Web salary charts tell all, and we love it

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/04/MNUH10E742.DTL&tsp=1

Erin McCormick, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, May 5, 2008

(05-04) 17:05 PDT -- Struggling Giants pitcher Barry Zito will make $14.5 million this year. Mark Yudof, the new head of the University of California, earns $591,000 plus perks. Hillary and Bill Clinton grossed an estimated $20.4 million in 2007, while Barack Obama's family took in $4.2 million.

A fire captain in the financially stressed town of Vallejo earns $250,000. And the head of a street maintenance crew filling potholes on your block may be making $107,000.

Search SFGate's salary databases here

A flood of newly available information about the paychecks of everyone from street cleaners to corporate chief executive officers to athletes is turning up on the Internet and elsewhere and that, in turn, has turned up the heat on an age-old debate: How much pay is too much?

Even in the Bay Area, one of the wealthiest regions in the world, discussions about salaries has seemingly replaced the rising value of homes as the No. 1 topic of conversation. The reason, say some, has to do with toughening economic times.

"This year, you have this economic downturn with all these layoffs and, at the same time, people are seeing gas prices go up to $4 a gallon. There is a tremendous interest in income that is personalized, with people saying, 'Where do I fit?' " said Deborah Reed, an economist with the Public Policy Institute of California, who has done studies on how the poor in California are getting poorer as the rich get richer.

Reed would get no argument from Maryland librarian Margaret Dikel, who was one of the first to make salary surveys available on her job resource Web site, the Riley Guide. She said in the 14 years of the Riley Guide, she has found users have been consistently interested in ferreting out other people's pay figures, but it's become much more pronounced in recent months as the nation's economic outlook has darkened.

"Every one of us is watching our costs explode, and our salaries are not going up fast at all. And we're wondering 'How can that guy be making so much?' " she said.

FULL story at link.

[MercutioATC]

1. It'd take me 97 years to earn Zito's salary.

...but I'm not nearly as marketable as he is.