When over your career would you want to realize the biggest % increases in pay?

We all started out working in a store, or some similar job - delivery person, etc.... Making $6/hour. Say $6K for the year.





Most of us end up with a real job. 15 years after we worked in a store we might make in the $40Ks. Say $40K.





10 years after that, we might make $60-75K, maybe even more. Say $70K, that ought to include most people. You'll make this for 20 years.





OK. So, let's say you could assign the following increases, one at each of these stages:





10%


15%


30%





Where would you assign them? In what order would you realize those increases? What would your motive be - wouldn't it be to maximize your lifetime earnings?





Now, in an economy becoming ever more knowledge-based, where would you expect such increases to show up?





Don't miss the fact that most of us make most of our lifetime earnings on the back nine when people who want to tax those back nine earnings start talking about "medians" and "gaps."|||IF it were reversed. 30% to 15% to 10%. You need the most amount of money when you are young, for college and a new family. Then you age, get a permanent job, and buy a home, then you are older, empty nester not needing the money as much, because the home is paid for, car insurance drops, etc. Plus you would realize the higher earnings from the get go, so each additional increase would be put on top of the previous increases. Now the reality is, that although that would increase your overall lifetime earnings, it wouldn't work out, you would be giving the biggest increase to the least qualified, and experienced. Then you mostly likely would have the younger generation spending thier money too early and when they needed the money as they aged, it would be gone. So I say leave it as it is. I redistribute my "wealth" by helping my children with college and now my oldest with home buying. This will give them an advantage as their income begins to increase and should greatly increase their overall chances at success.





Edit: 6@30%= 7.80, 7.80@15%=9.00, 9@10%=9.90





6@10%=6.60 6.60@15%=7.79 7.79@30%=10.13





That's the math. Which I didn't do, before answering. So I stand corrected. Your net earnings would increase overall, very good point.|||The largest jump in income that I ever experienced, or rather the one that was the most life changing, was when I was 21 years old. I went from making $1700 a month working in Irvine for AT%26amp;T long distance services, to making $2750 a month as midwest territory manager for a cable and connector company in Cerritos CA. Soon after I bought my first NEW car, rented my first apartment WITHOUT roommates, and within a few months I met the girl of my dreams who would later become my wife of 8 years! Granted I increased my income by over $60,000 from 2003 to 2004, but I will always look back on the above mentioned events as the most life changing for me.