As always, I'm sorry if there has been a thread on this before, I looked and found none.

I was playing TES:IV the other day, and while I was in I think Cheydinhall, I heard one of the people there complain about the high taxes, saying something like "I got charged 5 septims the other day for littering! Thats more than I make in a year!" So I got to thinking, how much money do the workers of Tamriel earn a year? 5 septims seems insanely low, seeing as you could probably find that in a random barrel of crate. Anyway, just wondering what the salaries of different occupations are, if theres even any info on that, thanks.

Guards when going off duty often moan "Another day, another septim."

That sounds more like the saying "Another day, another dollar." I don't think they literally mean they earn 1 septim a day, like how our police don't earn a dollar a day, but still small amount.

Anyway, to answer your questions OP, no TES game has really shown what it really means to be rich or poor, let alone what the economy of a place really is like other than visual representations. But, if we are to assume 5 setpims is a lot for the working man, I have a feeling they don't really make all that much.

Reminds me of "Another day, another hundred piles of ore..."

Also, I believe that the payment of workers is not just in gold, but also in housing and nourishment. (My only example is what the Skingrad Butler tells you when you are hired as the "slop drudge" in a thieves guild quest)

Using the guard as an example, I bet they're given nourishing (didn't say good) food, armor, weapons, training, a barracks to sleep in, and not so great pay. However, they don't have to worry about going hungry and living in bad accommodations, and most likely have access to some pretty good medicine. I'd guess the kind of pay and accommodations they get is about that of our military.

The whole issue revolves around the difference between trying to emulate the Medieval/Roman (=fantasy) economy with the very scarse golden coins (and the less scarse silver coins etc. etc. etc.) versus the gameplay reality of having only one kind of useful coin in one kind of denomination.

So they're saying "5 gold coins (=septims) is more than I make in a year". A loaf of bread can't be cheaper than one gold, so if you compare those wages to the mean annual minumum wage in the Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations ($18,430) it would end up costing about $3686.

If you measure wealth in gold, Roman and medieval era period ppl were richer than ourselves.

Maybe it'd be better (or something) if there were other types and denominations of coinage around? Have no idea what they could be for either lower than a septim or possibly even higher? Silver, copper... um, tin? Whatever you may say or think about it, I think World of Warcraft had a not-so-bad system of currency, and I remember a Dungeons and Dragons game that had four or five different coin types though I don't remember what they were.

With different coinage, it might be easier or something to figure out NPC salaries. If they make about 5 septims a year, provisions and such would be priced accordingly in the lower values though, so I don't know. What in the world would a septim be comparable to? A hundred dollar bill, a thousand? Gold ain't a cheap or plentiful metal.