sdcellar, my data my be skewed, but I got my data from http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/. I took 92126 as a sample size. Look at the median house hold income in 2000 and in 2008, according to 92126 data, nominal income went from ~$60k/yr to $82k/yr. Adjusted for inflation though, it’s ~$61k/yr in 2008. I can easily give anecdotal of my own as well. However, since most of the people I know graduated college after 2000, fresh grad engineers were making around $45k 7 years ago. Now, those same people are averaging around $85k. So, it’s well above the 35% I stated. However, I know that as your career mature, the income increase will plateau and it’ll be just around inflation or a little bit more if you’re good at what you do.
Nurses got a much steeper salary raise compare to engineer over the last few years.
