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9 Of The Top 10 U.S. Occupations Pay Miserly Wages
With Dora Mekouar of VOAnews
9 of 10 Largest US Occupations Pay Miserly Wages
Of the 10 largest occupations in the United States, only one - registered nurse - makes more than the national average when it comes to all U.S. jobs.
Nurses make $69,790 annually while the average U.S. worker makes $47,230, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau’s Occupational Employment Statistics program provides employment and wage estimates for more than 800 occupations nationwide.
More Americans worked as retail salespersons or cashiers in May 2014 than in any other job, accounting for about 6 percent of total U.S. employment.
Cashiers at work at Walmart. About 3.4 million Americans work as cashiers. (AP Photo)
The 10 largest occupations include retail salespersons and cashiers, food preparation and serving workers, general office clerks, registered nurses, customer service representatives, and waiters and waitresses. That combined group of workers accounted for 21 percent of total U.S. employment in May 2014.
Waitress Laura Haege carries a breakfast to be serve at the Waveland Cafe, June 19, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo)
The annual average wages for those largest occupations — excluding nurses — ranged from $19,110 for combined food preparation and serving workers, to $34,500 for secretaries and administrative assistants. Food preparation and serving workers also had one of the lowest paying occupations overall, as did fast food cooks ($19,030), shampooers ($19,480), and dishwashers ($19,540).
Here is the full breakdown of the top 10 occupations from the BLS:
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the highest paying jobs include certain physicians and dentists, chief executives, nurse anesthetists and petroleum engineers.
So-called STEM jobs — occupations requiring science, technology, engineering, or math-related degrees — accounted for about 6.2 percent of all U.S. jobs. There are 100 different occupations that account for the STEM jobs. Seven of the 10 largest STEM occupations were related to computers.
Ninety-three of the 100 STEM occupations had mean wages that were significantly above the U.S. jobs average. The highest paying STEM occupations included petroleum engineers ($147,520) and physicists ($117,300). The lowest paying STEM jobs included agricultural and food science technicians ($37,330) and forest and conservation technicians ($37,990).
Overall, the most lucrative U.S. jobs included management, legal, and computer and mathematical occupations.
The lowest paying included food preparation and serving, personal care and service, and farming, fishing, and forestry occupations. Each had an annual mean wage of about $25,000 or less.
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Here is the chart of the average annual wages of the top 10 US occupations:
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A common story here in Monrreal is French visa workers that come here have degrees but end up working at customer service or restaurant jobs. I mean how bad can it be there that they're willing to change continent for a menial labour job?
Maybe they can smell the war that is coming.
Mammy always to me "To git a good job, y'all need a good edumacation"
This article is fucking stupid.
The most common jobs will always be low skilled - is it a surprise they are less than average in pay?
IIRC the average pay rate is around $22 an hour - which of these jobs should earn more than that?
Nurse - I can see - it takes skill, it requires education, it takes years to learn, it is a smelly and dirty job, it has horrible hours - it should be paid above average - the rest - - why?
I guess the author thinks everyone should be paid an ABOVE AVERAGE wage.
Well this is a confirmation that the politacal class should be dellited to hear. The policies of exporting and offshoring our manufacturing worked! Now you have the service jobs you politicians said would supplant those dirty, environmentally bad, and dangerous jobs that actually paid high wages. You left with the low wage no growth jobs that were promised by the politicians.
The businesses have outsourced for 40 years and there is the high end STEM, lawyers, nurses, and teachers. From the politicians, everyone else can pound sand.
The way the government sold people on this was that the U.S. would become the financial center of the world and that college educations were the key to advancement. So the people without high school - too bad, the high school educated - too bad, the college educated with underwater basket weaving degrees -too bad you wasted chance: BTW you still have to pay for those student loans!
When will Americans realize the political elite have scammed the people.
I see those photos of Walmart and I imagine the real jobs that would be created if the goods sold were made in the USA.
A couple of thoughts.
My first thought was why isn't the .gov listed on that which lead me to this next thought.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/11/07/the-federal-government-now-emp...
Presto the magic happens in that article.
No matter how overpaid or .gov workers are at the Federal level we can argue about that, they are not the problem as there just are not that many of them percentage wise but look at the graph in that article of LOCAL .gov.
Ah folks there it is.
It's the kindly LOCAL school people and LOCAL admin and on and on and on.
It's the PROPERTY TAXES that are going sky high seems like a few localities need to stop with the it's for the CHILDREN crap stop coddling these little brats and start saving the real money.
Teachers' salaries are the largest portion of any school budget (normally 80%+). In the last 30 years the requirements to be qualified as a school teacher have mushroomed. In most states, teachers are required to have an undergraduate degree, and encouraged (read... salary capped) to have a masters. In more than a few states, teachers can't retain their licensure unless they have a master's degree. Currently in excess of 55% of teachers hold a masters. So - 'best qualified teachers only', or 'cheap teachers' - people have made their choice at the ballot box through the ever-rising requirements for teacher credentialing.