Ask HN: How are you handling salary/compensation with high inflation?
Curious to get peoples opinions about the current state of inflation and compensation.
Have you broached this subject with your company/ boss? Are you waiting till stuff gets really crazy with inflation? Do you think this will pass and October was just abnormal?
53 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 66.1 ms ] threadI cannot buy a car at a reasonable price. I'm in manufacturing and our company is constantly rising prices due to shipping issues and high cost to ship overseas.
This will pass, imo but I'm not an economist. I'm just a schmuck with CS degree that can tap a keyboard and produce some code.
I got a MASSIVE (50%) raise this year so I'm going to wait till my next review to worry about inflation.
However, the longer this lasts the harder it's going to be to get out of this hole because we really should be focusing more on the long term consequences and decisions. If anything this time has proven that some links in our supply chain are fragile. How that's fixed is a mixture of business changes, technology changes, and political changes, but they must be fixed. This time has also shown that there aren't enough leaders willing to take responsibility and fix the problem. I'd love for a Gates/Musk/Bezos to step up and offer help to the governments that want it. I'd love for the US government to actually get some input from people that run real businesses too.
things are gonna collapse soon, so I'm going to chill here until that blows over, while being thankful to have a job, and then I'll probably move on to a company that looks better on paper but proves to be somehow even worse with raises in reality.
I regret having kids, because they are going to have a very difficult time.
Just switch to a mostly stock based comp.
I don't disagree with you, it's just.. not relevant? Obviously if your compensation is too low to invest anything, you need it all in cash. It will be anyway. My suggestion was that cash is king as it's flexible anyway, so that's not even incompatible.
This strategy cannot really be reproduced by investing your after-tax paycheck into the stock.
It’s “similar” (not really but I like the analogy) to buying a house with cash vs getting a mortgage for the maximum amount you can get away with and slowly paying it off. Massive difference by the end of the investment.
The market will do what it's going to do. Hopefully whatever corrections come do so before the normal folks endure too much more pain. Even if not it's your responsibility to your children to show them that you fight through the struggles. Yes, it's hard. But the human race has been through worse. You can do it.
almost anyone will crush another human for just a small amount of money. there is no sense of community, overall; we are all just finding new ways to hate each other.
we are doomed.
we're hiding behind the quick dopamine hits and pretending things aren't as bad as they are.
You feel the situation is worse than say 1929? 1939? 1968? 1973? 2001? 2008?
today's richest simply can not be satisfied by money. no amount is ever enough, and today's richest are far better at acquisition of wealth than any previous generation.
the growth of wealth inequality is the worst it's ever been and shows no signs of slowing down until there is literally no more money to extract.
you've missed my entire statement and sentiment because of an error. well done.
World War 2 wasn't as bad as The Great Depression, of course, because WW2 resulted in a very strong economy for a long period in the US, and until the Dollar ceased being backed by gold, wages for blue and white collar workers raised at the same rate.
In fact, I would argue that WW2 doesn't even belong on that list if you're in the US. There were shortages and rationing, but everyone knew it was for a good cause and that it was the right thing to do, including the very few extremely wealthy people of the day.
Today's extremely wealthy view you and I as complete fodder, to be used and tossed aside as necessary, if it brings them any closer at all to an increase in the value of their stock portfolio.
- Some companies pay part of the salary in a stronger currency (USD) - I get this is probably not viable for your current scenario, and it a perk I don't actually get, but my wife does.
- Some companies have quarterly or bi-monthly inflation rate adjustments, this is semi-automatic, we subscribe to an independent party that measures inflation and whatever number they come with goes, this is because Argentina has a history of fudging the numbers to make the government look good.
It will still require adjustments from the individuals, even if you have a cooperating employer, for example you probably want to buy stuff as soon as you get paid, otherwise you are losing money.
What about crypto? I was also under the impression that Argentina had strong crypto use as savings.
The inflation that I really worry about is the increasing extremism driven by social networks with their likes and bubble forming algorithms.
This is extremely serious, considering that housing is one of the most important product people pay for.
Thankfully salary inflation here has been great.
A year later it was $1.26/gal.
If the fed raises interest rates, the corporate debt levels are unsustainable and a recession will ensue, but housing will return to normal prices as institutional bond purchases resume. If not, more of the same. This is all 2008 and quantitative easing playing out... The fed wants to prevent market busts and as a result will create more drastic busts playing with fire.
It's very easy to get a 6 figure job in IT. It's not very easy to get a job in IT that can promise a 9-5 workday.
Why bother giving them the protest? Because they've been a good place to work, and have mostly been sane in how they make decisions. If they blow one, I'll give them a chance to fix it... for a little while. Probably not forever, though.
Im going to be negotiating off of that figure.
Basically what we're seeing is the inevitable collapse of 50 years of supply-side economics (or "Reagonomics" or "Trickle Down Economics", as it's often referred to as). The inevitable result of this is wealth stratification and ultimately demand implosion.
The next 10 years should be interesting.
The easiest strategy is dollar-cost averaging Bitcoin. You can learn more about it here: https://dollarcostbitcoin.com/
We shall see. I feel like at big corps they want to nickle and dime you. All while there’s people at my rank who do absolutely nothing and submit a PR a month or so.
Yes. The answer from the company is that they believe in mainstream economists (including those at the Fed) who are saying the inflation is transitory. So compensation will not change beyond the usual salary raises / bonuses / equity refreshes etc.