i can’t believe that this is true

[Franklin Mcmahon]

It’s good to strive for more and advance your career. Once you see the potential in the landscape, and movement of peers, it can be good and healthy to ponder the options and/or next move.

So yes…keep thinking. 🙂

Frank

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[Jeremy Doyle]

I thank you all for your various view points on this. I realize that where I’m located is a contributing factor in all this. I just saw those numbers and they are much larger than what I make. I’m just a staff editor that pumps out 26 episodes a year shows that air mostly on cable and dish, so it’s not surprising that I make less. And once you start to add in all my employer paid social security taxes, 401k contributions, and insurances it would probably total just a a few thousand short of the median they have listed.

I really enjoy my job, where I’m located and the people I work with, but when you see something like this it gets a guy thinkin’.

[Shane Ross]

Yeah…I will have you know that as a freelance NON-UNION editor, I have to pay for my own health insurance and have no 401k. If I was union, then I would have health insurance….thru the union. And they have a pension fund as well.

Interesting to note, many people like to hire editors on shows as NON-union, but pay them the same rate. Why? Well, lets say that as an editor you earn $2500/week. If you are non-union, you cost $2500/week. If you are union, they pay you $2500, but then pay the UNION an additional amount, like an extra $500…that goes towards your health coverage and pension fund. In this way the union acts like the company that groups you together in a health group.

I really need another union job.

Shane

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[Mike Cohen]

and don’t forget that with a salaried non-union job with benefits, the employer pays usually 50% of the premium for health insurance ( a significant number if you have a family), disability insurance, dental etc as well as 50% of your social security and sometimes a 401K contribution(matching or otherwise) – amounts that are above and beyond the actual salary you earn. So for a salaried employee with full benefits, the salary may be $50,000 but the company is actually paying closer to $60,000 or more.

This thread has provided a nice cross section of examples, since we have staff editors, freelancers, small business owners and people who do a little of everything.

[Timothy J. allen]

There’s less than 19,000 Editors in America? I guess they aren’t counting all of those guys with Final Cut in their garage studio that charge $50/hour as “professional Editors”. That’s ok, I guess I don’t really count them as “professional” either.

[Bob Zelin]

Jeremy writes –

I really enjoy my job, where I’m located and the people I work with, but when you see something like this it gets a guy thinkin’.

REPLY –
it should get you thinking. I am from New York originally. In one of my first jobs, I was the video tech for Panavision, and would get sent out on hi end film shoots to assist with “complex” video products for Panaflex film cameras. I was a “staff” person with no overtime – so my boss would charge $90 per hour for me, and I would be there late on a Friday night, making ZERO EXTRA MONEY – no overtime, just my salary, while everyone on the film crew was making big money, and my boss, who was out having dinner, was making $90 per hour on my time, while I made nothing. If something like that doesn’t get you “thinking”, then you are a wuss.

Anyway, 25 years later, I got too old for the rat race of NY, and moved to Florida. I went into culture shock when people just starred at me when I told them my rate. “How could I survive on less money” – well you make that tradeoff, on quality of life, instead of killing yourself in NY or LA, or Chicago for the “big bucks”. It’s what you consider important.

With that said, it doesn’t only apply to your salary vs. freelance rates. Most of us (small business owners) know exactly how much we charge for a production or post production job. When I found out that the Toyota distributor spent $75,000 in one evening for a video production in Las Vegas for a corporate trade show, I cried in disbelief as well, because I am not fortunate to have those kinds of clients.

bob Zelin

[Bill Davis]

I remember at NAB talking with Brian Meany, the product manager for FCP and his mentioning that there are over a MILLION actual REGISTERED copies of the program in worldwide use! And that’s just ONE NLE system, so there are a LOT of people editing video out there. However, I doubt more than a tiny fraction of them list VIDEO EDITOR on their IRS declarations and get into the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers for occupations. OTOH, I’ll bet every person cutting a major TV show DOES list that as their occupation. So I think the problem here is that we all have one kind of definition of what an “editor” is – while the government statistics are about something else entirely.

FWIW.

[Patrick Ortman]

I know! That’s exactly it, you make a ton of cash but it costs $4,000 a month to pay the mortgage for a small place. Ugh! Still, gotta love the opportunities LA presents.

Another data point- I know a few editors who clear an easy 6 figures, too. In LA. Working non-Union mostly.

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