The BLS released its latest salary figures today, so I took a look because I was at loose ends. According to their data, the highest paid occupation in America is pediatric surgeon, at $449,320. In fact, physicians in general take 15 of the top 16 spots, with athletes squeezing in at #10.
The lowest paid occupation is shampooer, at $29,260, barely eking out last place over fast food cooks. Four of the bottom ten are restaurant workers.
But what's more interesting is who the big winners and losers were last year. Here are the top and and bottom ten:
There are some oddities here. Admin law judges are up 23% while judges more generally are down 10%. Considering that judges are public employees with fixed salaries, I'm a little puzzled at how they could have substantial changes in either direction.
Camera repairers were up 26%! Who knew? And reporters were up 18%, which is going to come as a big surprise to the reporters I know. On the other hand, it was apparently a bad year for athletes and referees, and a terrible year for broadcast announcers, whose salaries plummeted 44%. But maybe that had something to do with the strike? I'm not sure about the methodology here.
I wonder if the journalist thing is similar to average wages going up during the pandemic. A lot of journalists lost their jobs, but if they were disproportionately the lowest paid journeys, the overall average salary would have gone up due to compositional effects.
I wonder if a few of those broadcast announcers reclassified as reporters.
Ah, that would make sense.
Exactomondo. Salaries go up in dying professions as the most experienced and highest paid keep their jobs and the lowest paid are shown the door.
That works for weavers. Odds are, if you are a weaver today, you are an artisan selling to a niche market.
Note that it's an average, so an influx or the opposite would impact the numbers. E.g., maybe there are a lot fewer reporters and the only ones left are the more highly paid ones with prestige.
Median would be a better measure, but it would also just be useful to know how many people there were in each bucket.
Ex-broadcast announcer here. No need to raise pay when the industry is shedding jobs.
A lot of admin law judges are otherwise retired judges. A friend of mine, an ex-judge, was once asked to be an ALJ for Social Security but didn't take the post. Odds are there's a shortage as baby boom ALJs quit or die.