This article presents the annual report on the economic status of the profession. This year's report covers three main issues--all perennial problems, but with new analysis based on the latest data--in addition to summarizing the current results from the annual American Association of University Professors (AAUP) survey of full-time faculty compensation. The report provides new data to document the most significant trend in academic labor of this era, the unabated growth of contingent employment. The analysis enumerates the overall trend in employment status, examines pay for part-time faculty members, and presents an entirely new dataset on the compensation and working conditions of full-time non-tenure-track faculty members. As part of this year's report, a case study of compensation discussions on one specific campus is included. This case study ("Collaborative Decision Making regarding Salary Policy: A Case Study," authored by Frank Boyd and Hans-Joerg Tiede) discusses the work of the Faculty Salary Task Force that was convened at Illinois Wesleyan University. While the focus of the task force was on revising the salary policy, aspects of the collaborative effort of the faculty and administration are applicable to other areas of institutional decision making. Reforms that resulted from salary-policy recommendations proposed by the task force and subsequently adopted by the faculty and the administration are also described. Appendix I provides data for a list of institutions with academic ranks, and Appendix II provides data for a list of institutions without ranks. (Contains 15 tables, 4 figures, 7 notes, and 218 notes to appendices 1 and 2.)