It's justifiable to take a pay cut (to me) when:

- The pay cut is offset by something of similar or greater value. That may mean more work/life balance, a shorter commute, fully remote work, you name it. What is valuable to you may be worthless to someone else so it's an entirely subjective thing.

- It's a pivot into something that will have an eventual payoff. For instance, someone may be a general manager at a grocery store making $100,000, but make a career pivot into an entry-level software development position making $85,000.

- The higher paying job is taking a toll on my physical or mental health. Most jobs are going to carry some sort of stress, but if that stress is hurting me physically or mentally, the pay isn't worth it.

- The pay cut wouldn't impact my standard of living. I'd be totally fine taking a small pay cut if it didn't cut into my standard of living. The dollar amount depends on your income, of course. Taking a $5,000 cut making $200k is a lot different than taking that kind of cut making $25,000.

I took a 20% pay cut for an 80% reduction in stress once.

As it turns out I was you a few years ago. I went from nuclear power, where I made $95k base and $130-150k with OT, to cybersecurity where I started at about $60k/year (government job).

Some things I considered before making the leap (in no particular order):

1. Long term prospects. In nuclear, in order to get paid more I would have to go through two more years of training, at which point I’d get about $10/hr more. The government job, however, was a career ladder, meaning I get promoted every year, giving me a $15k pay raise each year until I hit the top of the ladder which pays about $110k (this would take about 4 years) with no overtime. The new position also has bonuses for certain certifications, mine happens to be 25%, which leaps over nuclear without OT

2. Quality of life. Nuclear is rotating shift work, 12 hours long, while the cyber position is M-F, “9-5” (roughly). While having a 7 day weekend every 5 weeks is nice, transitioning from days to nights every week is painful. Other benefits are also something to consider here. That includes telework, health insurance, PTO, etc.

3. Can I afford it? Fortunately I have a military pension coming in to pay the rent because northern Virginia is on the expensive side for a family of 5. I won’t lie, the first year was tight, the second wasn’t much better

TL;DR answer: ultimately only you can decide, but if you’re unhappy where you are, it might be worth taking the risk. If you can leave in good terms it gives you a fall back plan

Income is great but no one values their $100,000th dollar the way they value their first.

At some point intangibles like work life balance, stress, commute time, and regular old enjoyment of the job drive the bus.

I'd make a ton more as a consulting engineer than I do now but I don't mind straight 40 hour weeks vs 50+ and all hours on call and no travel now that I have a family.

Surely it would be nice to invest more/save more/have more but at some point you have 'enough' and for my family my wife is down to 3 days a week and I'm in a much more relaxed industry. We should be able to get the kids through school/retire reasonably if she goes back to 5 days. We do without some luxuries friends might have but that's life. We've come to terms that a bit of simplicity is worth a whole lot of time together and less stress.

The biggest reason is time. You only live once and basically no one looks back on life and says "I wish I spent more time at work."

Second is benefits. Lower pay in exchange for benefits. These can be literal benefits like health insurance, or quality of life benefits like shorter commutes or work from home or paid travel, whatever you value.

Third is feeling valued. I've left better paying jobs that treated me badly for work that made me feel appreciated every day! This isn't just an ego thing, it can affect your health and general happiness in positive or negative ways. Work satisfaction is really important.

Fourth is growth potential. My spouse hit a pay ceiling where raises were basically never going to happen. Took a pay cut for 2 years and now makes more than before.

And there are probably more reasons.

I've taken a pay cut to move (back) into a career with limitless growth, as opposed to the basically maxed out line of work I was in. My timing was awful, was working on the transition when covid blew up, and everything I was applying to dried up and I had already been replaced in my current role and was training my replacement. They eventually let me go when there wasn't anything else for me to do and I couldn't land any of the (very few) openings there were.

Anyways, stayed the course on my goals after that though, and while it took 2+ years to replace that income, as of this year, I'm actually significantly over that amount.

The setback was real, but I'm here now, and have - like I said - unlimited opportunity to grow, especially getting my own business going, but even as a traditional employee I could climb the ladder.

As much as it sucked for those couple years, I have zero regrets. Work/life balance (as long as I'm disciplined) is manageable, money is finally improving, and I have a lot to work hard for, whereas before there was no where left to go.

I would consider a paycut if there were things such as growth; remote work; work/life balance; commute savings; general enjoyment of the work (hard to say until you're on the inside though); working in a field/role that aligns with my natural strengths rather than where I have to rely heavily on my natural weaknesses.

I took a massive pay cut to change careers and I have no regrets. If it’s worth it to you I say go for it. Money isn’t everything.

I took an almost 50% paycut to get out of restaurant management and into the corporate world. Now I make 3x what I did in restaurants for half the hours.

However, I was at a point in my life where I could afford that. I realistically couldn't just drop my pay in half today and be fine.