What would be the top 5 most underpaid jobs in America?
1. Police Officer
This is definitely the most underpaid profession one could work. Any job where you are putting your life and well-being at risk and you are dealing with criminals, is worth $200K per year as far as I am concerned. On top of it, with the way things have become these days, a police officer needs to have the knowledge of a judge or a lawyer as well. They need to know exactly what the law is and whether they can or cannot arrest someone. They also need to know how to operate within the law themselves so they don’t lose their jobs or end up in jail because they were too rough with someone or said the wrong thing to someone. Can you imagine having to pull people over for speeding every day with the thought always in the back of your mind that this person could pull a gun on you? The heck with that. This is one underpaid profession.
2. Engineering
All disciplines of engineering from electrical to mechanical to software are grossly underpaid professions. The college undergraduate degrees for these professions are the hardest programs to go through within most colleges. It is like going to medical school, except it’s not to study medicine. The programs for engineering are very rigorous, and if any individual has ever found an engineering program easy, then it is a shame they didn’t become a surgeon instead. Once a person has made it through an engineering program, they go out into the job market only to find out they are competing against cheap foreign labor. Once they finally land a job, they eventually find out their peers that were sales and marketing majors in school are making more money. And the anguish continues. Working as an engineer is extremely hard work. It is always challenging, high pressure, constant problem solving, a constant learning curve, boring people to work with, incompetent managers to work under, and plenty of non-paid overtime. Meanwhile, the people who are working in sales and in management at the same companies make more money, enjoy a fairly lax work environment, and are compensated for their performance. Not only was their college experience easy going with breeze-by classes, free time, free weekends, and no hours to take their last two years of college, but their work life is fairly the same. Engineers go through education and training just as rigorous as it is to become a doctor. Their education and learning continues even further when entering the work force. In exchange, on the average, they aren’t paid that much better than a high school teacher who has summers off. There are a select few engineers of whom have achieved Phd status, or have proven themselves enough over a period of 20 years or more that they can achieve a principal or staff level position which has the potential to pay $100K + per year. These opportunities are as available as quarterback positions on a football team. There is only room for a few. The majority of engineers enjoy a stressful environment with low pay. They are grossly under-compensated given the education and expertise they obtain throughout their careers. In addition, they have to work and share office space with other nerds that were shoved in their lockers in high school. These nerds will work overtime for free, essentially ruining your chance for any significant salary raises, unless you join them. And don’t plan on joining them at the bar. Most nerd engineers have never been to a bar in their lives nor have they ever drank a beer. Do not ever become an engineer. But if you were one of the people always getting shoved in lockers in school, and you find it very fun and entertaining to spend your free time on weekends writing code on your computer or playing with your Tivo, then this job is for you. (And what do I know? I worked in this field, so that qualifies me to make these types of judgements.)
3. Jail guard
Definitely one job you couldn’t pay me enough to work. Depending on what kind of prison you are in, you are always in danger. You are occupying the same space as the low life trash of society. You have to interact with low lives. At some point, somebody is going to get out of control, so you get to spend your evening rolling around on the ground with some degenerate trying to put cuffs on him. I don’t know exactly what these people get paid, but if you go around knocking on doors in any upper class neighborhoods, you won’t find anyone answering the door that will tell you they are a jail guard.
4. Janitor
Ok, we all might laugh at the guy who mops and empties trash cans, but you’d have to pay me well into the six figure range to perform their work. It might be considered unskilled labor, but unclogging toilets, cleaning urine off of floors, cleaning vomit, cleaning food off of the floor, and having people look down on you is worth more than $100K per year. There is nothing fun about this job, and you only have like two other co-workers at best. So you won’t be making any friends either.
5. Public works city worker
I have actually worked one of these jobs when I was a young kid in school. Working this job, you will do anything from shoveling asphalt, weed eating, mowing, tearing up and rebuilding sidewalks, picking up trash on the side of the highway, putting up stop signs, repainting street markings, shoveling snow, and other odd types of jobs that need to be done around a city. It is year-round work, outdoors and can be physically strenuous. This typically isn’t a job you can be working if you are 50 years old. It is extremely boring work, and the days go by slow. You are watched and monitored, so slacking off can be tough. Expect only to get 30 minute lunch breaks without going a minute over. Expect to want to go to bed immediately when you get home after work, and then try to keep your eyes open every day while on the job. Working a public works city job is rather unskilled labor, but it is physically demanding and you feel like a piece of crap working it. You are wearing dirty jeans and an orange shirt every day while the rest of the general public goes to their office jobs in nice clothes with higher paychecks and air conditioning. Don’t expect to have a large retirement fund waiting for you if you retire from this lousy way of living.
So there you go. Those are amongst the most underpaid jobs in America. There are people out there who go to offices every day wearing shirts and ties that literally do nothing and receive $100K ++++ in return. By the time these individuals reach middle age, they have lower IQ’s because they never have to think or do anything which renders their brain useless. They just sit behind a desk, manage people, pretend to be busy, and attend meetings. The reason why these people earn a lot more money is simply because they are closer to the top. The person at the top has the say-so in what they will earn, and the next closest person to them will earn a lot as well. Basically, the difficulty level of a job is unrelated to compensation level. The higher you go in a company, or in a public service job, the easier your job becomes and the larger your paycheck grows.
I completely diasgree that Engineers are underpaid.
Architects should be on top of the list. In most states we have to get a master’s degree to get licensed. Our programs require so much of mental work from us, that most of us stay up all night. If you go to any universities at 3 am, you’ll notice all the buildings are closed, except for the architecture studios. Not only do we have to go through tough programs for years, when we start working our salary is 30-40% lower than our equivalent in Engineering.
In my firm we have both departments. And can I can has anyone worked 120 hours/week? I’m afraid only the architects! Not only do we have to create, calculate, make all the part of every element work, we also have to coordinate and draft out everything in details. Believe me, by that time, the whining engineers are all gone.
I don’t know anything about architects and never have gotten to hear anything about what it’s like to work as one. It seems like there are very few around because I’ve never run into anyone that is an architect. But, since you put it that way, I feel for ya!! So now, just remember that you guys are in my thoughts the next time I go off on a tangent about the world of engineering and how we’ve been reduced to just regular employees getting by just the same as people that work much easier jobs with their Bachelor of Arts degrees. But we can also thank the neo-capitalists and the neo-liberals for flooding the country with H1B engineers which essentially has cut all of our wages in half since there is no longer any more competition for workers in the field of engineering.
Engineers are underpaid for their work. It is constant stress, constant use of brain power to solve problems to create things that are vitals for every segment and people in the society. Not only that engineering programs are as tough if not tougher than medical school programs. No other programs comes as close to as rigorous as this. If it were easy and high paid, everyone would become an engineer and there wouldn’t be any shortage of talent coming from this country. I have a friend who breezed through his sales major earning 3 times the salary I am,(selling things engineers and scientist creates) only because he gets performance incentive on top of his regular salary. How is that fair?? If anything, engineers responsible for making the product should get a cut of that incentive payment.
Engineers are very underpaid. For all the hardship and stress they go thru school which is equal or more of that of a medical student and the fact that we are responsible for advancing the human race with technology that affects every segment of human society, we should get paid a hella lot more. Not only that but I agree that marketing and sales get more money for doing even half the work. I’ve a friend who earns 3 times my salary cuz he gets incentive money for his performance. If anything engineers and scientist responsible for creating those very same product should be able to take a huge cut for every item sold.
Engineers are grossly underpaid, Tracy doesn’t know what the hell she is talking about.
I don’t think cops are underpaid at all… sure everyone is sympathetic because they are occassionaly in dangerous situations, but no one forced them to become policemen. These guys get good salaries, and after 20 yrs on the force (when they are in their early 40s) they retire with golden packages that pay them almost 100% salary FOR LIFE…. THEN they go join the force in another town where they get paid a second salary on top of their retirement. Add overtime pay on top of all that and they are living high indeed. Take a look at how dangerous and underpaid coal miners are, but just because they are not constantly in the public eye, no one cares.
Now.. back to the engineer thing. Real-dollar engineering salaries have been stagnant for 20yrs. Ali says if the salaries went up there would be no shortage of engineers… This is totally backwards!… THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF ENGINEERS! The proof is that salaries haven’t gone up in 20 yrs! (again, real-dollar). If there were a shortage, salaries would go up. BTW you nailed it about H1B being one of the prime reasons for this, offshoring is a problem too.
In reality, the bottom line is that pursuing a career in engineering just isn’t worth it any longer. Engineering use to be considered a professional career decades ago right up there with doctors and lawyers. With manufacturing jobs leaving the country (manufacturing and engineering are tied together), H1B’s flooding our country, and offshoring, the field of engineering has been cheapened. It’s still the most challenging undergraduate degree to obtain, but yet if you are even lucky enough to find employment, your compensation will be the same as anyone else that starts out in other careers where their college studies included partying and drinking 5 nights a week. Unless you really really enjoy the technology field and can’t get enough of it, then maybe the field is for you. Otherwise, why not just go work in another profession where the rewards are greater, where you can work from home, get out and about during the week, be with co-workers that like to go out and have fun and play hooky on Fridays, and be compensated for your efforts through commission? Working with geeks all day long inside a building where you are stuck all day every day just adds to the misery.
On a side note, employment for most careers these days is horrible because of the contracting economy and wages are pretty much stagnant across the board.
I am a retired software engineer. Got an EE degree in 1965 at the height of the space program and actually worked for NASA RIGHT OUT OF COLLEGE. You are absolutely correct that American engineers are well under paid, or as we used to say ‘Engineers are always on TAP but never ON TOP’. I think the problem is that the American business model has alwys been short term profit driven and that means those selling some thing (or managing money) will always be more visible (and therefore better paid) than those actually creating things in the basement. Also engineers tend to mostly be the first in their families to go to college, and we went to “get a job” , not to find ourselves. WE took courses that were extrememly difficult and robbed us of time and opportunities to develop people and negotiation skills AND TO SEE THE BIG PICTURE, . Undergraduate engineering can be a HUMBLING experiance, did you know that the class average for freshman MIT physics is a 65% and these are Brilliant kids? So we have been conditioned to see ourselves as always just barely keeping up with the science. I think this carries on throughout our careers and we kind of become mute when it comes time to negotiate our due rewards. We never organized because we see ourselves as part of management but management does not have the same view. In America, engineers are viewed as skilled (for a time ) labor that is replaceable about every 10 years. Now with outsourcing the financial guys are really destroying the future for American based engineers. India, China, Russia etc have a cadre of young engineering graduates who will continue to work themselves to death for much less than their worth.
A recent study of graduates from Duke who degreed in engineering showed that most never worked as engineers but went on to Wall street. Even the peresident of Georia Tech , a few years back, questioned the future of the profession. So when I hear Greenspan and others decry that Americans are not pursuing eengineering, AND THAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH OUR ECONOMY , I want to choke them !!
i think there is really no need for a debate for which job is underpaid or what. Salaries are all determined by the demand n supply market driving forces. If you think you are underpaid, then why are you still clinging on to your job? Because tt job is your choice job. You want to be a engineer, doctor, policeman etc.. no one force you to do that? so yeah, ppl.. just love your job instead of complaining n live life well