I'd love to hear some feedback on this too. I'm worried that in the few interviews I've had, I might be overreaching.

I took a slightly lower salary (-10%) just to be employed ....but i dont blame my new employer ..i got what i asked for

My perspective on this question is that all approaches to compensation in place 18-24 months back are out the window. This is not because the firms are being cheap or trying to take advantage. It's because the economics of practice have changed - profoundly.

Those clients who are building know it's a 'buyers market' and are demanding - and getting - very low fees. There are lots of firms chasing those low fees, just to have something to do. This forces firms to operate on a shoestring, putting further downward pressure on wages.

Be very careful about salary surveys - especially ones where the data was gathered prior to mid-2008. Wages at that point were highly inflated relative to the norm and have almost zero bearing on wages in the marketplace today.

Going forward, I think we're in for a confusing time. It's relatively clear to me firms will not start bidding up wages anytime soon.

My best advice is to approach employers with an open mind and a willingness to discuss the matter. Arrogance about wage expectations will not be tolerated - there are many good people lined up looking for work.

Listen to what the firm has to say about compensation - tell them what's on your mind. Be flexible if you want the job. Reasonable people with a desire to work together usually can find a fair solution.

Don't expect the firm to pay you a high wage simply because you have high living expenses or high expectations. It's all about "value" these days.

^^^for the record I wasnt working in the 90's ...i landed a job recently

It's a very good thing that prices for just about everything are going significantly down.

They are? From where I sit, prices for most things seem to have leveled off or dropped very slightly from where they were in the fall of 08 but definitely haven't dropped by an amount I'd deem "significant".

Also remember a 10-20% drop in your salary knocks you back to the 90's while a 10-20% drop in your grocery bill puts you back to 2007.

I wonder how building materials are today as compared to 2 years ago. I remember that every year drywall went up by 20% for about 5 years in a row. Same with lumber. I think hurricanes had something to do with that though as well as the construction boon we were in nationally.

... whoa now ... let's use some actual data to back up those assertions:

I looked at the 1999 AIA Compensation Survey and compared it to the 2008 AIA Compensation Survey. Looking at average total annual compensation (including salary + OT pay + bonus), here's what I found:

Intern I - from $28,300 to $40,300 (42% increase)
Intern III - from $40,700 to $50,300 (24% increase)
Architect I - from $41,100 to $64,100 (53% increase)
Architect III - from $54,700 to $95,200 (74% increase)

From January 1999 to January 2008, the CPI-U (link: Consumer Price Index - All Urban Consumers) went from 164.3 to 211.1 - only a 28.5% increase.

Looks to me like architectural wages in general more than kept pace with inflation over the past 9 years.

(Note: I cannot fully explain why Intern IIIs didn't keep pace with the other categories. I think at least part of the difference is because the AIA no longer tracks a large pool of unlicensed arch. grads in the Intern III category -- they now show data for Intern III and Unlicensed Architectural Design Staff 1. When you combine those two categories to approximate an apples-to-apples comparison, the increase amounts to 29% -- which still lags the other categories.)

I don't think those salary numbers disprove what I said. Someone making the low end of the numbers comprising those averages in 08 would be at the middle to high end of the range of the 99 numbers if they took a 20% cut.

As for consumer prices, the CPI numbers are comforting but they don't bear out the experience a lot of us have had in the grocery store or in the housing market over the past couple of years.

I was being completely cynical.

Someone had to be devils advocate.

4arch ... I guess the prices you experience in the housing market are highly dependent on whether you were buying in mid-2007 or last week. Timing is everything.

"... whoa now ... let's use some actual data to back up those assertions:"

Well that wouldn't be much fun, now would it...

...KURT... yeah, it might unbalance the entire archinect universe. :o)

in general, to answer the other question, material prices are all over the map (at least according to the agc, whose monthly chart we subscribe to).

for example, copper ran up 30-50% year over year through 07, but dropped 3% overall in 08 and has dropped nearly 50% over the last 12 months. it's starting to stabilize again. drywall did have a run up in 04-06, but flatlined in 07, dropped in 08, and is stabilizing again. plywood has had modest ups and downs (single digits) year over year but is probably up 30% overall since 04.

not nearly the spikes we've seen in food.

I suspect that most architectural firms won't reset ongoing employees' "annual compensation" salaries to their 12-08 levels when staffing demands increase and/or new hires are sought. The new lower "adjusted" salaries are likely to become the new benchmarks for the various salary levels.

Firms that are practicing a "three day workweek" will be compelled to readjust gross pay to "five day workweek" when that expectation is formalized. But salary cuts have a tendency to lock in.