In the United States, the average salary was $1,521 in 1920 and 1921. Compared to the average income today, this is hardly even a dollar a week. Inflation has increased the price of living and it is no surprise that our salary has increased exponentially since then. On the other hand, general weight of belongings has stayed pretty much the same since then. So what does $1,000 buy today that it didn’t in 1913?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that the average annual income of men and women in the U.S. in 1920 was around $530. Let’s break down this salary by month to get a better sense of how much people made per week in 1920:
Average salary in 1920
This is such an interesting list! I love old school numbers, and I was curious what the average salary situation was like back in 1920. It would be interesting to make a similar list for now in 2017. Thanks for this list!
The overall conclusion here is that architecture was the lowest paying profession in 2016, relative to the other professions on this list. Surgeons were the highest paid, at an average of $357,200 per year. In general, doctors and surgeons were among the top paid professions since 1920. An interesting trend also developed for teachers over the years: though teachers had been consistently among one of the lowest paid professions since 1920, their income has been rising gradually relative to other professions. At present, a teacher’s income is more than double what it was in 1920!
I thought the 1920 numbers were especially interesting because they were after the big depression, and if you look at the graph, wages just went up during that time period. There was no reason to believe they would go down after that. Of course we still had the depression in 1928 but that’s in part due to what came out of World War 1. I was wondering because it seems like wages typically do go up when people don’t have other options, etc Not sure if i said what I meant to say but this is an interesting topic
Fortunately, UX design jobs are plentiful. Understandably, many designers are attracted to Silicon Valley, but it’s not the only place you can work in a career that is both creative and analytical. The national average for income for UX designers is $92K, but some cities pay far more than the average:
Given today’s tech landscape, where the bottom seems to drop out every couple of years and new paradigms must be established, what should a designer know to make him or her relevant in 2018?
