Great read, thanks for posting!

One thing that many people don't account for is inflation. And the fact that the "real" inflation is much higher than our governments want us to think.

The "burrito index" is a more realistic measure of inflation. Official statistics say that inflation is a mere 1% per year. However, the grim reality is that inflation really is closer to 7% per year.

Now, software engineers pay a lot of taxes. I'm in the highest income bracket, this means that I will pay close to 50% of income tax on every new dollar earned.

This means that a software engineer should be getting a 14% pay increase per year, just to maintain the same level of purchasing power. Any less than that means that we're actually loosing money with every passing year.