What exactly is a “bad,” “standard,” or “good” annual raise? If I am told a hard percentage and don't get it, should I look elsewhere?
"TLDR:  You will probably need to move to a different employer to get the raise you want/need/deserve. Some employers, in the US, punish longevity through a number of practices.  My wife worked as a nurse for about 20 years.  During that time she had many employers, leveraging raises with job changes.  She quit nursing about 6 years ago and was being paid $38/hour at the time.  She had a friend that worked in the same system for 18 years.  They had the same position in the same hospital that friend's current rate of pay:  $26/hour.  You probably don't want to be that person. Given your Stack Overflow participation, I would assume you are some type of web developer.  I would recommend updating your resume, and moving for a 20% increase or more.  You'll get it as it is a great time to be a web developer.  Spending on IT tends to go in cycles, and right now budgets are very healthy for hiring new talent.   While your current company might not have enough money in the budget to give you a raise, they would not hesitate hiring someone with your skills at 95K if they had an opening.  Its common, but frustrating to all that are involved except the bean counters that looks at people like us as commodities.   Think about this:  both sides of the table agree that you deserve a 5K raise.  But lets say next year only 3k is in the budget.   So you are out the 5k you should have been given this year, plus the 2k that you won't get, plus whatever raise was fair for you next year.  That is a lot of money!  Time to go! Don't bother on holding onto any illusions of a counter offer by your current employer.  There will be too much resentment.  Shake the dust off your feet and move on.    Edit: Some naysayers will cite short work histories as problems for future employment.  It could happen in a small number of shops, but short work histories are common in technology that recruiters rarely bat an eye.  If they do, as with any objection, it is up to you to sell yourself.  In Cracking the Code Interview the author cites that no one is really expecting you to stay beyond 5 years.   Something like this would work just fine:  ""I left Acme because there were indications of poor financial health.  Given the hot market at the time I was able to find a new position without the worry of pending layoffs.""  If you are a contractor six month assignments are the norm.  Also many technology resumes have overlapping assignments.  Its what happens when someone is in demand." Any such number would depend on the country, the market, and the economic situation - especially inflation ratio. Generally, if you are not in a booming or a dying technology, getting a raise above the inflation ratio is 'good'; anything below is poor. Keep in mind that unless you have a contract that says you get a certain amount of raise every year, the employer is not required to give you any raise. The quality of a raise is too subjective for anyone to tell you how to judge it.  You either get a raise you can live with, it makes you content/happy, and you continue working there, or you get a raise that does not satisfy you, and you jump ship to get more money. Some (most?) employers know that raises can be the tipping point for employees deciding to leave.  If you consistently receive raises greater than inflation rate, the message is that the employer values you.  If the opposite, they value you enough to continue your employment, but are willing to replace you if you decide to leave. Key thing here is there are three ways of getting increased pay with your current employer.  Cost of living or annual raise is the one that we are discussing.  Merit based raises are a second way.  If you think you deserve a raise, due to loyal consistent contribution, or contributing above your duty, or for whatever reason, then ask for a raise.  The third way is to be promoted or transferred to a higher paying position.  Often times, you should also make your case to your supervisor why you should have the new position, similar to asking for a merit raise. You are not actually entitled to any raise at all, unless you had something contractually (legally binding) which made that so. I'm answering this from the UK, but it has been common practice for people over the last 10 years or so to receive no yearly raise, in some sectors. This is what I would consider a bad raise - if wages are not kept in line with inflation, you are effectively earning less every year. In this regard I would not work for any employer who did not offer an annual raise that was at the very least covering the rate of inflation (these rates are easy to find in your country by Googling it). In terms of a standard raise, I would argue there is no such thing. This depends on the industry/sector you work in, your employers opinion of your performance (note I've used the word opinion because sometimes you may think the effort you put in is different to what they think - be prepared to give evidence of what you've achieved for them, with things to back it up). A good raise is anything which is way above a standard raise. Since there is no concise definiton of a standard raise, this is also hard to quantify. As others have mentioned do not stay in a role where you are not being given a raise that covers inflation, because it means every year you have less purchasing power, which is akin to your salary going down. It's very easy to justify to an employer you're leaving - and indeed one you're going to - why you're making the move under these conditions. "What makes a ""standard"" raise depends on how well the economy is doing, how well your particular industry is doing, and how well your employer is doing. All these things change constantly, so anyone who says, ""a good raise is 5%"" or whatever number is being simplistic. Even if true when he said it, it won't necessarily be true next year, or this year in a different industry, etc. The thing to do is to look for salary surveys that are reasonably current and applicable. If today, in your industry, the average annual raise is 3% -- again, just making up a number -- then that's what you should think of as ""standard"". If you want a number, okay: In general, as a first-draft number, I look for a raise that's 2% or so above the current inflation rate. Yes, of course I'd LIKE to get a 20% raise every year, but that's not going to happen in real life. On the other hand if a company gives me raises that don't keep pace with inflation, than barring special circumstances I'm going to be looking for another job. But there are all sorts of special circumstances. If the economy is in a depression and unemployment in my field is 50%, I'll probably figure I'm lucky to have a job at all and not be too worried about raises. If the economy is booming and all my friends are getting 10% and 20% raises, then I'll want that too. As others have said, in the United States at least, the best way to get a pay raise is to change jobs. I think most American companies are absolutely stupid about this. They don't want to give current employees big raises, so they let them quit, and then hire replacements at a much higher salary than they were paying the guy they just drove to quit. And the replacement doesn't know the company and may have a lot to learn before he is fully productive. And then they congratulate themselves that they kept raises this year to only 3% -- even though total salaries paid went up by 10% because the new hires demanded higher salaries. They actively punish employees for staying with the company. (Reminds me of an article I read in a business magazine by an executive of a cell phone company. He bemoaned the fact that in the cell phone industry it is very hard to keep customers: they are constantly switching to other vendors. And I thought, Duh, maybe it's because you offer big discounts for the first year or two, and after that you jack your prices up through the roof. You actively punish your customers for staying with you more than 2 years, and then you wonder why customers leave after 2 years.) Oh, if you do change jobs: Absolutely do not buy a line of ""we'll start you off with this lower salary but don't worry because you'll get a big raise in a year"". When you're looking for a job, it's very easy to turn down a poor offer. Once you have taken a job, leaving to get another job is a big decision and a lot of work. So you have way more bargaining power on starting salary than on raises. And the company knows it and is trying to take advantage of it. Also consider not just percentage increase but what you're making now versus what other people with similar experience are making. If people comparable to you are making $50k and you're making $30k, you're more likely to get a big raise than if you're already making $80k. If the company says, ""We just don't have the budget to give you a raise"", the key question is, ""Is that true?"" If the company is tottering on the edge of bankruptcy and trying to cut costs everywhere, then even if they know you're a good and productive employee, they may really just not have the money to give you a good raise. But if business is booming, this could just be an excuse. It might be an excuse for ""we're trying to bleed employees white so the CEO can get another million dollar bonus this year"". Or it might be a euphemism for ""you're really not a very useful employee and we're seriously thinking of firing you, no way we're going to give you a raise for the little bit of work you do when you bother to show up"". My final word: Be realistic. What matters isn't what you want or think you need, but what you are worth to the company, and what other people with similar skills are willing to work for. If you are doing work that brings in $20k per year for the company, there is no way they are going to pay you more than $20k for very long. You can go on and on about how expensive it is these days to pay the mortgage and pay medical bills and feed your 10 children and support your cocaine addiction, but none of that is relevant to what you are worth to the company. Likewise if there are millions of people out there who would love to have your job for $20k, if you demand a lot more than that they're going to fire you and hire one of them. Conversely, if you're bringing in $100k a year for the company, they'll be willing to pay you a substantial percentage of that." "your question is based on a false premise.  there is no ""standard"" for raises.  some jobs in some years see huge raises. other years those same jobs may see average pay rates drop. if you want a benchmark, you would be better off looking at typical pay rates for people in your job, in your city with your experience. sites like glassdoor can provide that type of information. if you are at the low end of that range, you can probably push for a raise. if you are at the high end, you may find it more difficult. typically your employer will pay you just enough to keep you from leaving. so they will offer you as little as they think you will accept.  you can either accept it or find another job that pays more. if you work in software, then you can probably make more by switching jobs. if you work in food service, you might have more trouble finding higher pay elsewhere. if you do find another employer, you might be able to elicit a counter-offer from your current employer. in fact, even suggesting that you will look for another employer may prompt your current employer to be more generous.  that said, if your employer thinks you are on your way out, they might cut your bonus or lay you off." "There are many variables to this answer. One is, how close are you to the average salary range in the industry you are working in. If you are making more than average it would make sense that you are not getting a big raise from the employer's perspective. You have to be a top performer if you are looking for the top salary range. Big raises come from promotions or new jobs, generally speaking.  The short and personal answer is, I worked at a big company (bank) and now know that companies do not give large raises to people as a rule.  Honestly the only way to make good $ is to leave, all employers have all kinds of excuses as to why they are not giving you significant raises. Large raises and bonuses are reserved for ""management"". The bigger the company, the less likely it is that they will give you raises just because, esp. above 3-5%. At the same time, the market sets the rate, and if you are not getting passively recruited, it may mean that you need to work on getting a broader skill set if you are looking to make more $ somewhere else. The bottom line is, you have to think of yourself as a free agent at all times. You also need to make yourself more attractive as a potential hire elsewhere."
"As a former professor, I have few questions:  1. When it comes to the things you listed, how to **filter** things, how to **build a structure and methodology** to handle tasks, how to **research and elaborate** on the knowledge needed, **motivation**, **social and personal traits**, and seeking **feedback** (including self-critic), what percentage of this is taught or can be taught in school, and what percentage of this is part of the personality you already have and cannot be taught? Can ""motivation"", for example, be taught in school?  2. When it comes to practical and current knowledge needed in the workplace, is it coming more from what was taught in college, or is it more from self study and experience gained in the first few weeks at a real work environment?   3. Do colleges and universities fail students when needed? When I was teaching, and from professors I currently know, the guidelines are very strict as for the possibility of failing a student. Few of my students should never ever be accepted to college, definitely should have failed my classes as clearly they do not have the capability to handle the real requirements, bad and immature personalities, zero chance to improve, etc. I was prevented from failing few of them.  Lastly, I do think kids should go to college, but traditionally, colleges and universities were mostly(!) to demand high standards, tough acceptance, and fail those who can't handle the requirements. Thus, those fewer who got degrees deserved those degrees and almost always benefited from those degrees as for getting work, good compensation for their work and succeeding in their work." "Anyone that currently owns a business of any size is a slave to pretty much anyone else.  We are told who to hire, how much to pay, how much of the profits we must give to ""pay our fair share"", who we must serve and by what measure of quality, what prices we may charge (in many cases) and so on.  What you and people like you do not get is that those of us that enjoy starting businesses have lost our taste for it.  We're sick of working twice as hard as our employees and then being told we don't ""give back"" enough.   I would NEVER not hire or serve someone on the basis of their color, religion, sexuality, and so forth.  Why?  Because finding great people is hard enough, why reduce the potential population further with biotry and silliness.  BUT, I would also never hire a person BECAUSE of those things.  I don't care if you're black and feel like you're entitled to special consideration because your great-great-great-great grandfather was enslaved.  A) I don't care.  B) I had nothing to do with it.  C) You're not entitled to squat unless you've earned it.  Ditto Native Americans, women, homosexuals, people that are overweight, or any one of a dozen other manufactured excuses for not being willing to be measured by - as per MLK - the content of your character, not the color of your skin (or whatever).  In the mean time I have been on strike.  I am not starting another business or hiring another person until this nonsense gets put under control.  I made that committment the day the Worst President In My Lifetime - Mr Hoax And Shame - got elected.  Guess what?  There are lots of people like me and you're not going to see an improving unemployment picture until you quit squeezing us with this PC, feel good stupidity.   And you know what?  If you do end the EEOC lunacy, what will happen?  People of all flavors who are persons of character and ability will flourish and the low life white trash, black ghetto scum, drug addict losers that support the ideological left will ... starve.  And that's just fine with me so long as they do not block traffic." "Much of what you're asking will not be disclosed for obvious security reasons, so don't be surprised when call center people say they ""don't know"".  They may actually not know, but even if they did, they'd be fired if they were to say anything.  Nothing could be a touchier subject than online security for the financial institutions. I don't know of reliable sources for the data you're asking about, and I don't know the banks or other firms would release it.  For a bank to talk about its incidence rates of fraud would be unusual, because none of these institutions wants to appear ""less safe"" than their competitors.  If there's any information out there then it's going to be pretty vague.  None of these institutions wants the ""bad guys"" to know what their degree of success is against one bank versus any other.  I hope that makes sense. The smaller banks usually piggyback their data on the networks of the larger financial institutions, so they are as secure (as a general rule) as the larger banks' networks they're running on.  Also, your transactions on your credit cards are not generally handled directly by your bank anyway, unless it's one of the big heavyweights like Chase or Bank of America.  All transactions run through merchant processors, who act as intermediaries between merchants and the banks, and those guys are pretty damned good at security.  I've met some of the programmers, and they're impressive to me (I've been a programmer for 35 years and can't put a finger on these guys!). Most banks require that you must provide proof of identity when opening an account, and that ID must me the standards of the ""USA Real ID Act"".  Here's an excerpt from the Department of Homeland Security website on what Real ID is: Passed by Congress in 2005, the REAL ID Act enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver's licenses.” The Act established minimum security standards for state-issued driver’s licenses and identification cards and prohibits Federal agencies from accepting for official purposes licenses and identification cards from states that do not meet these standards. States have made considerable progress in meeting this key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and every state has a more secure driver’s license today than before the passage of the Act. In order for banks to qualify for FDIC protection, they must comply with the Real ID standards when opening accounts. As with any business (especially online), the most effective way to minimize fraud is vigilant monitoring of data.  Banks and other online financial entities have become very adept at pattern analysis and simply knowing where and what to look for when dealing with their customers.  There are certainly sophisticated measures which are kept carefully out of the public eye for doing this, and obviously they're good at it.  They have to be, right? There's no way to completely eliminate fraud -- too much incentive exists for the ""bad guys"" to not constantly search for new ways to run their schemes, and the good guys will always be at the disadvantage, because there's no way to anticipate everything anyone might come up with.  Just look at online viruses and malware.  Your antivirus software can only deal with what it knows about, and the bad guys are always coming up with some new variant that gets past the filters until the antivirus maker learns of it and comes up with a way to deal with it. Your question's a good one to ponder, and I wouldn't want to be the chief of internet security for a bank or online institution, because I'd lay awake at night pondering when the call's going to come that we finally ran out of luck! (grin) I hope this was helpful. Good luck!" I don't get it. Are you saying they did commit fraud but it's hard to pin on any one person? You say there is little evidence there was fraud but that it's too hard to prove there was fraud. So what did they do if it wasn't fraud? This is what wikipedia says happened:   &gt;The subprime mortgage crisis arose from 'bundling' American subprime and American regular mortgages into MBSs which were traditionally isolated from, and sold in a separate market from prime loans. These 'bundles' of mixed (prime and subprime) mortgages were the basis asset-backed securities so the 'probable' rate of return looked superb (since subprime lenders pay higher premiums, and the loans were anyway secured against saleable real-estate, and so, theoretically 'could not fail').  If selling shit you know is bad but looks good to investors isn't fraud I don't know what is.   &gt;Fraud is deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain. Probably talking about different things. For example, there are almost certainly CEOs of startups that don't even take a salary and while they may have huge equity in their firm, if it doesn't get off the ground they make $0. I'm assuming the original comment about worst CEOs probably was excluding these types of situations. I have not come across any studies that address this specifically. Personally, I would want 5 years of stability to compare to an equal period prior to 2008 and I am not convinced that we have that. I would envision such an outcome however, as a result of belt-tightening in light of the recession carrying over as business-as-usual afterwards. The pace of progress makes it difficult to make one to one comparisons but were I to draft a question for consideration it would probably be: Does salary of job description X (e.g. software engineer) earn an amount equal to the same position during 2002-2007 in adjusted dollars? Some controls would most likely be necessary. I don't really understand the paper. To me, the top 1% do not make their income from salary, but rather from equity or various other asset-based income.   Mixing both in the paper to assume that if you don't make $100k/y on salary by 25 you're a loser (sorry, part of the 99%) is dishonest. If your payroll payments are the same each period, you will generally have the same net pay per period.  Some things that can cause variations: If your employer puts special payments in a specific paycheck (such as a quarterly or annual bonus, or a vacation payout) this can increase the percentage held from that specific paycheck.  The IRS publishes lookup tables, and your payroll system should withhold the amount in the lookup table.   If you get a raise midyear, your new payroll withholding rate may increase based on the gross pay amount.   http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p15.pdf