Have you ever noticed how strange our value system is when it comes to careers and how much they make? There are jobs that average thousands of dollars per hour, there are jobs that average a hundred dollars per hour, and jobs that average ten dollars per hour. That’s quite the range.
If we stopped to think about it a bit, how likely is it that the people who are earning thousands of dollars per hour are really working that much more than the people working ten dollars per hour? We’re talking about a pay rate that is at least one hundred times the minimum wage, if not more. Can people really work more than a hundred times more in a given hour than a minimum wage worker? Not likely.
But that’s not actually the strange part of this. The strange part is what jobs are making that much more per hour. The jobs that pay thousands? That’s the average rate for CEOs. The jobs that pay a hundred or so? That’s the average rate for doctors. What is wrong with this picture? Why are people in charge of keeping us healthy making at least ten times less than the average CEO? We’re not even talking about CEOs of pharmaceutical companies, architectural companies or communication companies per se—just CEOs in general. That’s not even talking about the people working minimum wage jobs.
Some people would argue that the reason some careers pay more is because they’re just that much more valuable than other careers. But this is where our value system gets flawed. How can we really argue that the head honcho of a greeting card company, for example, does work that’s more than ten times as valuable than the people who save our lives and keep us healthy? Are we really that callused to people’s wellbeing? Plus, is that same greeting card CEO really doing work that is more valuable by at least a hundred times than the person who makes their food and stocks the stores they shop in?
Other people argue that jobs that are necessary to human existence, such as medical care or food provision, need to be kept to lower wages so that costs will stay low and more people can afford it. This logic makes a little sense until we look at the other side of this thought, which argues that only the jobs unnecessary for human existence, like the entertainment industry, can have higher-paying jobs because it doesn’t matter how much that bumps up the cost.
This is a complete contradiction with the argument that says people ought to be paid more if their job is more essential, and yet, so often, we tend to hold both views at once. We want our necessities cheap so we argue that the people providing them should make less. We want our important contributions to be valued, so we argue that we ought to be paid more for them.
But these views can never get along and we need to stop pretending they do. Either we start paying people more to do the essential jobs, or we pay everybody less to drive down costs. Or, better yet, let’s find a system that values both the importance of these essential contributions and values the people who need these services but might not able to afford them.
