Without even taking inflation into account, freelance rates in journalism have been frozen or have gone down, in many cases substantially, since I first started getting paid to write about 20 years ago.
Joining in the chorus of journalists/writers who get paid the same as 20 years ago. Or at least that's what I get offered; I don't accept unless it's something I want to do for other reasons
Who are all these people whose pay is shooting up? I’m a fairly basic corporate bitch and our salaries haven’t kept pace with inflation even before the last couple of daft years. People moving jobs in shortage sectors maybe?
Public service, too; rates of pay have been pretty stagnant over the past decade or so. In real terms a civil servant is paid about 20-25% less than their equivalent in 2010-ish.
Same in translation
I quit as the FT's senior drama critic (on a freelance contract) in 2019 because I was being paid, in real terms, less than on my first gig as a cub reviewer for a London listings magazine of <10,000 circulation in 1991.
If my pay is going up so fast, why shouldn’t I ever retire? The mysteries of Economist clickbait bsky.app/profile/agir...
gotta wonder how the Economist's staff/freelances feel about that, I somehow doubt they are getting huge rates either
Freelance arts journalism is, I think, only viable if augmented by family money or commercial work. Certainly in the UK (US rates were a revelation to me).
My wife's freelance translation rates are pretty much unchanged over the past 20 years.