Are You Being Paid Enough? Job Salaries Discussion

After a discussion over dinner of the difference of salaries and the relationship between workers and executives in America a discussion is opened about the differential between salaries of workers and executives in the United States. Knowingly, other countries have significantly smaller differentials especially Japan. About a 10 percent of the difference that is typical in the United States. (Maciones, 2004)

To understand more about the Wages in the United States, I visited payscale.com. This is a site that compares your salary with other salaries in the United States; furthermore you can look up pay by job titles.

In the United States, I feel that benefits outweigh pay scales. Although in many companies the salary ranges may differ, but most if not all employees receive the same benefits. This can include stock options, 401k retirement plans, health care benefits, and other programs like wellness programs. To fully understand the difference between these salaries in other countries I feel we would need to examine the benefits that come along with them. For instance, many car manufacturers offer cars at great discounts to their employee's. These types of benefits are extremely beneficial to the employee and employer.

Could these differentials lead to class conflict that Karl Marx and Max Weber predicated would eventually occur in capitalist societies? How many times have you heard the dwindling middle class in the United States? Or the rich get richer while the poor get poorer? We also see the differential in our court systems and health care. While those that have money get better treatment, better doctors etc. Even those with money can afford to buy their way out of tickets and other crimes in the United States.

As a society isn't every one a little raciest against those that don't have money. Would you treat someone with missing teeth the same as someone who could afford proper dentist care their whole life? What about the power of beauty? An Actor once put on a fat suit and was embarrassed by the way people treated her and starred at her. Maybe this person didn't have the money to have lipeo-suction.

We live in a society where it takes money to look good, to wear the right shoes and cloths, drive the right care, live in the right house. Karl Marx and Max Weber were correct there are differentials between the classes in a capitalist society.

References:

Maciones, J. J. (2004). Sociology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Payscale.com, 2006, website review