I read an article published on Yahoo yesterday about 10 surprising minimum wage jobs but I was surprised that the authors didn’t really understand WHY those jobs don’t pay very well. Here’s the list:
- Emergency Medical Technician (EMT)
- Pharmacy Technician
- Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA)
- Preschool Teacher
- Amusement Park Ride Operator
- Line Cook
- Lifeguard
- Nanny
- Automobile Mechanic
- Tax Preparer
No one is saying that these positions aren’t important, but before you scurry around to finish your degree and get one of these jobs, let’s dissect them in light of the Four Reasons Your Job Doesn’t Pay Well.
The reasons a job pays poorly are:
- There are a lot of people willing and able to perform it.
- The job doesn’t require any specialized skills or education.
- The job is unpleasant.
- The demand for the job’s product or service is low or seasonal.
Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) – important job to be sure, but I don’t buy the claim that they make an average of $11.41/hour. Does the average include the volunteer EMT’s that work in many rural areas? If the supply was very short, but the demand was very high, these jobs would have to pay more.
Pharmacy Tech – another important job, but most of the pharmacy tech’s I’ve known were in pharmacy school and were working for the experience. Other’s were not in charge of dispensing the medications but were simply ringing up customers or counting pills under a pharmacists supervision.
Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) – again another important position. When you’re feeding, bathing, dressing, grooming, moving patients and changing soiled bed linens, there aren’t long lines of people waiting to perform those duties. These are not duties that require high levels of skill and they are under the constant supervision of a registered nurse.
Pre-school Teacher – nothing’s more important than our children, right? Of course, but the number of people willing to perform this job are relatively high compared to those who can fill a stadium with screaming fans.
Amusement Park Ride Operator – seriously? You’re surprised that a part-time, seasonal position held by college students that press buttons and check the safety bar on your roller coaster is a low paying job?
Line cook – ditto. Who can be surprised at this one?
Lifeguard – again with the seasonal positions. Newsflash! Most seasonal jobs are not well paying ones.
Nanny – another one that I don’t buy. The bottom 10% earns $7.51/hr with the median range earning $10.31/hour? According to the description, my teenage daughters are nannies, so are the people offering childcare during my church’s morning Bible studies.
Auto Mechanic – yeah right. I’ll concede that new mechanics with very little experience probably don’t earn much, but then neither does anyone with very little experience. Once a mechanic learns to properly diagnose and repair a vehicle for a fair price, he or she is GOLDEN with more business than they can handle.
Tax Preparer – another seasonal position. Please don’t try to convince me that a tax accountant earns only $9.15/hour like the Yahoo article says. A “preparer” generally gets a minimal amount of education and is set loose on the public with a glorified Tax Cut software package. A tax accountant has years of education, certifications, and has passed a rigorous exam.
Copywriters make more than novelists. Basketball stars make more than basketball referees. Chefs make more than hamburger flippers.
Why is anyone surprised?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I can understand your reasoning behind your article, but it does not take into account the commitment and dedication needed to stay in one of these positions.
Supply and demand, granted and you say that supply is higher then demand.
But do you want your child looked after by a demoralised teacher, do you want your food handled by someone who does not care and do you want your medication dispensed by someone who just does not care ?
I think we should look at this a bit more closely.
Regards
ChefsWorld.net
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Ron 's reply:
September 16th, 2009
Why would the teacher be demoralized? It certainly can’t be because of the money, he or she knew the pay scale going into the profession. Personally, I’ve never met anyone who “just doesn’t care” solely because of the money factor. Again, people know what they’ll be paid before they accept the job. Would YOU take a demoralizing job? Would you stay in it?
Supply and demand runs our lives. It would be far better to understand it than to try to circumvent it.
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I was a tax preparer and accountant. Part of it is that despite the hours it takes to prepare a tax return and the knowledge that you need to do it correctly (and legally), people don’t appreciate it, and want it done cheaply. Big francishers like HR Block don’t help because they employ barely trained staff to do it cheaply.
In Australia our Lifeguard service (like many of our emergency services) is run on a voluntary basis – so most of our life savers work for free. Not that they don’t deserve to be paid, its just they way it works here – our bushfire brigade is made up of over 150,000 volunteers, our state emergency service is made up of volunteers (if a wind blows your roof off at 3am, it’s a volunteer up on your roof in the dark and wet repairing it), St John’s Ambulance – volunteer, I teach as a volunteer. In a capitalist model, this does’t actually fit, but it works. Just throwing a different perspective out there.
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Ron 's reply:
September 16th, 2009
And a great perspective at that! We have some similar positions here in the States, volunteer work (many of our rural fire departments and emergency services are all volunteer).
On tac preparation, do you think that the software packages (some very good) that are sold by Turbo Tax and H&R Block (TaxCut) have contributed to people wanting the service performed very cheaply?
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Melissa 's reply:
September 17th, 2009
Re tax software: possibly. But you need to know how to use the software, ie how to apply the taxation laws – it’s not just a matter of plugging in numbers.
I think that people just hate tax, all aspects of it including paying for it to be paid! If it were biblical times, I would be a tax collector – one of the most hated people!
Re teachers: that was my first career! We have a lack of teachers, and I agree that they get paid pretty poorly. There once was a time when teachers were among the most respected of our community. Now they have to increasingly fill the role of parents, and cop a lot of abuse, for very little pay, particularly in comparison with others who have had the same level of education.
Not that I’m anti capitalist (not interested in the alternative!) but it’s sad how we insist on equating ‘value’ with money at the ‘expense’ of all other perspectives.
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