Bringing Home the Bacon

Money. Dough. Moolah. Benjamins. Let’s talk about it.

                                 PHOTO BY SERGEY GALYONKIN

In January of 2011, two surveys were administered and distributed via email to all of WSCADV’s 69 Member Programs. One survey went to program staff and a second survey to directors. Both surveys asked general questions regarding personal demographics, wages and benefits and employment information; the director survey focused more on organizational structure including policies and procedures.

266 employees and directors from 56 programs responded representing all 39 of Washington’s counties. 

While this survey generated a lot of valuable information, it’s important to acknowledge the limitations to the data collected, like the economic climate under which this survey was conducted. Stress around funding, job insecurity and changes in organizational structure due to the economy may have influenced responses. So, it is important to understand that data collected through the survey represents a snapshot in time.

Here is a statewide look at wages:

Statewide Averages based on Job Position:

Full-time:

Job Position	Annual Salary(exempt positions)	Hourly Wage(non-exempt positions)
Advocate	$30,018	$14.91
Manager	$41,695	$17.38
Administrative Assistant/Bookkeeper		$16.36
Development Director	$77,000	$18.72
Associate Director	$44,833
Executive Director	$59, 318

*Boxes left blank indicate that there were no data for the given category

 

Part-Time:

Job Position	Annual Salary(exempt positions)	Hourly Wage(non-exempt positions)
Advocate	$15,550	$13.55
Manager		$23.00
Administrative Assistant/Bookkeeper		$16.67

   * Boxes left blank indicate that there were no data for the given category

What do you think about what you see? We know that in most counties, $15.00 an hour is enough for a single person with no kids, but is not adequate for making ends meet when it comes to single parenting a school-age child (based on data from the Self-Sufficiency Standard).

Wages were also calculated based on rural-urban code and are available by request. What is this rural-urban code, you ask? Get ready for some fancy words from the US government’s Economic Research Services:

Rural-Urban Continuum Codes form a classification scheme that distinguishes metropolitan counties by the population size of their metro area, and nonmetropolitan counties by degree of urbanization and adjacency to a metro area or areas. The metro and nonmetro categories have been subdivided into three metro and six nonmetro groupings, resulting in a nine-part county codification. The codes allow data to break into finer residential groups beyond a simple metro-nonmetro dichotomy, particularly for the analysis of trends in nonmetro areas that may be related to degree of rurality and metro proximity.

Basically, it’s a tested tool that we chose to use because it breaks down the wage data into more usable bits for you, while also providing a greater level of anonymity for program specific information than a breakdown by county would have provided. Check out the table below to find out which code your county falls under.

Rural-Urban Code by County Table:

 

County	Code	County	Code	County	Code	County	Code
Adams	6	Franklin	3	Lewis	4	Snohomish	1
Asotin	3	Garfield	8	Lincoln	8	Spokane	2
Benton	3	Grant	4	Mason	6	Stevens	6
Chelan	3	Grays Harbor	4	Okanogan	6	Thurston	3
Clallam	5	Island	4	Pacific	7	Wahkaikum	8
Clark	1	Jefferson	6	Pend Oreille	8	Walla Walla	4
Columbia	6	King	1	Pierce	1	Whatcom	3
Cowlitz	3	Kitsap	3	San Juan	9	Whitman	4
Douglas	3	Kittitas	6	Skagit	3	Yakima	3
Ferry	9	Klickitat	6	Skamania	1

Contact Traci (traci@wscadv.org) if you would like to see a certain rural/urban code breakdown. Some of you have requested these and shared them with your agency and boards. For those who have used this information, was it helpful? How did you use it? What information might be more helpful in the future?