Be honest: Are we underpaid? Between the long hours and the constant pressure to be perfect, I’m starting to wonder if the paycheck matches the stress. Do you think we’re fairly compensated for what we do?

We work hard but are paid fairly well. When a first year staff with no experience is making more than the average US worker (BLS says that is around $66k), you have to say we are doing okay as a profession.

15 years in, public accounting has been a great, accessible track to a very comfortable upper middle class life. There will always be people making more than you unless you’re musk or bezos.

When looking at friends and family in higher paying fields, PA feels like a pretty good sweet spot when balancing comp and lifestyle factors. The more senior you get the more control you have over your schedule and the better the comp gets.

My cash comp this year will be 9x my audit starting salary and I can comfortably afford a nice house in a nice town and for my spouse to stay at home with our three young kids and have the flexibility to be very present in their lives. Life is pretty good today and comp will get much better in the near term (fingers crossed for my promotion not falling through in the next weeks).

There is a fair amount of nuance to this topic. Overall in corporate US life wages have not kept up with inflation very well so many feel underpaid based on their actual spending power. That is universal though so specifically for accounting you have to track the wage increases over a period of time by looking at the present value compared to a historical point in time. I started my career in 2006 and most starting salaries in my area were $45-50k (non high COLA areas). The current equivalent of that would be $82k.

Separate from the pure inflation dynamic is the overall comp to stress or quality of life concept. This varies greatly among our profession based on industry and career level. Each person has to determine the trade-off they are comfortable with in regards to pressure and stress. Generally speaking the higher comp comes with higher stress in most instances for our line of work.

I currently make a very fair comp for my position and am happy with the balance of stress to compensation. That has absolutely not been the case throughout my career though. ha

There’s a roof over my head and that’s all I can ask for right now

I think this really depends on the role you’re in and the company you work for. Overall, I make over six figures, which allows me to live the lifestyle I want. I’m later in my career so I’ve been able to set work/life boundaries. Long hours aren’t all the time. I used to stress more, but pharmaceutical drugs have really helped me level that out.

I’m wondering if maybe you aren’t in a role that matches your desired work culture. There are accounting roles that don’t require long hours and stress that still pay decent. However, if you’re young in your career, you may need to do the grind for a little while to get to where you want to be. And if that is the case, do the grind now so you can have more flexibility when you really need it.

Not sure what you mean by perfect. Usually imperfection is fine as long as it’s not material. But if you screw up something that is material that is usually really far from perfect