When we think of the highest paid people in the country, CEOs immediately come to mind for most of us. Considering the average pay of nearly $21 million among CEOs from the top 200 companies in 2013, executive pay and the income gap has been topic of interest recently. The Bureau of Labor Statistics places jobs like oral surgeons, specialty surgeons, and physicians at the top of the pay scale, as most of these occupations exceeded the $200,000 per year salary mark in 2012.
Why do certain occupations earn higher salaries? With doctors and surgeons, it has a lot to do with the level of knowledge and expertise required to perform their duties. The decade (or so) of education and the level of tenacity needed to make it to the level of a doctor places them into an elite category. For some CEOs, a similar principle applies where a self-made individual climbs their way up the corporate ladder. We often see this as a success story. In other cases, however, CEOs inherit their good fortune. This is the case for many, as nepotism is still alive and thriving throughout corporate America.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the lowest earning workers. These are those who earn low wages working in occupations like food preparation and service (nearly 44 percent of low wage earners fall into this category), personal care and service, transportation and moving materials, grounds cleaning and maintenance, as Pew Research found these jobs to have large numbers of minimum wage workers. According to Pew, those at or below minimum wage are often young, part-time workers.
The remainder of occupations fall somewhere in between the lowest and highest earners. While the rest of these jobs are paid higher than minimum wage, many occupations deserve higher pay when you compare each worker’s salary to their boss. Certain occupations, however, stand out as especially deserving of a higher paycheck. These are occupations that involve a high level of education, training, skills, or tenacity. The abilities and responsibilities of these workers are not at all reflected in their paychecks.