Careers That Pay a Whole Lot Less Than You Think That's All They Make?! All through my childhood, I thought classroom teachers must make a million dollars a year. After all, look at how much they work both inside and out of the classroom. And consider the work they do -- shaping young minds. These are people who are depended on the world over to raise future generations of educated, employable adults. Some argue it is the most important job one can have in our society. But then I grew up and found out what the overwhelming majority of us have come to know -- teachers don't make a million do... view article details

A company's pay structure is the method of administering its pay philosophy. The two leading types of pay structures are the internal equity method, which uses a tightly constructed grid to ensure that each job is compensated according to the jobs above and below it in a hierarchy, and market pricing, where each job in an organization is tied to the prevailing market rate.A company needs job descriptions for all its positions so that people know where they fall within the organization. A pay structure helps answer questions about who's who, what each person's role is, and why people are compen... view article details

Paid Vacation Before Your First Day on the Job? How does the idea of taking a vacation before you've started a job sound? The pre-cation is a fairly new development in hiring perks, and both new hires and the companies giving them out are reaping the benefits. Pre-cations may be particularly valuable to new hires that have recently left a job that was very frustrating or energetically draining. These workers are often exhausted to near burnout, and although they are grateful to have a new opportunity, they are often not in the best shape (physically and mentally) to start out on the r... view article details

'Should men and women be treated as equals?'Silly question right? Of course they should. This is 2012 when women make up nearly half the workforce and have become the primary or co-breadwinners in two-thirds of all American families, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Not to mention more women than men are earning college degrees and the number of female executives continues to rise.But it might surprise you to learn women only make 77 cents on the dollar compared to men. And it's been that way for quite some time.When the Equal Pay Act was passed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, ... view article details

Under Pressure Pressure. It can take many forms.Imagine you’re just 21 years old and a senior in college. You’ve got a massive final exam that accounts for the majority of your grade, and it’s the final class in your major. While you’ve invested considerable time and effort studying, you know it all comes down to this.Now imagine that you also play on your college’s basketball team, and you’re playing for the national championship. You’re down by 1 with a few seconds left, the crowd is going insane, and they swing the ball over to you. As you launch your jump shot in front of millions... view article details

Current statistics show that, overall, women make 85 cents for every dollar a man makes. But what about in sports? When it comes to compensation, the sports world offers a lot of fascinating trends – huge, multi-year contracts, endorsement deals, and constant media attention amplifying athletes’ brands. Unfortunately, we associate these things almost exclusively with men. Even just 50 years ago, women playing sports recreationally was not widely accepted in American culture. Three Statements Often Used to Explain the Sports Pay Gap We see frequent explanations of why the gender pay gap in spor... view article details

When Buying is Better   It's the rare person who doesn't resent handing over large sums in rent every month. Even if the very idea of a 30-year mortgage makes you shiver, the fact is, over the long term, building equity in your own property is far smarter than financing someone else's. A fixed rate mortgage also locks in your monthly rate so you know that whatever your payment is, at least it will stay the same for thirty years. Even with an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) you know your monthly cost will hover within a plus or minus dollar range for the term of the mortgage. Rent, on the other ... view article details

Start With Confidence  Dealing with Realtors  House, Job, and Income  Finding the HouseWhen Renting is Better  Making the OfferWhen Buying is Better  Closing TimeIncome and Mortgage Size         Making the Offer Good real estate agents are invaluable when it comes time to make an offer on a house. Invariably the agent will provide you with a preprinted form of a purchase contract, which together you rework to fit your needs. The contract begins by identifying the focal points, buyer, seller, property location, brokers, etc., then quickly moves to the crux of the matter: the purchase price offe... view article details

New London topped our list with salary ranges above the national average, a low cost of living, and a low unemployment rate. Are you living beyond your means? Is your paycheck not stretching far enough? Perhaps you're even having trouble finding a job. Maybe it's time to jump a plane to one of the cities at the top of Salary.com's 'Salary Value' index. We found the top (and bottom) US metros for building personal net worth (taking into account local salaries, cost of living, and unemployment relative to the national average). Median base pay was correlated across more than 2,500 different benc... view article details

This summer, Americans were paying, on average, $4.09 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline to fuel the vehicles they rely on to get to and from work everyday. This represents an increase of $1.14 over the same time last year.Salary.com™ set out to calculate just how much the escalating cost of commuting to work is eating into the average worker's take home pay. To accomplish this, we established some reasonable criteria.The average worker travels, round-trip, 29 miles each day. Vehicle fuel economy varies, but we will assume an average fuel efficiency rate of 18.8 miles per gallon. We will... view article details