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Same starting salary since 1995
Pay That Stood Still
A Cognizant job is a major win now, at 15,000 to 20,000 rupees a month, which is roughly $200 if you are lucky. Back then nobody thought of the starting salary as huge. It is still the same number.
The Gap Abroad
That is what one shift brings in abroad: a 10-hour shift at McDonald's in New York City at $28 an hour. India has a sense of acceptance and fairly low aspiration. In the 1990s aspiration skyrocketed, and Chetan Bhagat does not think there is that much of it anymore.
Why People Adjust
People have adjusted as long as they get cheap data, a lot of free content to watch, cricket, and big weddings of rich people on one small phone, along with cheap food. You can eat one meal for 50 rupees, and 60 to 100 rupees a day covers the eating, 200 if you want dessert. Meanwhile, the content is not real, and you cannot spend your life watching content and make nothing of your own.
Why do entry-level IT salaries move so slowly?
Large Indian IT services firms hire graduates in bulk each year, and a large supply of applicants keeps starting pay low. The industry grew by selling engineering work at lower rates than Western firms charge, which depends on keeping costs down. Cognizant, founded in the United States in 1994, employs most of its workforce in India.
How did cheap data change Indian life?
Reliance Jio launched in September 2016 with free introductory data and voice, and rivals cut their prices sharply in response. Mobile data in India became among the cheapest in the world per gigabyte. Video streaming and social apps then spread to hundreds of millions of new users.
How do economists compare wages across countries?
Economists use purchasing power parity, which adjusts for what a currency buys locally. The Economist's Big Mac Index, started in 1986, offers an informal version by comparing the price of a burger across countries. A wage that looks small in dollars can buy more at home than the conversion suggests, though the gap narrows for imported goods and travel.