I'm currently working as a technical writer in South Carolina. I was being paid $45k salary before a 3% raise this year, so it's like $46.5k now or something? Not sure.
In every way except pay, I love my job. It's WFH, low supervision (not micro-managed and no spyware and stuff), allowed to be productive at my own pace so long as I meet deadlines, I get along with my supervisor and coworkers (which with my lack of social skills isn't always a guarantee), I actually enjoy the work that I do and feel good and accomplished about it. There's even some slight benefits like bonuses twice a year (between $1-2k each so far).
When I look at other people in my area, especially people who are struggling to find a job at all, working in factories or gas stations or other retail jobs, they can hardly crack $13/hr. Even if I were to look for a better paying job, I don't know that I'd even find one.
But when I get on reddit or when my coworkers talk about expected income for the position, it feels like I'm making half of what I should be for the type of work I'm doing. And I am definitely in the high percentage of americans that are 2 paychecks away from disaster. Heck I'm probably one paycheck away. I do a pretty good job of juggling my bills around and staying in the black 95% of the time and still have some to spend on entertainment and such… but long-term expensive stuff like healthcare and auto care and such tends to be indefinitely back-burnered. I have no savings of any kind and can't afford to put any away without reducing what little quality of life I have.
And rent keeps going up every 6 month lease renewal. Rent going up in September has me really thinking about this.
So I know the internet and reddit and stuff covers a lot of ground and different regions have different expectations for pay. But it does make me feel a little bad when I see people talking about salaries above $50k as if they're no big deal or even six figures being attainable for people half my age.
When I look at my friends and neighbors I'm like “well I'm definitely leading the pack” and feel grateful that I've got a 'well-paying' job. But then I compare myself with people on reddit who say things like “$27/hr is nothing” and I'm like..bwuh?
It's hard to reconcile the discordance of experiences. Any advice? How do you know if you're underpaid?