Note · May 10, 2026

My first salary was 6,000 rupees, paid on 30 August 1999. I gave it to my mother.

In today’s money, that is roughly 12,000 rupees. It is also, almost exactly, what we pay our paid interns at DevBatch.

So either things have not moved at all in twenty-seven years, or the value of an entry-level role in this country has held its real-terms position better than every macro indicator would suggest. I think it is some of both.

Either way, it is the closest thing to a stable peg I have found in the Pakistani economy.