What should my salary be?

Question

I work for a company that imports pastas and fruit in New Jersey. I enter all the payable bills, i print the checks for the vendors, go to the bank and deposit the receiveables and enter them in the system. I also answer the phones and do all the filling. I dont clear 30,000 a year. Am i being ripped off?

Answer 1

No, your a bookeeper....that's a pretty good salary.

Answer 2

To my mind, it is low. But I was a Team Lead in the office and got only around 18000 a year, working overtime. But it is better than nothing cause I left my job thinking I could get a better one with my education and experience but  it has been 2 months as I am without job and upset about the situation.

Answer 3

Sounds liek a pretty low level clerical job for which your compensation seems reasonable. You can try specing your job at payscale.com and see what the comps are.  

Answer 4

  Yes you are getting ripped off

  with a job like that

you should get

$100,000.00

Answer 5

Am i being ripped off?

honestly...........i don't think so but to be sure investigate. look into the pay for a similar job with similar conditions in the same market. how does your pay compare. the best sight for accurate(no estimates, actual IRS reported wages) wage information is the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics : http://data.bls.gov/oes/search.jsp?data_...

what you must do is look at this from an employers viewpoint.

do you make money for the company?

have you done anything to save money for the company?

does your position require secondary education or specific certifications?

the job as you describe it could probably be done for less money, even if you are an amazing employee and efficent beyond compare.  this job could still be done as well or better with two lower paid part-time employees. you are making roughly $14.00 per hour it would be more cost effective to have two employees working 30 hours a week each at $8.00 hour. in this particular job the two can do more in 60 hours then you will in 40.  

to become more valuable you have to make a pay increase for you cost effective. think of how you can do more then another employee could, think of ways to streamline operations and increase profits. develop methods to increase proficiency and decrease the frequency of late payments or to reduce expenses in office operations.

if new accouting software becomes available make an effort to learn the new software and become proficient on it quickly.

as long as others at a lower wage can do the job effectively it is hard to show an increase in your value. you must make a wage increase for yourself the obvious thing to do, make paying you more a wise investment for the business to make.

EDIT:

the average median yearly wage in New Jersey in 2007

for general office clerks was $27,770.00,

for file clerks was $24,750.00,

for account clerks was $31,000.00 and

for accounting clerks it was $34,570.00.

Answer 6

Sound like an intern or something of that standard. Maybe a secretary position. If you don't have a degree...no you are not.

Answer 7

that's alright. that's about right amount.. if u r working everyday then, that's different

Answer 8

For your kind of work, you should be making around that, if what you do is very hard, dont be afraid to leave, Just start looking for jobs now.

Answer 9

It all depends really.  Your best bet is to use what's called a salary finder online.  Just go to Google, and search for "what should my salary be?".  You will get a ton of results.  I used Monster.com's salary finder, and found out that I am underpaid by $2.50 an our!  

Of course, bringing that up to my boss only created tension as he refused to up my salary.  =[