The average American family survives on somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 depending on what source you believe. Compare that to the kind of salaries paid at large law firms. Skadden Arps, for example, routinely pays its lawyers more than $100,000.
So what does a company like Skadden Arps do when business slows down sufficiently enough for them to consider furloughs? According to
CNNMoney.com, they give their lawyers a one-year paid sabbatical with $80,000 of compensation!
The lawyers are expected to go do something useful, like public defender work, yet they're not duty bound to do so. They could simply travel the world for a year if they're so inclined.
Several months ago, Clark
posed a poll question to listeners about whether, given the choice, they'd prefer to take a 10% pay cut and preserve everyone's job at work, or maintain their current salary with the understanding that a 10% reduction in staff will be necessary.
The wage stickiness factor holds that an employer's smartest move in difficult times is to reduce headcount and preserve the wages of those who remain. It's long been thought that lowering the wages of the survivors would be demeaning to worker morale.
But that assumption hasn't always proven true in this recession. In fact, our poll showed that most people wanted the salary freeze so that no one else would get axed. The Skadden Arps scenario, however, is like a hybrid of both options.
Nice work if you can get it!
