Soldiers starting salary is set at a measly $18,194. So they try to raise and support a family while they are in another hostile country being shot at or worse. They deal with terrible living situations, away from their families for several months to a few years at a time, and we stick them with that pay.
Police men and women are another career that puts their life on the line everyday to protect the safety of the public. The starting salary for a police officer is generally around $29,000 it's better but not by a whole lot. There were 119 line of duty officers killed last year in the U.S. which is about 119 to many. 46 of those were killed via gunfire.
Firefighters across the country face some of the most intense environments of any occupation out there. They protect our property and they keep us safe. The general starting salary for an occupation that put our immediate lives in the hands of is between $30,000-$40,000. We trust them to perform their dangerous job everyday perfectly and will ridicule them if a mistake is made.
Do you know how much money Alex Rodriguez brought in last year? It will truly knock you out of your chair. $29,000,000.00 was they salary in 2012 for Alex Rodriguez despite him being injured for a good portion of the year. That comes down to $237,704 per game.
Tom Cruise, one of Americas favorite actors brought in a total of around $75,000,000 according to Forbes.
These are just two examples of people who are the "best" at what they do but are they truly worth the pay.
Where did we go wrong that somebody who consistently faces death at their occupation makes a few thousand dollars more than somebody working full time for minimum wage, but where a guy who swings a wooden stick at a yarn ball makes more money in a year than most of us can even imagine.
I love baseball and any sport for that matter more than most yet I find there to be a problem with the wages that we offer some occupations over others.
The biggest difference between the occupations listed above is private and public funding. So, I wonder if the hero-jobs were privatized, would their pay increase?
ReplyDeleteA good friend of mine served as a tank mechanic and was stationed in Baghdad for a while. His pay was approximately $25k per year. For him to return as a civilian contractor, he would earn $250k for 2 years to perform the same job.
Perhaps, if all services were privatized (like the ambulance companies), the personnel would receive legitimate compensation?
This was interesting to read and it is very sad that actors and all those other "idols" are paid more. You are right about the firefighters, soldiers, and police men being our heroes who put their lives on the line every single day.
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