federal Government just increased the minimum wage for Federal Employees to $10.10/Hr. Thinking about how much architects make, many of the junior staff (especially the intern architects) at architectural firms make just over that amount. I obviously know that we have to adjust for inflation and other economic factors, but it depresses me that even after this adjustment, architects starting out still make similar income to those who are employed by the Federal Government at a minimum wage... thoughts?
makes me think i should work for the government. usajobs seems pretty quiet about architect jobs though.
The economy is in a tailspin. There aren't enough rich people to keep the poor employed.
Welcome to architecture as a career path! Old joke; How to become a rich architect? Marry well... Seriously, I have friends who education stopped with a GED. They make more selling cars, selling houses than I do. Ever stop to think that your relator made 7-9% selling a house and you made less designing it? Don't even get into the liability and exposure differences either. The level of effort vs pay has never been great in our profession.
I was thinking though: what skills (other than maybe rendering and drafting and critiquing architecture); what other truly useful skills do recent architecture graduates have? The way the education system is set up is that the knowledge architects really pay architects for is not really taught in school. So where is the incentive? Where is the incentive for other architects to train other architects-to-be about their craft?
well thats the thing, the part of what we do that translates into a service you can sell is literally not taught at school. so starting wages are so low simply because nobody can do anything useful, and there are way more people than jobs. architecture grads also typically want to gain experience as architects, and nothing else. thats pretty focused compared to the wide variety of jobs people get with other degrees.
in reality what we really need to increase our own wages is to unionize. all the problems we have, engineers don't (low-ish pay, long hours with no paid overtime, sucky benefits, horrible job security, etc.) for basically the same type of work.
Granted things will level out and inflate just like they would bringing up the minimum wage, but as far as people doing the whole design/cad/project management thing our profession is on the crappy end of the scale.
On the actual subject of this thread, raising minimum wage for federal employees (only new ones) doesn't really affect anybody, and we're probably not going to see the huge, destructive wave of inflation that would come with raising the actual minimum wage. minimum wage not being enough to live on is a symptom of a larger problem, not the actual problem.
this article is half a year old but its pretty concise. beats me how we're going to fix all this.
additionally, everyone i know that's graduated school without a free ride from mom and dad is living at home with their parents and spending half their paycheck paying down loans. the price of college is getting more expensive, but the experience and quality of a college education itself isn't any different than it was 30 years ago. that half a paycheck is not going back into the economy (well, yes it is, but its probably going into someone's bonus). what's worse is that the government helps out the people that can't afford college. you might think its a good thing, but they're basically pacifying what would be a very loud and angry group of people that have been denied a college education and upward mobility. everyone they don't pay for that wants it ends up paying for it on their own by mortgaging their lives away. so we're left with this broken system because the people that would complain and create change are being appeased. i see it as one of the biggest reasons why the economy is where it is, and why there is a shrinking middle class.
Becoming an Architect is not a career path to wealth but to poverty. Not only you are hit with high students loans, insomnia after all those insane hours in the studio, If your are very lucky, not even talented, you will find a job. I could make more money working as a manager in a deli place. Most firms pay about $35-45 with a master degree. That is misery if you ask me!!
Rosatti, booo-hoo hoo.
You should have worked harder while at school to acquire more useful skills during those "Insane hours" of studio time. Jobs and salaries are available to those who are worth the money. But, I guess it's easier to complain that the world is "unfair".
^ You sound like a person that is very satisfied with where they are in life. I bet you're a hoot to hangout with, can't imagine what your employers think of you. I bet you don't even gag!
Strange how being competent is seen as a negative trait here DeTwan. But, that's alright, I am sure your super unique killer sketch-up skills will make you stand-out of the rest when you're looking for that perfect job.
being competent on it's own doesn't give you a good job, a good living, or a good life at all. you need to somehow convince someone else that you're competent enough for them to give you a job, that person has to have the resources and work available to give you a job, and then that person/company has to maintain the incoming work and income to allow you to keep your job.
being competent is, of course, important. however, if there is an implied assumption that those in less fortunate positions are not competent, i think that's a failure of logic.
I think the failure in logic lies with those who assume that because they can't score their perfect job that everything everywhere in the field is a shit-storm, which is not the case. I am sure there are stellar people without decent employment but, from what I see (which is not exclusive to these forums), there is a loud minority of people who would rather claim the world is against them than make a effort.
Perhaps these are the same people as the students I've met who would rather complain about the prestige of their studio projects (museum vs strip-housing for example) then complete the work and learn something. The world/market won't bend because some whinny kid does not get what they think they deserve right out of school and I find it difficult to give such position an ounce of respect.
there are a lot of things actually happening in the world that would suggest the world is out to get people trying to enter or even stay in the job market. rosatti mentioned debt, which is a big one. the cost of education is rapidly increasing. a lot of young people are mired in debt in order to get an education that only provides a small shot at getting a job that will pay enough to cover that debt. if you're not born into a family that afford to cover the cost of your education, you really might be screwed.
add to that the unfortunate fact that architects don't really get paid that well compared to other jobs with similar education requirements. rosatti mentioned it might be possible for an architect to make more in a deli. that's probably true, which makes it very hard to start out in this career. this is in an environment where we're just coming out of a recession, so the job market is saturated after a number of people lost their jobs when a lot of architecture firms downsized or closed, while schools kept dumping more recent grads into the market to compete with for what limited job openings there were.
having said that, it does seem we're stepping out of the downturn and at least some things seem to indicate employment is starting to stabilize. at some point we should make an effort to complain less, but after 5 years of no new good news and a lot of valid reasons to complain, that might be difficult.
also, work does tend to look a lot like work. moreso than studio play. i fully agree with you that expectations should be tempered to match the real-world. i would say there is a big grey area spectrum, where some people probably have very valid reasons to complain on one end, and others are, as you mention, are just complaining for no good reason. i think it's hard to say competence is a significant factor until you're sure where any given individual sits on that spectrum.
Understood Curt, but given this is Rosatti's only post in these forums, it's not too far fetched to assume this is just another disgruntled fresh graduate discovering the working world for the first time and thinking their experience is the norm.
The last five years have been decent in my area. Loads of work and decent salary upgrades to go along (40%). I refuse to believe (without evidence) that my situation is unique.
Somehow, somewhere kids (& parents) need to understand that education does not have to be expensive and that it is an investment with risks, that salaries/cost of living is not equal everywhere (and therefore debt is relative to location as well as potential future salary).
In my experience, the expectation in architecture is more often unequal to reality than in other professions. As much as the starting salaries are unequal to education it's still better than a PhD in literature...
I'd rather the pressure be placed on legal issues (and liability) to help us take home more of our fees than we do now.
Minimum wage should be tied to cost of living (which is drastically different from region to region); and I'd prefer that SS be tied to life expectancy (as originally intended?)
@Non Sequitur The business world at large is not as certain as you make it out to be, that self-determinism will lead to professional success. If you ran your own business (which I have watched my boss do) and you go through all the trial and tribulations of success and failure with bids and project progression, without going bankrupt, failed client payments, investment capital being cancelled, architecture as a business is not that simple as you make out. There are so many factors for business success beyond personal effort. I don't think you have the experience to appreciate that and this is evidenced in your views.
Aristotle, I'll let my license and quarter-billion dollar projects speak for themselves. Don't forget to look both ways when you cross the street tonight, I feel you often forget to.
Aristotle, watch out! lol
This guy is responsible for quarter billion projects?
And he is licensed!
I hate to assume.
assume away.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.