When I was 26 I became a newspaper reporter for a small but well-known weekly publication. I was pursuing my writing dream and it felt great. Until I realized that in order to be a writer (my dream!), I had to take a pay cut from what I had been making in social services. I had not realized any other career actually paid less than social services until I became a reporter. My social services wage of $14.85 an hour was cut by more than $3 an hour down to a low $11 something an hour when I signed on as a reporter.
At 26 I literally became a starving artist.
It occurred to me at the time that the wage I was earning was less than what people make while working at McDonalds. To me, my pay was McDonalds level for the educated class. Needless to say, I didn't last long as a full time reporter - a scant six months. I saw the writing on the wall immediately. (No pun intended.) I saw how hard reporters worked and how little they got paid even when they had real experience (something I didn't have). When I handed in my resignation to my editor, she looked at me and said, Why are you doing this to me? I actually felt bad when she said that. It wasn't anything personal. But I could leave reporting to become a secretary at a law firm making $15 an hour. It was a no-brainer.
As it happens, times haven't changed all that much in four years which is somewhat depressing when I consider that cost of living has gone up, and that I live in California where cost of living is nearly double what it was for me when I lived in Wisconsin.
Perhaps my search elements need to be adjusted during my job searches? I can't even describe how many jobs I see posted with an egregious pay amount for any educated or non-educated Californian. Minimum wage in California is $8. There are many open positions offering the bonus pay of $2 to $4 an hour above minimum wage.
Are you kidding me? That's a ridiculous wage in the Midwest let alone in exorbitant-cost-of-living-land here on the West Coast. To be fair, I see a lot of jobs for $11 to $13 an hour or $12 to $15 an hour. Every once in awhile I might see a job for $15 to $20 an hour, but those jobs seem to require a Masters degree and/or 5 to 10 years of experience.
I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. I'm uncertain if all these jobs that offer such shoddy pay exist in normal economic conditions, or if companies can get away with low-balling prospective employees because harsh economic times at some point or another demand (after so many months of living off unemployment) that people just take a job. Any job. A job that (after taxes) pays substantially less than what he or she was making on unemployment.
It's sickening.
I feel caught between a rock and hard place. Will I ever make the money I was making before? Or am I doomed to go back to the me at age 26, making $11 an hour, paying double for rent here in California of what I paid for rent in Wisconsin, and waitressing or bartending as my second job just to make ends meet? Is this the point where I go back to school and incur more debt and finish my Masters degree and hope to catapult my income through education? Or would I simply become an overly educated still unemployed person who has to default on paying back her school loans and spiral into greater debt? (I recently read a scary story on yahoo.com about a woman who became a physician's assistant and now owes $500,000 in student loans from ballooning interest on defaulted payments. No thanks! Not for me.)
Last night Daniel called. He has two potential jobs offers. The first would pay him $64.10 an hour and have great benefits. The second would pay him $74 an hour and have no benefits. No matter where he ends up, he will get a raise in pay from what he makes now at Aeorospace Company X. I am definitely happy for him. Of course I want him to get a job before his current job ends. Of course I don't want the both of us to be on unemployment.
I realize that he has 15 years of experience in the industry and I don't even have 15 months. But it seems slightly unfair to me that he (who still has a job) has two potential jobs lined up and will make even more money than he already does; while I (no longer have a job) have no potential jobs lined up and with the jobs available to me will likely get paid $20 or more less an hour than what I was making at Aerospace Company X.
At age 30, with seven years of professional experience, in this wonderful economic time, the best I can seem to do is $15 an hour, a wage I was making at 26 with 3 years of professional experience under my belt.
Someday I long to experience real professional success. That day is not today.
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