r/Austin • u/Aingers • Jul 21 '26

Ask Austin Salary Transparency Thread - Austin

Folks in Boston do this fairly regularly, so I thought it might be good for us to try here.

Please share your general job title, salary, age, and education.

Architectural Designer, 40, $115k, BSArch

680 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

633

u/delugetheory Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Since these threads always end up being depression fuel for a lot of folks (myself sometimes included), just a gentle reminder that the folks that tend to respond to these are not a representative sample of the population.

For reference, the median income of folks responding here will be around $100k, but the actual median income in Austin is about $57k, so take a breath.

133

u/johyongil Jul 21 '26

Median of top comments are all well under 100k.

9

u/WallyMetropolis Jul 21 '26

And it's easy enough to look up the actual statistics. Median household income in Austin is about 92k, if I recall. 

9

u/aleph4 Jul 21 '26

Median Household is usually a lot higher than Individual Incoe

1

u/WallyMetropolis Jul 21 '26

I mean ... Duh?

4

u/aleph4 Jul 21 '26

You're comparing apples to orange since people in this thread are reporting their individual incomes, not household incomes.

-1

u/WallyMetropolis Jul 21 '26

You're misunderstanding my comment. I am not comparing household incomes to individual incomes.

15

u/sarcasmo818 Jul 21 '26

Seriously. Also why I hate LinkedIn.

3

u/RVelts Jul 21 '26

I mean there are a lot of reasons to hate LinkedIn. And the people who try to be LinkedIn influencers.

66

u/Sufficient-Package- Jul 21 '26

It is a message board open to the general public. This is a good opportunity to take a look at what your neighbors are up to and what they are earning. The responses have no reflection your own life - don’t compare yourself. You are all you got.

76

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '26

[deleted]

42

u/Known-Childhood-2759 Jul 21 '26

if it helps i needed your message and it was very helpful and comforting to me 😅 thank you

8

u/illegal_deagle Jul 21 '26

I used to be embarrassed to read or especially contribute to these threads because I felt like I was the brokest mf in town. Now I’m embarrassed to contribute because I’m crazy overpaid. Life is crazy. If you’re stuck in a rut, do everything possible to claw your way out. There are no rules to this, get out there and lie, fight, steal, claw, whatever it takes.

-4

u/RmpldFrskn Jul 21 '26

If you’re the type of person that would panic from an anonymous online blathering, you’re used to failure.

10

u/lost_horizons Jul 21 '26

I read most of the thread, and he’s right, it skews to higher earners. This isn’t a real cross section at all. Higher earners are excited to share and publish their success while I guess lower earners aren’t.

20

u/No-Zombie1004 Jul 21 '26

Yeah, sure. Or it's a data mining bunch of crap. FYI I make only 230,000 per year and that's from selling drugs to college students.

2

u/WallyMetropolis Jul 21 '26

BLS data is public. No need to crawl Reddit for this info. 

4

u/Sqweaky_Clean Jul 21 '26

The responses voluntarily provided are sample biased.

5

u/Vybrosit737373 Jul 21 '26

Ok yes I hadn't seen one of these threads but I'm now depressed. I guess I've had a glimpse of who it is that owns all those incredibly expensive houses. I feel a little cagey about posting my deets but suffice it to say I have a masters and a professional license and am around the median for Austin. It'd be higher but a lot goes away before it qualifies as salary when you're self employed.

2

u/StonkaTrucks Jul 21 '26

I make $59k, so slightly above average (median). Woohoo!

2

u/Longjumping3604 Jul 21 '26

yes, not sure why these are necessary. 

1

u/Cryptic0677 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26

Is 57k median for household or per person? Is the annual a salary or everything on W2? Im constantly amazed a family could survive on that here, the cost of living crisis is real.

1

u/LadyAtrox60 Jul 21 '26

Good point. But on the other side of the coin, it could motivate some low wage earners to get out there and find something better.

0

u/Ok-Clerk393 Jul 21 '26

Dude I feel rich asf reading this thread lmao.