Why are teachers and nurses underpaid?
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Anonymous
On a regular risk-adjusted, selection-adjusted, cost-adjusted basis, teachers are often very well-paid. Most people who can handle college and want to be teachers can at least start out being teachers, without going through a tough weedout process. That’s probably the equivalent of a weedout adjustment of about 200 percent. (Kids who start college aiming to be teachers are at least two times as likely to achieve their goals as premeds, pre-engineers or big-law pre-laws are.) Teachers can typically get hired with a one-year master’s. That means they get a $2,000 to $5,000 per year income bump over a 40-year career, and maybe a $4,000 to $15,000 per year bump, if you include interest costs and the value of two extra years of ability to work full time. K-12 teachers can go through layoffs, but they’re less likely to go through a layoff than engineers, and they don’t face the weedout process law firm associates face. Also, big-law lawyers get big salaries, but most law school grads are lucky to make $60,000 starting out. Engineers earn high starting salaries but tend to have short careers. So, certainly, some lawyers do very well, but many lawyers are like Saul in Better Call Saul on a bad day. They’re seriously screwed. They are much more poor than a teacher with a master’s degree and 20 years of tenure. I think any given teacher who’s making $70,000 after 20 years is the economic equivalent of a lawyer with 20 years of experience who’s making $150,000. And, in my area, teachers with 20 years of experience and master’s degrees make $100,000 or more. Nurses face a tougher weeding out process than teachers and, in many cases, more education bills, but they earn about as much as small-law lawyers, and they’re probably about five times less likely to face weeding out than premeds. And they face much less marketing and practice management stress than doctors, along with drastically lower education and insurance costs and loss-of-work-year losses. So, sure, nurses earn less than doctors, but a group of 100 college freshman premeds and a group of 100 college freshman pre-nursing students will probably end up with comparable lifetime cohort earnings in the targeted profession, once you add in adjustments for weeding out risk, education costs, student loan interest, malpractice insurance costs, etc. In other words: a neurologist might be doing great, but, if you average her after-education income with the income of five of her premed friends who failed to become doctors, that average income is probably comparable to the weedout-adjusted income of a nurse or K-12 teacher. |
Anonymous
In a lot of those same areas, lawyers with law degrees from so so schools may be lucky to make $40k starting out, and they probably have more student loans and a tougher time keeping their jobs. You’re jealous because you hear stories of kids who survived years of hell and became radiologists or big-law law firm associates. But those high-income young workers are super lucky lottery winners. They’re the Squid Game survivors standing on a pyramid of 50 or more students who got winnowed out (failed premeds) or who have seedy, low-paid jobs (most young lawyers). |
Anonymous
this. |
Anonymous
the pay varies greatly based on experience and specialty. if you get into a specialty (Anesthesia for example) you can do quite well (150K or more working 36 hours a week). |
Anonymous
They are in much of the South. |
Anonymous
Because our economy would collapse if they were highly paid. How would we pay for healthcare if every RN was making $150k a year? How high would your property taxes be if every teacher made $150k a year? |
Anonymous
Yes. |
Anonymous
Healthcare is expensive because health insurance companies are making the money, not because of nurse or dr salaries Don’t even ask why medication is so costly |
Anonymous
Lower salaries in a region doesn't mean underpaid; the cost of living is also significantly lower in much of the South. I have several nurses in my immediate family and they are doing quite well for themselves. It's a challenging job, but the demand for nurses has placed a lot of upward pressure on wages in many areas. |
Anonymous
| Because they don’t generate enough profit. See sports players for an example. |
Anonymous
| Teachers in FFX County start around $53K. That seems like a fine starting wage for a college grad. Even better considering time off in the summer. |
Anonymous
a friend of mine started out at 55k in Fairfax. She’s in her 20s. I don’t think that’s underpaid. |
Anonymous
Where does this teacher work? Is it somewhere with a high COL? NYC? My DW and I both teach in Fairfax County elementary schools. This is my 30th year. I have my MA +30 and make $110k. DW makes exactly the same. We think it is fair compensation. Our benefits are not “insane” (I’d like to know the example of “insane”) but our pension is good (mine is a bit better than hers since she was hired by the county after changes were made). Retiree healthcare premiums are at least double what an active teacher pays. I’d estimate I regularly put in about 50-55 hours per week (working, on task, not down time) but I’ve never put in hours over the summer that weren’t paid. Earlier in my year (up through my 10th year or so), I worked summer school. Since then I really don’t do anything for work between our last contract day in June and our first day in August. Other than paid summer school teaching earlier in our career we’ve never found it necessary to put in hours over the summer. |
Anonymous
Well, that’s obviously not an area the pp was referencing. |
Anonymous
| I’m very good friends with my kids 1st grade teacher in mcps. My kid is in 5th now. The 1st grade teacher makes $80k in mcps. She is in her 30s and has been a teacher several years. I don’t think that’s underpaid for the hours she does. Clearly she doesn’t either, she loves her job and the kids she’s teaching. |