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Topic: How to survive on media salary
| Author | Message |
| magpub07 | Posted – 7/23/2007 2:09:24 PM | show profile | email poster Entering the media workforce and living on your own for the first time can be a daunting experience. How do you create a budget when there are so many bills to pay? How many dependents should you claim on your tax forms? And did you know that if you make below $65k, you should be able to deduct all your student loan interest? mediabistro.com is hosting a seminar, co-taught by a CPA and a financial planner, to answer all of your financial questions. Learn what you need to do to control your finances now -- and plan ahead. http://www.mediabistro.com/courses/cache/crs2948.asp |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 7/23/2007 4:29:11 PM | show profile What is so hard about it? I'm seriously not getting why it's such a "challenge" for some people to "survive" on media salaries. I have people on my show making less than $40K who are living on their own (no roommates) who are "surviving" just fine. I also know families in this city who "survive" on just one teacher's salary (a lesbian couple I know doesn't even clear $60K and yet they're raising three kids and OWN a small house in Brooklyn). I think the problem with many entry-level types is that they just don't want to struggle. They lived a certain lifestyle all their lives in Mommy and Daddy's house, carried that lifestyle over into college, and *expect* to remain at that same lifestyle. It doesn't work that way. Nor does it work in real life the way it appeared to work for the Sex and the City girls. If you can't "survive" on $50K or $60K, the problem isn't your salary. The problem is YOU. Perhaps the seminar advertised above is just what the doctor ordered. |
| Bee News | Posted – 7/23/2007 5:12:43 PM | show profile 50-60 thousand for an entry level media position?! Amazing, because I haven't heard of that...not for TV anyway... Last time I checked for the big networks PAs were making about 14 bucks an hour with no health insurance...and that is in NYC. Try the midwest... positions in TV there aren't full time and you are lucky if you make about 9 dollars an hour. |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 7/23/2007 5:30:05 PM | show profile Welcome to the world in which we ALL started ... My first broadcasting job out of college in the early '90s paid $4.25/hour. If you're good, you'll move up quickly. If you're not, you find another career. |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 7/23/2007 5:56:16 PM | show profile And another thing ... ...adjusted for inflation, my starting rate in 1991 of $4.25/hour, according to the Consumer Price Index, would only be $6.32/hour today. Comparatively speaking, 9 bucks an hour sounds like a sweet deal. And yes, I started out in the Midwest ... and yes, even back then, the entry-level jobs were part-time. My job was even LESS than part-time, actually -- 1 day one week, 2 days the next, 5 days the third week, NO days for the next two weeks, etc. I, like all my other entry-level broadcast contemporaries, did whatever it took to pay the rent: temp work ... telemarketing ... waiting tables. It's what you do when you're starting out. |
| noname1234 | Posted – 7/23/2007 6:56:53 PM | show profile But Matt, why just because you survived completely crap pay (I mean, your adjusted hourly pay was barely higher than the federal minimum wage and lower than the minimum wage in many states) should everyone who follows you also have to endure that? Why shouldn't we want to make things better and fairer and push for media companies -- at least large ones who most definitely can afford it -- to pay a decent living wage to employees at every level? It's not like we're all going through hazing at a giant fraternity (or is it?). And full disclosure: I'm not an entry-level employee and I do make a decent living wage. I wish more people in this industry could say the same. |
| Bee News | Posted – 7/23/2007 8:23:42 PM | show profile Matt, I think most of us who are or are trying to enter the broadcasting world are well aware of the low paying salaries. Those who are lucky enough to enter into the field and work up the ladders are just that lucky. Not everyone that is young relies on mommy and daddy. I was mainly referring to your comment about the 50-60 k comment. I totally agree if someone can't survive on that then they do have issues; however, it sure isn't going to be an entry-level position. Of course, 9 dollars in the Midwest is good, that the upper end of the St. Louis market. Now, when you are offered jobs that are 42 hours a week and salary of $15,000 with limited health insurance ? I think that is when you may struggle with your bills. These days, who hasn?t waited tables or worked an odd job? I think if you are passionate about your career you are willing to make a move and start low on the totem pole and on the pay scale. I know I would be willing to make the drastic pay cut to do it; however, I am not quite willing to quit a great job and move away without something lined up. |
| Bee News | Posted – 7/23/2007 8:24:14 PM | show profile Matt, I think most of us who are or are trying to enter the broadcasting world are well aware of the low paying salaries. Those who are lucky enough to enter into the field and work up the ladders are just that lucky. Not everyone that is young relies on mommy and daddy. I was mainly referring to your comment about the 50-60 k comment. I totally agree if someone can't survive on that then they do have issues; however, it sure isn't going to be an entry-level position. Of course, 9 dollars in the Midwest is good, that the upper end of the St. Louis market. Now, when you are offered jobs that are 42 hours a week and salary of $15,000 with limited health insurance ? I think that is when you may struggle with your bills. These days, who hasn?t waited tables or worked an odd job? I think if you are passionate about your career you are willing to make a move and start low on the totem pole and on the pay scale. I know I would be willing to make the drastic pay cut to do it; however, I am not quite willing to quit a great job and move away without something lined up. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 7/23/2007 8:33:22 PM | show profile You can survive on it. But don't think you can live a life around it. You can't support a family of three on that kind of salary. Not in Brooklyn--not once they hit jr and sr high school age. I lived there, in Park Slope. The public jr and sr high schools SUCK. All the parents who want to give their kids a decent education go private at that point. And you can't afford a NYC (Manhattan or Brooklyn) private school salary on 40, 50, or 60 K a year. Not unless you've got some secret account or Grammy or Grandpa is paying for it. So do it now, hope to hell you marry rich (outside of your field, unless it's a magazine publishing EXEC or OWNER) and when you get serious about getting a life (having kids, owning a home, etc) get out. |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 7/23/2007 8:48:33 PM | show profile granitegirl, you must have an inflated idea of "survival" I know of at least THREE families in Brooklyn surviving on a single teacher's salary. One family has four kids. One family has three kids and they own a house. Another family has two teenagers. No one makes more than $70K. Two of the families make under $60K. It CAN be done, and it IS being done. |
| mailbag | Posted – 7/23/2007 9:37:12 PM | show profile | email poster Matt it is being done, there is no doubt. I think the perception however is skewed. Hypothetically -- how many of these people you describe 1,) were in their residence for 5yrs or more? and 2,) for the $40k assistant - how did they qualify for the rent? A friend or M&D co-sign? I do think there is a cut off point for the independents -- and $40k is not the end - even in Manhattan. (Especially for someone like me who is already here.) $40k in fact is a good starting salary in this profession I think. You have never met me in person Matt, so trust me when I say I have a pretty fking good CV. But there is no way in hell I would command my current salary to jobs in this city today. Twenty years experience means shit. Yeah yeah debate all you want and tell me what a loser I am and just don't cut-it in the new elite media world, that isn't the point. If someone can pay $27k for even an entry level job, they can pay $40k. And that LITTLE difference not only makes it work, but they at least have an employee who can feed himself. God forbid Matt that you lose your job... grand ideas and observations change when a triple digit salary falls to nil. |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 7/23/2007 9:45:55 PM | show profile Mailbag ... 1) 1 family was in their residence for 10 years. The other two have been in their residences for less than five. 2) The people I know making 40K make the rent either by living in the Bronx/Queens/NJ, or they have roommates. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 7/24/2007 1:28:36 AM | show profile OK, matt, so if they've been in Brooklyn before gentrification, their rent is probably low. Also WHERE in Brooklyn? I was talking about park Slope. Right off Seventh Avenue. near the Connecticut Muffin. Where the best public grammar school is located. Fine for six years. Then the parents I knew while I lived there --in 2000-2001--sent their kids to private school or moved. because the public jr and sr high schools--especially right down the block from 1st street and seventh avenue--SUCKED. Sure, you can survive in manhattan on 40K. A family of twelve can probably survive in Manhattan on less than that. half of that. Especially if they're from the Dominican Republic or Mexico and that's their basis of comparision. The homeless survive in manhattan on nothing--or close to it. So I guess I'm not talking about "survival". I'm talking about quality of life and good education for those you are responsible for. And you roll the dice in most New York public schools. Sorry, but it's true. Same is true in California. Now, I have no idea where these families you speak of live, or whether or not they have second homes with inheritance, in jersey or CT or somewhere, that allows the children to attend school there--or if because their parents are teachers they are able to navigate their children's education in the public school system. I don't know what the particulars are, but I do know that I would NEVER EVER EVER recommend anyone raise a family in NYC on $40K. (Read Vince Pissaro's essay published in Harpers, back in the late 90s, about going broke in NYC on $125,000 a year. He details pretty much everything, They lived in Harlem. His wife was a teacher. In fact, Michael Wolfe has penned the same complaints, adding that the only reason they were able to get their child into a private school --as the public schools in their Manhattan neighborhood were deplorable-- was through a connection his wife had through a family member who'd gone to college with a guy--and, he added, some "family money" they came into, I believe. That was published in New York Mag, in 2003, I believe) So I'm not the only one with a "skewed" sense of what it costs to live in manhattan. I just know for a fact that to do it right costs a lot. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 7/24/2007 1:37:38 AM | show profile And of course the Bronx and Queens! Well that explains it a bit better. But --this poster is talking about Manhattan, I believe. So let's keep our focus on that little delight of a life of a family of four on $40K. I knew one guy who moved back home to Brooklyn--waaaayyyy out in Brooklyn--- after grad school, in the mid eighties, to work as a reporter (his own place, two blocks from where he grew up). He had to buy a car for work, so that was a big cost. He made so little he never made enough to move to Manhattan, or even closer to Manhattan. So he moved to Philly instead and works there to this day. He's got two kids and says it ain't gonna happen. Not on his salary--which is in the six figures. This a guy out of the Brooklyn public schools. He won't move his family there. He thinks they can do better right where he is. I told this poster to do it for a while and when her life starts involving those who depend on her for their well-being and education, get the hell out. I stand by that advice. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 7/24/2007 1:42:13 AM | show profile Also, someone inform me (as this IS a post about MEDIA salaries) what's the job security like in the media in Mahattan/NYC these days? The job security of a teacher --especially a public school teacher--is pretty good right? And don't some pretty good benefits and retirement packages come out of a job like like? Teachubing that is. I mean, I know the salary ain't great, but my in-laws are set because of her teacher's retirement package--and this is in a po-dunk town. So I'm thinking Manhattan, New York City--I know the teaching salaries are higher--can anyone weigh in? How hard is it to lose a job like that? What's the retirement like? Cause I've always understood the job security to be pretty good, especially compared to media jobs and especially these days, where magazines are folding left and right and newspapers are losing money and laying off employees and no one is watching network television anymore. Seems ti indicate the job security ain't so hot in media. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 7/24/2007 1:44:28 AM | show profile Fibally, when is a parent working "whatever it does to pay the rent", including three or four jobs--have time to parent????? |
| ManhattanMatt | Posted – 7/24/2007 4:00:14 AM | show profile Granitegirl ... "Fibally, when is a parent working "whatever it does to pay the rent", including three or four jobs--have time to parent?????" I'll start with your quote above. I was talking about a 20-something who's just starting his or her career in media. Presumably, said 20-something is smart enough not to start a family he or she cannot yet afford so they CAN do "whatever it takes" to pay the rent. Quite frankly, that advice applies to anyone considering raising a child AND starting a career with notoriously low starting salaries. Salaries are not based on the external choices and situations of individual employees. You raised questions about my friends with families in Brooklyn, and how they could afford to send their kids to school. The answer is: PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Yes, the local ones. A school is as good as what the kid makes of it. My friends have not bought into the "elite school" mentality for their children. Also, you mentioned that we should restrict our discussion to living on 40K in MANHATTAN. As I've mentioned before, Manhattan is not a birthright. No one ever said that Manhattan should be affordable to ANYONE and EVERYONE who wants to live there. I'd like to be a full-time basket weaver and live in a Classic Six on Fifth. But life doesn't always work out the way we want. So I chose a more lucrative job so I COULD live in Manhattan. Have I answered your questions? |
| seeattleme | Posted – 7/24/2007 5:36:51 AM | show profile Matt: if you go back to the response (of mine)you responded to, you should see that I wasn't talking about the poster when she was in her 20s and single. I was referring to the time beyond that, which is why I said: DO IT FOR AWHILE AND THEN GET THE HELL OUT WHEN YOU GET SERIOUS WITH YOUR LIFE(ie have kids, ect etc, I can't recall). You implied I don't think someone can survive on 40K in NY, or NYC or manhattan, and as someone who survived on $17,500, with no help (i'm out of the foster system, out of state) I assure you, I know that one can. But I wouldn't so arrogant or onbnoxious enough to suggest that anyone do that (your credit rating takes a beating, for one, and its hard to kill the roaches in your apartment when you can't see them cause the electricity has been turned off. And there are the brokers who laugh in your face when they look at your application, and ask for your parents tax forms for the past four years...and your thirty fucking five...that's fun) and I wouldn't be so insensitive or superior to scoff at someone who finds living on that kind of salary unimaginable. Cause suffering has made me empathetic and sympathetic, not an asshole. The public schools in NYC suck. I'm sorry but they do. Wax poetic all you like about how you make a school out to what it can be for you--yeah, I saw that movie too. Very inspiring--especially when all the students crowd around the teacher and hug and kiss them when their etst scores got them into Princeton. Right. But the facts are the facts, the tests scores are the test scores, the admissions rates are the admissionrates, and getting out of a shitty high school to get into a shitty state school , well, it's not impossible but very difficult to get into a job at Hearst or Conde Nast. UNless youre british, but that's an altogether other matter. Hell, I know people who barely got into CN coming out of Michigan! She was told by some HR person, "we haven't hired someone from Michigan in awhile!" If the NY public schools were adequate, there wouldn't be so many well to do media types moving OUT of the city or putting their kids in private schools. And since this was a media post on a media board by a media person, I'm keeping my focus to that leaning. And of course, that includes Manhattan. because her post was about Manhattan. I never said it was a birthright. CAn you find that in my post? That's your own issue. What I sadi was, youa re going to have a hard time finding, keeping, and advancing onto a media job in any of the big magazines if you DON'T live in Manhattan, or at least nearby. And everywhere else nearby is just as expensive--I hear Queens is gaining, from a girl who worked at Vogue and said that Queens is the "new Brooklyn". It's the hot spot to live, she informed me, toddling on her four inch stillettos. Whatever. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 7/24/2007 5:47:31 AM | show profile you know what else is fun? as a twenty four year old woman in manhattan? on real late night closes, say, one or two pm, when your company is too cheap to pay for a car home and you have to take the subway or walk because you are down to your last 20 bucks...walking to 5th between C and D (this is before gentrification) past the crack house amd Tomkins Square park, getting home just after 3 am. That happened four nights every two weeks or so for the five years I worked my way up. On a salary that increased from $17,500 to a whopping $23,000. Doable? Sure. WOuld I do it again. probably not. WOuld I let MY daughter do it? Absofuckinglutely not. |
| seeattleme | Posted – 7/24/2007 5:49:34 AM | show profile sorry that's one or two A>M> as in, in the morning. One or two PM was when we were allowed to come in the next day. But actually it was more like 11 am. A cab was out of the question. Back then, cabbies would only take you to Avenue A, anyway. I feel for you entry levelers. At least Manhattan is safer these days, right????? That;s what they kept telling us at the time. |
| mailbag | Posted – 7/24/2007 8:29:49 AM | show profile | email poster In my view Manhattan is safe yes. And maybe that accounts for some of the appeal to 20-somethings on up... lets face it parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, that have so called affordable rent reflect that way of life. Get what you pay for. You want roaches galore? Crack heads at front door? Boy do I have a studio for you on $40k a year in Queens. That of course is a societal problem this nation can't get past in our squalor prone mental state. Even the slums of Paris (to which I've seen first hand) do not have roaches. In fact the slums are quite nice compared with USA slums. I personally do not see how this will change though -- regulation, policy enforcement, I don't think those issues would solve it either. |
| Lizard Breath | Posted – 7/24/2007 10:45:11 AM | show profile The board reminds me of a cover of the New Yorker that I saw once. It was a cartoon map of the U.S. and New York is huge and detailed, then there is a small section labled "everything else" and then the Pacific Ocean. It was titled "The View by a New Yorker" or something like that. Yes, there is a world outside NYC. I live on the east coast and I am crossing my fingers for an entry level job that will pay me 24K. I am currently temping for $10/hr in the meantime. I am able to make ends meet, without government or parental assistance, because I share a small one bedroom apartment with my boyfriend, who kicks in his own deplorable wage. I know NYC is different, but I can't help but laugh when I read that someone is paid *gasp* 75k!!! That's freaking riches to me. And although it is a nice thought, school is NOT what you make it. My sister taught in the Chicago Public School system (on the south side). She taught a catch-up program for kids who couldn't pass 8th grade. She had 17-year-olds in her classes. Some didn't care, yes, but the administration wrote all the students off a long time ago. In fact, in staff meetings, it was commonly stated that they shouldn't even bother will college prep since the students would never go to college anyway. When she argued that they should at least give them a chance to learn what they need for college admissions, she was laughed at. Many of the students did not speak English at home, and a large portion of those who did, had parents that didn't make it past 8th grade themselves. Help at home was not an option for most. Parent-teacher confrences were difficult at best. The school was poor, they could not afford clocks and didn't have a prinicpal for about 2 months. Fights were an everyday occurance. My sister was forced to teach an entire class period in a classroom with pools of blood, because nobody would come to clean it up after a fight. She was eventually fired from that job. The offical reason was that she couldn't control her classroom. She had recieved an award for "classroom management" the previous month. The real reason was that the bullshit CPS teachers union had just negotiated new contracts, which gave schools the ok to fire teachers for little or no reason. She and hundreds of other teachers were fired from the school system that year because they were approaching tenure, including several math and science teachers, of which there is a severe shortage. She taught in another low-income area outside of CPS that had startling drop-out rates. Many times, though, the students were not dropping out because they didn't care, or because they had to support a child they were "stupid enough" to have. They dropped out because they had to help support their younger siblings because their single mother could not make enough to put food on the table. I can't say I wouldn't make the same choice when confronted with younger siblings that didn't have enough to eat. So, things aren't always just what you make it. If only life could be that simple. Usually, there is a much bigger story behind the scenes. No Child Left Behind my ass. |
| mailbag | Posted – 7/24/2007 12:09:32 PM | show profile | email poster Lizard - this is slightly off topic, but hits the NYer mag cover you mentioned. Since 9.11 in particular, I would rather take the cyanide tablet than leave Manhattan. 99% is for political reasons. I despise the USA at this moment in time for actively approving of dictatorial rule under dictator GW Bush. Twice. That certainly is personal, and my choice. I have had this black cloud of depression hanging over me (my active political friends say the same) since January 2001. And for whatever reason it doesn't exist in Manhattan. So there is a side bar to the salary question. If I am forced to leave due to low salary, it is more than just "oh, I have to move to make ends meet." It is TO ME anyway, moving out of the only microclimate of what we once had, and into neo nazism led by this country's White House. Double penalty. |
| Lizard Breath | Posted – 7/24/2007 12:43:25 PM | show profile My post was not intended to exploit the fact that New Yorkers want to stay in NY. It was merely an amusing observation which I though was fitting on this board in general. Everybody has their own personal/emotional attachment to places that they have called home, and many choose to stay in a place, and make sacrifices to stay in that place, based on those values. I do not judge people who do this. I am sure you have weighed your values and your options, and have made your decision based on what balance is the best for you, perhaps a smaller apartment for that feeling that you get in Manhattan. This makes sense. Plus, it appears that you are single and do not have children. So you have the freedom to do this. I do not think a person should sacrifice their child's safety/education for their own perogatives. But in your case, have at it. Damned if I care, that's your business. |
| mailbag | Posted – 7/24/2007 1:54:10 PM | show profile | email poster I know LB. There are truly those who are Manhattan snobs for reasons I do not agree with. I'm just calling attention to the issue (my issue) that giving it up is more than just a financial sacrifice. Call it -- giving up god to those who believe in religion. That is equal for me. |
