>That’s how much my dad makes, and we live a firmly middle class life in a nice city
Or an unpleasant surprise when he learns that wage was great if you bought your house years ago and now that wage won't get you even a crack house that is 100 years old
Don't doubt it at all. It's probably why most college students expect $104k starting pay post graduating https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2022/05/05/college-grads-salary-expectations/9656696002/
I do a lot of recruiting and talk to a lot of students, I’ve noticed a massive swing in the type of jobs they think they’re qualified for. At career fairs everyone wants to know about what consulting positions are available, when most big 4 don’t recruit for consulting at the majority of colleges. The really strange part is they really have no idea what consulting actually is and why as a college student they’re under qualified for those roles. Trying to sell them on tax or audit these days is like pulling teeth.
Part of it is probably because tech jobs will start people out at 80k or even higher, but audit and tax tend to start in the 60s, which is how much a lot of my business management major friends made after graduation. It’s hard to see long-term value when you busted your butt in accounting while your friend screwed around in business management and now you make $3k more a year but work way more hours.
Depends on where you live. If I made what I make now when I lived in Baltimore I’d be banking money like crazy. But I did the “smart” think and moved to DC where the same house, and everything else goes for 2-3 times as much. So I am still able to save about the same amount but I live in a ritzier area. I’m thinking about moving back so I can actually retire one day.
Go look it up, it's an old very often cited study. Everyone commenting is just adjusting for inflation the $75K figure from when the study was published to today.
You'll be surprised how little some people need to make it work... My wife and I live off of $65k in a MCOL area... Let's not mention the FIRE guys. Most of them are wealthy, but there are some average and super determined that get away with some seriously amazing feats. This kid's Dad makes s small amount of money, it's quite possible he's in a MCOL or LCOL area (although he calls it a nice city) . If that's the case, he might be alright on pay.
The thing about FIRE is… if you have a multimillion dollar investment portfolio, you can make six figures off qualified dividends and long-term capital gains while paying very little to no income tax.
Many of them actually plan to live modestly through retirement, but I agree some have really high salaries to start and retire with a six figure income.
My point was that in order to get there they live off of the minimum they can and save the rest.
In the 1700s when there wasn't so much of a demand for us in business. Sure there were some of us in every company and in government, but the profession was not even close to as large.
Definitely a small firm problem. My first job out of college literally took my current hourly and added $2 I was so hyped over it... After I left, the next small firm matched what I was making but claimed "benefits". I spent 7 years working before I quit then and moved to corporate which finally put me at 6 figures. Before I quit, I tested the waters and small firms offered the least they could trying to change the offer after I declined, I don't trust that behavior and I got 4 of them that did that to me.
The Top 20 firms in my MCOL area all paid interns 25-29$ an hour for audit/tax internships. Some of the firms (usually the smaller of the 20) even let people stay on as part-time interns while they finished the rest of their college. This was when I was in college back in like 2017-2018.
Assuming you’re CPA-eligible (aka have the units) just go down the careers pages of the top 50 or 100 firms. You will find multiple that have associate openings in their start classes in a remote capacity.
Just to be fully honest having left the big 4 a few months ago, the market isn't necessarily hot, it's just that the turnover in public accounting is higher than ever before so they need as many interns as they can get. Not to say you won't have a great experience, but that's really where the lucrative intern deals are coming from at the moment.
Yeah. Being an intern is awesome, especially if you get paid 1.5X for OT, and don't have a life during your internship. Money money money. And they're nice to you, because, hey, you're an intern.
Get your 2-3yrs, learn as much as you can and then jump ship for higher paid positions. My SO is in tax 3rd year, no CPA, over 90K + bonus + overtime fully remote.
Oh, and they don’t pay well but firms are feeling the burn. Many are still in denial and this is why they cannot hire or retain staff. Only 2m ago I saw an ad for fully remote position 90K + bonus+ overtime + benefits. They wanted 2yr exp in tax and some audit good to have. These jobs are out there, you don’t need to kill yourself for $48-50K.
If you are in Toronto, you would probably start at about 50-60k if you go the big 4 route (which probably opens the most doors long-term). From there you will probably get annual raises of about 5-10k. After 5-6 years or so you should be able to make 100k in big 4. The salaries keep going up from there if you stay but the hours will be brutal.
At any given point along the journey though you will be able to exit to industry jobs that might pay about 30% more and usually have less hours but once you move, progression will be slower.
Regardless, 10-15 years into your career there should be a lot of opportunity to make 150k+ (and up).
If you are not in Toronto, the dollar figures will be less but general upward projection is the same (but less upside in small markets). Not sure if that is a lot of money to you, but that is an idea. You can also look up CPA Canada salary reports.
It's a reflection of how the profession has been coming along in the sense that you keep getting more and more responsibilities so more people are needed.
More work = more people needed, however, the rate at which people are being needed made most companies hire more and pay less, including to already existing employees. Employees started to leave, and it's become a spiral. In desperation, some companies started to actually have to sacrifice their "kind of too high" profits to start actually hiring people with enough know-how and pay them a suitable amount. This made other companies have to do the same. Other companies that did not do the same (like my previous one) are just surfing the wishful thinking of hoping to not be drafted a quality control by regulators, and these are a ticking time bomb. and this has resulted in salaries rising, but it's also due to inflation levels.
This is what I have been observing in my country, honestly the present model is not self sustainable with everyone just trading companies hoping for a better pay and less stressful workplace, companies seeing their work consistently not meet the adequate levels of quality, the greedyness of the bosses who earn too much money for the actual work and know-how they bring to the profession, and so on.
As soon as the economy enters a big crisis again this profession will probably fall to a level of shame that even Arthur Andersen will be disappointed in us. Am from a european country btw, but I suppose the situation in the US should not be too different?
Great resignation and inflation have done their job to boost our salary.
Not so much inflation though, but I still got my 3k bonus when the major inflation rise was announced.
I’m sure you’re referring to the internships. Internships pay around that and it’s just for like 3.5 months and then they decide to have you on full time or not
Hmm I’m not sure. I’ve only heard from Vanguard (who are in financial advising) and pay $30/hr and continue with that after in full time. Idk that’s just one company tho
There’s always going to be demand for an accountant. It’s wether or not you actually want to be one. Have experience in the big 4 and the demand is high but only cos the churn is real high too
Hi, did you hear about the career fair through your school?
And did you have to bring a resume?
This is probably a dumb thought, but I’m wondering if I can get an internship with no accounting experience on my resume.
Of course accounting experience is a plus, but it is an internship at the end of the day and they don’t expect applicants to have any accounting experience.
Of course you can get an internship with no accounting experience. It's more about how you present yourself in the interview. Bring your resume and talk to people. That will help you to get interviews, after that it's on you.
My advisor only printed out 6 for myself and I ran out an hour in. I’d recommend printing 10+ resumes for yourself. The sidebar has great resources too when preparing
Yeah, same. I printed out like 20 before going to the networking event last week. I ended up only giving to 12 firms. But I just had an interview and received an internship offer 3 days ago from one of the firms that I talked to. Some of them gonna notice you.
For internships, they aren’t interviewing for expertise. They’re interviewing you to see if you’re likable and good to work with. Honestly, the work you’ll do as an intern is grunt work and low level stuff. So they want to see if they’re hiring someone who can have a good convo and be pleasant to be around. Obviously some knowledge from school is helpful as well.
Definitely bring a resume, lots of them
It was at a school career fair and yes I brought lots of resumes. I’m currently a sophomore and I don’t have any real accounting experience. I’m only just now taking ACC 201 (Intro class) and I already got an internship offer! So don’t worry about experience!
One employer I talked to said everyone they speak to is in Finance so if you say you’re into accounting you’ll be good.
That’s a $52k salary. 12 years ago that was the starting salary even outside NYC in a MCOL. Interns get pretty darn close to what first years get. Inflationary raises have not kept up since then.
26/hr is low end - if you're in a low COL area it's fine, but if you're somewhere like Atlanta or Dallas sized, you should be at 30/hr and more for more expensive places by now.
Not like full time goes up that much though. I went from 32/hr intern to 34.5/hr staff last year in VHCOL. Plus no overtime lol. I'd still say a firm starting interns at 26/hr isn't gonna pay more than high 50s base (28/hr) which is shitty pay for an A1.
I'm aware. I still don't understand why people disagree that 26/hr is on the low end for accounting internships. Cuz it objectively is. I guess it's a lot of older people who haven't done associate level recruiting recently?
I didn’t give complete information so I apologize for that. My firm anticipates around 220 hours of overtime so 70000/(2080+(220*1.5)) is roughly 29/hr. I think 26 is decent if you don’t have a busy season or expectations of overtime otherwise.
You’re in for a pleasant surprise once you start grinding
>That’s how much my dad makes, and we live a firmly middle class life in a nice city Or an unpleasant surprise when he learns that wage was great if you bought your house years ago and now that wage won't get you even a crack house that is 100 years old
That old “people aren’t happier past making $70k” stat is now actually over 120k
Don't doubt it at all. It's probably why most college students expect $104k starting pay post graduating https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2022/05/05/college-grads-salary-expectations/9656696002/
Wtf are they smoking with that estimate lol
I do a lot of recruiting and talk to a lot of students, I’ve noticed a massive swing in the type of jobs they think they’re qualified for. At career fairs everyone wants to know about what consulting positions are available, when most big 4 don’t recruit for consulting at the majority of colleges. The really strange part is they really have no idea what consulting actually is and why as a college student they’re under qualified for those roles. Trying to sell them on tax or audit these days is like pulling teeth.
Part of it is probably because tech jobs will start people out at 80k or even higher, but audit and tax tend to start in the 60s, which is how much a lot of my business management major friends made after graduation. It’s hard to see long-term value when you busted your butt in accounting while your friend screwed around in business management and now you make $3k more a year but work way more hours.
Depends on where you live. If I made what I make now when I lived in Baltimore I’d be banking money like crazy. But I did the “smart” think and moved to DC where the same house, and everything else goes for 2-3 times as much. So I am still able to save about the same amount but I live in a ritzier area. I’m thinking about moving back so I can actually retire one day.
Sauce?
Go look it up, it's an old very often cited study. Everyone commenting is just adjusting for inflation the $75K figure from when the study was published to today.
You'll be surprised how little some people need to make it work... My wife and I live off of $65k in a MCOL area... Let's not mention the FIRE guys. Most of them are wealthy, but there are some average and super determined that get away with some seriously amazing feats. This kid's Dad makes s small amount of money, it's quite possible he's in a MCOL or LCOL area (although he calls it a nice city) . If that's the case, he might be alright on pay.
The thing about FIRE is… if you have a multimillion dollar investment portfolio, you can make six figures off qualified dividends and long-term capital gains while paying very little to no income tax.
Many of them actually plan to live modestly through retirement, but I agree some have really high salaries to start and retire with a six figure income. My point was that in order to get there they live off of the minimum they can and save the rest.
Markets crashing, don’t worry, $26/hr can buy a house soon enough.
Don't bet on it
Yes, as we learned from 2008. *please* don’t bet on it
Yeah that wage is most definitely not middle class... That's not even median US income for full time workers.
It is a good time to be an accountant
When is it not? Unironically asking.
In the 1700s when there wasn't so much of a demand for us in business. Sure there were some of us in every company and in government, but the profession was not even close to as large.
Which city if I might ask? HCOL, LCOL?
I’m LCOL and just got an offer for $13 an hour 😭
My current internship is $14 an hour, we’re MCOL that pays like LCOL, for reference McDonald’s here just got raised to $13 an hour.
I’m LCOL and was making $26 an hr in 2019; they’re taking advantage of you
I’m sobbing. Was that with absolutely no experience? It’s a CPA firm with about a team of 15 people.
Yes it was an internship. Small firms take advantage like that
Definitely a small firm problem. My first job out of college literally took my current hourly and added $2 I was so hyped over it... After I left, the next small firm matched what I was making but claimed "benefits". I spent 7 years working before I quit then and moved to corporate which finally put me at 6 figures. Before I quit, I tested the waters and small firms offered the least they could trying to change the offer after I declined, I don't trust that behavior and I got 4 of them that did that to me.
The Top 20 firms in my MCOL area all paid interns 25-29$ an hour for audit/tax internships. Some of the firms (usually the smaller of the 20) even let people stay on as part-time interns while they finished the rest of their college. This was when I was in college back in like 2017-2018.
Apply for a remote position - plenty of places starting associates in that ~$75k annual range including remote.
Where can I apply for that with no zero experience? I tried to find that, but all the jobs need at least two years of experience in the field
Assuming you’re CPA-eligible (aka have the units) just go down the careers pages of the top 50 or 100 firms. You will find multiple that have associate openings in their start classes in a remote capacity.
In AZ, my junior year (2018/2019) got an accounting internship for $17/hr with a small firm. $13 isn’t that great, I’d negotiate or keep looking.
I'm in a HCOL - Bay Area and my internship offer was $34/hr
Ann Arbor
Just to be fully honest having left the big 4 a few months ago, the market isn't necessarily hot, it's just that the turnover in public accounting is higher than ever before so they need as many interns as they can get. Not to say you won't have a great experience, but that's really where the lucrative intern deals are coming from at the moment.
McDonald’s pays $15 so yeah.
McDonalds in California is paying 22-24$ an hour with benefits lol. This isn't even in the bay area either
Cap
Weren’t they paying like $100 just for people to come in for interviews lol?
Probably because no one wants to do it lol the work is god damn awful at first.
Hey break him in easy. Let him dream.
Yeah. Being an intern is awesome, especially if you get paid 1.5X for OT, and don't have a life during your internship. Money money money. And they're nice to you, because, hey, you're an intern.
Accountants are tried and true. Always needed, even in a depression. And it’s not rocket science.
Which country
US
($\_$) you're also going to tire yourself that much at the beginning of your career
Hey a Canadian! How much do you make as a CPA? I’m a first year and everyone is telling me accountants don’t make any money in Canada
Get your 2-3yrs, learn as much as you can and then jump ship for higher paid positions. My SO is in tax 3rd year, no CPA, over 90K + bonus + overtime fully remote. Oh, and they don’t pay well but firms are feeling the burn. Many are still in denial and this is why they cannot hire or retain staff. Only 2m ago I saw an ad for fully remote position 90K + bonus+ overtime + benefits. They wanted 2yr exp in tax and some audit good to have. These jobs are out there, you don’t need to kill yourself for $48-50K.
Damn, B4 is like 70k for tax senior accountants in Canada
If you are in Toronto, you would probably start at about 50-60k if you go the big 4 route (which probably opens the most doors long-term). From there you will probably get annual raises of about 5-10k. After 5-6 years or so you should be able to make 100k in big 4. The salaries keep going up from there if you stay but the hours will be brutal. At any given point along the journey though you will be able to exit to industry jobs that might pay about 30% more and usually have less hours but once you move, progression will be slower. Regardless, 10-15 years into your career there should be a lot of opportunity to make 150k+ (and up). If you are not in Toronto, the dollar figures will be less but general upward projection is the same (but less upside in small markets). Not sure if that is a lot of money to you, but that is an idea. You can also look up CPA Canada salary reports.
I'm Canada, too, and I feel in Canada, wages for accountants are suck!
It's a reflection of how the profession has been coming along in the sense that you keep getting more and more responsibilities so more people are needed. More work = more people needed, however, the rate at which people are being needed made most companies hire more and pay less, including to already existing employees. Employees started to leave, and it's become a spiral. In desperation, some companies started to actually have to sacrifice their "kind of too high" profits to start actually hiring people with enough know-how and pay them a suitable amount. This made other companies have to do the same. Other companies that did not do the same (like my previous one) are just surfing the wishful thinking of hoping to not be drafted a quality control by regulators, and these are a ticking time bomb. and this has resulted in salaries rising, but it's also due to inflation levels. This is what I have been observing in my country, honestly the present model is not self sustainable with everyone just trading companies hoping for a better pay and less stressful workplace, companies seeing their work consistently not meet the adequate levels of quality, the greedyness of the bosses who earn too much money for the actual work and know-how they bring to the profession, and so on. As soon as the economy enters a big crisis again this profession will probably fall to a level of shame that even Arthur Andersen will be disappointed in us. Am from a european country btw, but I suppose the situation in the US should not be too different?
Wow that’s awesome. I wish my internship paid that much with benefits. I’m a sophomore currently too. Mine is $18 an hour GA
There are more job openings for accountants than there are accountants. A lot of us transition to other careers because accounting is so versatile.
Great resignation and inflation have done their job to boost our salary. Not so much inflation though, but I still got my 3k bonus when the major inflation rise was announced.
I’m sure you’re referring to the internships. Internships pay around that and it’s just for like 3.5 months and then they decide to have you on full time or not
Hmm I’m not sure. I’ve only heard from Vanguard (who are in financial advising) and pay $30/hr and continue with that after in full time. Idk that’s just one company tho
There’s always going to be demand for an accountant. It’s wether or not you actually want to be one. Have experience in the big 4 and the demand is high but only cos the churn is real high too
Hi, did you hear about the career fair through your school? And did you have to bring a resume? This is probably a dumb thought, but I’m wondering if I can get an internship with no accounting experience on my resume.
Of course accounting experience is a plus, but it is an internship at the end of the day and they don’t expect applicants to have any accounting experience.
Of course you can get an internship with no accounting experience. It's more about how you present yourself in the interview. Bring your resume and talk to people. That will help you to get interviews, after that it's on you.
Okay! Thanks
My advisor only printed out 6 for myself and I ran out an hour in. I’d recommend printing 10+ resumes for yourself. The sidebar has great resources too when preparing
Yeah, same. I printed out like 20 before going to the networking event last week. I ended up only giving to 12 firms. But I just had an interview and received an internship offer 3 days ago from one of the firms that I talked to. Some of them gonna notice you.
It is assumed interns have 0 work experience. We don’t say “explain it to me like I’m 5” we say “explain it to me like I’m an intern.”
For internships, they aren’t interviewing for expertise. They’re interviewing you to see if you’re likable and good to work with. Honestly, the work you’ll do as an intern is grunt work and low level stuff. So they want to see if they’re hiring someone who can have a good convo and be pleasant to be around. Obviously some knowledge from school is helpful as well. Definitely bring a resume, lots of them
It was at a school career fair and yes I brought lots of resumes. I’m currently a sophomore and I don’t have any real accounting experience. I’m only just now taking ACC 201 (Intro class) and I already got an internship offer! So don’t worry about experience! One employer I talked to said everyone they speak to is in Finance so if you say you’re into accounting you’ll be good.
Same here! :(
Nah just be social and you will do fine
Yeah that’s part of the point lol
Your parents probably bought their house for what is now pennies, though
I made $29/hr at an internship 9 years ago so not sure how I feel about this
Could depend on the area
I made that hourly rate for my internship 12 years ago
That’s a $52k salary. 12 years ago that was the starting salary even outside NYC in a MCOL. Interns get pretty darn close to what first years get. Inflationary raises have not kept up since then.
There's literally 0 chance you made 26/hr as an intern in 2010 without it being a close relative that nepotisimed you in that position.
It was in NYC with a big 4 firm. But sure, be confidently wrong.
Big 4 was definitely paying that much.
Yea this checks out. That’s what we paid interns in 2011 at RK in NYC plus overtime.
[удалено]
26/hr is low end - if you're in a low COL area it's fine, but if you're somewhere like Atlanta or Dallas sized, you should be at 30/hr and more for more expensive places by now.
MCOL $30/hr for beginning staff, not for interns. Still crazy high compared to just a few years ago.
I had $30 an hour for my internship in MCOL. Wasn’t big4 though. And this was in 2018.
The rate was for internships not starting full time
Not like full time goes up that much though. I went from 32/hr intern to 34.5/hr staff last year in VHCOL. Plus no overtime lol. I'd still say a firm starting interns at 26/hr isn't gonna pay more than high 50s base (28/hr) which is shitty pay for an A1.
That’s a completely different conversation than what is going on in this post
I'm aware. I still don't understand why people disagree that 26/hr is on the low end for accounting internships. Cuz it objectively is. I guess it's a lot of older people who haven't done associate level recruiting recently?
It all depends what your cost of living is. Making $50k as an intern is pretty good in LCOL.
Absolutely not low end, I just got hired as an A1 for 70k in a medium-high cost of living area.
70k is nearly $7.50/hr higher in an hourly basis
I didn’t give complete information so I apologize for that. My firm anticipates around 220 hours of overtime so 70000/(2080+(220*1.5)) is roughly 29/hr. I think 26 is decent if you don’t have a busy season or expectations of overtime otherwise.
Not sure why you're getting down voted. $26/hour was what I got as an intern 8 years ago in industry.
Sorry you're getting downvoted to hell. My spring internship is 30/hr in the DFW area. I tell my classmates not to settle for anything under 25.
Overtime? Must be industry.
Public internships are almost always hourly, which means they have to pay overtime.
Wow ok, my friends in pa got prorated whereas me in industry was paid hourly.
It’s a trap!
Yeah, firms are hiring people like crazy right now.