Now my american friends and family make less than I do. A lot less. To them $36k is a lot of money. I don't get it. How can anyone live on that salary? My friend's husband is a marine and he makes just over $30'000. That's what I was making working at KFC when I was 19! How do you guys survive on such low salaries?
Downsizing became a trend around the Reagan era, and it never had a reversal. So people who used to make pretty good wages, may have been downsized from jobs where they had advanced to better wages. If and when they were able to get re-employed, they may have had huge wage cuts, and didn't recover for many years.
The average person now doesn't have a job that is what we would have called good. Those jobs went to China or other countries. We just have joke jobs now.
How they survive? They hang on for dear damn life. They live on credit cards. They lose their houses.
Life ain't what it used to be, by a long shot.
Pay Scales Canada lists the average salary for a heavy equipment operator at C$47,424 a year in a range of C$36,148 - C$94,810 a year. At $70,0000, you are in the top 10% of wage earners in your profession in Canada.
Yes, there are places in Canada where people earn salaries much higher than the median. Northern Alberta has (had) an oil and gas boom. Northern BC, the Yukon and North West Territories has a large mining boom. However, they are generally expensive remote areas and many people don't want to work there. Likewise there are places in Alaska, Texas, other areas where you can earn that salary. Just not many.
Most jobs in the US earn about the same as those in Canada -- especially if you factor in the exchange rate. Some pay more (entertainment, business, senior executives, lawyers, politicians, military, etc.) and some pay less (teachers, tourism, retail, etc.). However... once you factor in taxes and living costs... most Americans are 10%-20% ahead and if you factor in education and health care... it's a wash.
Your being paid higher than 90% of people in your profession in Canada is not proof that Americans are paid a lot less.
Actually wages are overall quite good in the USA. However, fast food workers, unskilled labor and entry level retail don't pay well, but are meant to be entry points to the field, not a career.
Those with education and experience do very well in the USA.
Obama has turned the U.S. into a part time job country. The average middle income wage is now 11% lower then the day he took office, thats how bad he has made the job situation in the U.S. Its a disgrace thats its dropped off so much but bad policies and attacking our own companies will do that.
$30,000/year in KFC in Canada?!?!
Here in Philippines, salary of high ranked corporate employee is way lower than that!
