What is Michael Lewis Worth Today?

We all read business books, most of them rah-rah motivational fluff like The 21 Irrefutable Laws Of Leadership or extended think pieces like A Whole New Mind. But the ones I enjoy the most are story-telling peeks inside another industry. I'm a fan of Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The New New Thing), and I finally got 'round to reading his original claim-to-fame: 1989's Liar's Poker. Which brings me to my complaint.

Lewis' story starts with him getting hired by Salomon Brothers in 1985 for a salary of $48,000.  In today's dollars, that would be, uh… how much, exactly?

Business writers in newspapers and magazines do this calculation for us all the time -- and I appreciate it. How come we readers don't get the same courtesy from business book publishers milking the umpteenth printing of a bestseller like Liar's Poker?

There are several online calculators that can apply easily apply Consumer Price Index data to Michael Lewis' salary. The best two are at MeasuringWorth and Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both agree that Lewis's $48K starting salary would be $89,933.09 in 2006 -- roughly a $79K base and an $11K bonus after six months. In Lewis' book, upon hearing this, a professor at the London School of Economics "stared at me bug-eyed and gurgled when he heard what I was to be paid." 

Would the same professor be as impressed today? Probably not. For comparison, a starting analyst at Citigroup brings in $55K base with $15K to $40K bonus, according to anecdotal research on TheVault. $48,000 just ain't what it used to be.