By Katie Bardaro

In recent years, the print media world has been suffering. The Tribune Co., one of the largest traditional media (read newspaper) companies, filed for bankruptcy. Other traditional media companies have followed suit, since the economy and interest in print journalism are both in a downward spiral.

According to 2008 article by Reuters, almost 50% of those surveyed get their news from the Internet while only 10% depend upon newspapers as a news source. Time is not on the side of newspapers the majority of those aged 18-29 get their news from online, while only 35% of those 65 and older use the Internet.

What will happen to the thousands of employees involved with print media?

Are you a buggy whip maker in a horseless carriage age? PayScale's salary calculator and GigZig career path explorer can help you understand options for a new career direction.

Each week delivers more grim news about some part of the economy, including job cuts and climbing unemployment. All the gloom-and-doom has some recalling unemployment during the Great Depression. At this point the U.S. unemployment rate is 6.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics; peak unemployment during the Great Depression was 25 percent. Are we inching toward a similarly unsavory fate?

I got an interesting question in my email inbox:

"My daughter may be graduating from [a college in Florida] with bachelor’s in accounting this spring. She qualifies for a program which allows her to earn the master's degree in accounting for an additional year.

Currently, she has been offered a job with accounting consulting firm in northern VA with pay of $51,000 beginning next September. Her draft budget shows that, with all taxes taken out, she would actually be making about $35,000. Her dad says “not good enough for that area.” If she chooses the 5th year program to earn her Masters degree in accounting...wonder how much more she would make at entry level with that. Can you give me some insight?"

This has all the elements of a career choice: cost of living in a new location, earning a higher degree vs. working, and what salary is reasonable for a location, job, experience level, and employer.

Is $51,000/year a fair wage for your job? Find out with the PayScale Salary Calculator.

The David Leonhardt article in today's New York Times on the pay of automotive workers for the Big 3 got me thinking about what hourly wages really mean. Are Ford workers really paid $73 per hour?

I did a quick look in the PayScale compensation database. While I will get into details below, the quick answer is the assembly line workers in the US at Ford, Chrysler and GM earn about $27/hour in base pay, while US workers for Toyota earn about $25.

This jibes with the graphic in the NYT article. Why do the companies quote $73/hour, when they are only paying about $27/hour?

Understanding this huge difference explains why the Big 3 are going bankrupt, and Toyota is not. The $2/hour difference in base wage is not the Big 3's problem.

The gap between $28 and $73 per hour comes from different definitions of both wage and hour, and the difference between what current workers earn vs. the promises made to former employees.

Is your market value $73/hour, but your employer is only paying $28? Use the PayScale salary survey to find out.