Certified individuals usually earn more money than their non-certified peers. Here are some stats from recent research that supports this trend:
According to a recent Foote Partners report, pay for Sun Certified Java Programmers rose 13.5% over the first three months of 2009.
The 2009 Certification Magazine Salary Survey also posted the following average annual salary results (x1000) for the following key Java Certifications with respondents from around the world which were are all up from 2008.