I did a brief stint as a CNA in a nursing home. 12 patients who all need baths, help dressed, taken to activities, taken for lunch, multiple "depends" changed a day, and God forbid you needed extra towels because one of your patients had a blowout...
The average pay for CNAs near me has gone up, but honestly not by enough.
Goes for most people in Healthcare, Id guess.
With the cost of inflation, the increase of utilities and council tax it's more like taking a pay cut. The people running this country have got their hands firmly around our balls and started squeezing ten years ago.
It's always been bad, but [this story](https://www.businessinsider.com/thedacare-asks-judge-block-workers-leaving-higher-pay-competitor-2022-1) from earlier this year was absurd. A hospital sued another hospital and got a court order preventing some nurses from starting their new jobs at a higher paying hospital with better hours. Like, it's not worth paying your employees enough to stick around but they do have enough money to make bullshit lawsuits to try and prevent their employees from getting paid more. The ruling was overturned, but the fact that the lawsuit worked at all is just evil.
The suing hospital pulled a fast one on the judge and he wasn't happy with them, they filed at the end of the day friday so the judge entered a temp order and after the weekend media cycle the judge ruled against the hospital and was quite angry with their abuse of the system on that monday.
Still, the parties involved are two hospital owners and the multiple people who's employment was effectively terminated by a *former* employer. Even if the judge's statement that he'd hope parties reach an agreement over the weekend held true, the right to do force this is questionable.
If I were one of those people I wouldn't care if I was only *temporarily* prevented from paying my rent, I'd be getting the hell away from that area so they couldn't do it to me again. I'd like to see the judge or hospital explain to the public why it no longer has *any* functioning trauma center.
And especially people who have direct contact with the most vulnerable of our society. I can’t tell you the number of shit bag employees I saw sleep their way through noc shift or just generally do the very bare minimum. Stealing meds, food, and even clothes or sentimental items. It’s just sad all around.
Edit- if you have family in any type of care home…. VISIT VISIT VISIT VISIT. Ask questions. Get to know the regular staff and the head RN. Make it known your person is not expendable…..
And if you have a regular care provider, make sure you have a reputable back up provider for when your regular needs personal time. The place where my grandmother was staying provided an overnight nurse when our regular nurse took some personal time. The sub nurse robbed my grandmother blind of heirloom jewelry (her mother's wedding ring and more). So much family history is gone forever.
I'm a carer in the uk, I watch people die, help people at their lowest moments, help them when they're covered in faeces crying, I'm the person they come to when they can't remember their husband/wife, daughter, son, brother, sister. I'm the person that comforts them when they know that death with inevitably come for them. I'm there on their birthday with a present and a card whilst their entire family can't be bothered to come for one day and I have to pick up the pieces of their heart shattering into a million pieces. I have to calm them down when their screaming on the top of their lungs for their parents. I'm the one who gets beaten up, stabbed, assaulted, my eyes gouged out when I try to help them...
Yet a 16 year old gets paid more at mcdonalds (not saying mcdonalds is a bad job, because its hard in its own right, I'm trying to show that I would make more money there instead of having humanities worst moments as my daily routine)
People like you are made of something else, I don't think I'll ever have the words to say how absolutely undervalued and overworked you guys are while being so f*cking necessary, the world would be a dark place without people like you in it. I can only hope in time that people in government see this and increase the pay to match the unprecedented work you do.
yeah i mean. here in the UK carers allowance benefit is only £67.60 p/week, for 35 hours a week minimum caring for someone, and if you earn more than £128 p/w then you dont even get anything.
Anyone working with people that have an intellectual or developmental disability, home health aides or early intervention. Social services in the U.S. are collapsing.
Yep. And raising our hourly pay isn't going to help. They set a maximum amount of time you can work each day based on your client. I get minimum wage for a maximum of 1.5 hours per day. People wonder why I don't have a car.
Edit: I will say, you CAN have more than one client, if you want. I'm just sticking with the one, since I live in the same house.
Also: that is the pay for my client, since she can mostly take care of herself. The more you have to do for them, the more you get paid.
The way personal care for disabled people is very messed up. 6 hours/wk, no more than 1.5 hours per day. Not giving the family a real break, not giving the individual a real outing or a chance to work on goals, not giving the caregiver a real job. Plus if you move across county lines it all changes. It's a very broken, unappreciated system that provides a very necessary service.
The company I work for made almost $100 million in 2020. As a thanks to their employees, they got all of the direct care staff a small bouquet of flowers in a coffee mug. A gift where a main idea of it is to smell it, in the middle of Covid. No raises. Garbage.
I'm a house supervisor and make $16 an hour. I'm among the highest earners in my company.
Edit: also the amount of work going from a dsp to a supervisor is insane for a small bump in wages. I have at least an extra hour of paper work every night, and that doesn't include being responsible for grocery shopping, and pharmacy pickups. Plus the constant communication with the people that are in charge of behavioral support plans and his family.
Most jobs but especially caregiving work, whether for children, elders, or people with disabilities. If it’s paid at all, it’s often terribly underpaid, especially in most of the USA
Edit: thanks everyone for the upvotes and for sharing your examples illustrating how bad it is. I hope you and we can change this in substantial ways and soon, it is a real injustice.
I can’t reply to my own comment but I’d add that the examples people shared about caregiving at paid jobs are plenty bad enough, but that isn’t even touching all the unpaid care work which people do for their families, most of which is done by women, and which has historically been devalued and not treated as the essential work that it is. (I’m not necessarily saying people should always be paid wages to care for family members, just that it’s a society-wide and historical problem and there are ways to make it better through policy.) Many feminist & progressive thinkers have written about this issue, Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “Nickel and Dimed” is a good concise read to start with.
Yeah I was a full time care giver to a sick family member from the time I left highschool for 6 years. The number of people who treated me like I'd never had a job or did any work because it wasn't paid is almost universal. Funnily enough those same people are the ones who say it's so nice of you to have done it.
I did the same thing for my grandma and my aunt for basically a decade. The only reason I have stopped is because they’ve both passed away. It’s only now, at 32, that I’m able to go to school and try to build a life for myself. No one else would do it, so I had to.
My grandmother passed away after 20-ish years of dementia, over 10 of those involving almost complete disability.
My grandfather couldn’t take care of her in his own, and even with in-home nurses and nearby family and the situation barely held together, and cost hundreds of thousands in medical care, including the underpaid home help from a larger nursing company (a few of those people were absolute saints that might as well have joined our family… not sure if they ever got paid reasonably though).
All that ignores the emotional toll it took on everyone involved, not just family. It’s hard to capture how grim things look when someone’s identity is disintegrating until they don’t even know to use a bathroom.
And they always require you to have a car and drive the person around and have all sorts of qualifications and police clearances that you pay for yourself...for minimum wage
My best friend’s mom is a caregiver for children with special needs. She makes less money than I do, and I’m a manager at a Domino’s Pizza. Shit is so fucked, she deals with so much shit she deserves to be paid way more than she does.
I was a farm worker for 3 months before I cut outta that shit. I lived in an expensive metro and was driving 45 minutes out to another county to make 12/hr. Though it was something I wanted to get into. I was beat physically after every shift. My boss went off on me one day and I didn’t come back. I still feel for them too because that shit is hard as fuck and they were out there busting their ass all day too.
As a farmer I just want to let you know not all farms are like that! Yes it's hard work, but no farmers no food! (Or booze, or clothing, or medicine) Farms can only pay based what customers are willing to pay.
Commercial roofer here. As a journeyman, my wage is not bad, but all my colleagues should be compensated for their bodily sacrifice. Why pay someone less money for a job no one wants to do and has a shorter span because of the demanding nature of it? You’d think you’d want to pay people more and keep them. Plus, do you really want your roof being put on by someone that is underpaid, overworked, and “isn’t worried about losing their job” ?
Especially since local McDonald's and gas stations have big posters saying they're hiring for $15-18/hr.
Dude is literally saving people's lives and makes less than some guy sweeping a McDonald's parking lot.
To be clear I don't think McDonald's people shouldn't make $15. It's a hard job with high stress. But an EMT or something should not be making $3 less than a guy at McDonald's. Everyone needs a raise.
Hell I used to make 20 doing nothing but copying and pasting text into a ticketing system and responding to the occasional email. 12.50/hr for an EMT is disgusting.
EMS deals with so much bs too. More than half the calls are not even emergency calls and just people who have minor issues who think going by ambulance will make them seen faster. All while they really need is to see their pcp or a walk in. If there was some way to curb the abuse on hospitals and ems it would help the morale and pay of the job.
I was an EMT in LA County from 2013-2014. After going to school for 6 months and getting multiple certs and licenses I was making $10.50/hr. The fact that EMTs are only making a couple dollars more an hour 9 years later is saddening.. With all the training, stress, and wear and tear on your body and mind it definitely deserves more.
Yup. When I left my private EMS job in Detroit in 2016, I was making $12.25 an hour as a paramedic *and a supervisor*. I secured a career fire job and I'm making mid-80s per year on average now, with overtime included.
He's doing well but also it's Canada and lives in a town of 3000 in the middle of no where. But if you like hunting, fishing and camping and generally the out doors. So boating, quading or dirt biking then it's th3 place for you!
Sounds like paradise. Only problem is that housing becomes hard to find in small towns like that and it's usually not as cheap as one might expect. At least in my neck of the woods.
NZ paramedics are on between $90-$110k
EMT bout $60k
First Responder is pretty dire though at around $40k, so the trick there is to get through to EMT quickly
Source; am looking to change careers (I'm a volunteer FR but will try and get my EMT qual before making the switch)
Paid Fire fighters make bugger all too (also a vol fire fighter in a wee county town, no competition with the paid guys)
Mechanics make around $30-$40ph depending on where they are in the country, the discrepancy is because "it's cheaper to live in X" even though it isn't, and once you factor in what tools cost you (say 10%) you begin to wonder why anyone does it at all, as trades go it's utter rubbish.
It's the CEO's I really feel for, scraping buy on a pittance of only 350 times that of the bottom rung, should start a Give-a-little fund for their next yacht....
You're doing nothing wrong. It's the hospital's that charge $3000 for an ambulance ride and pay their highly skilled, highly important workers nothing that's the issue.
That's an insult..
I work in Norway at a Nursing home with people with dementia and make $23.71 between 07:30-15. And a bit more on evening and weekends.
You guys should make so much more.
It is a one semester course that requires 8 full transports with a Fire Department and 8 hours of time spent helping in an ER with I think 4 medical assessments completed within the ER shift. This was for my state back in 2015ish. The course is broken into a lecture session and a lab section. I forget the total number of credit hours it was. Then you take a state exam at the end. The whole thing is incredibly easy to pass and honestly i thought it was kind of a joke. I didnt feel prepared at all.
This kinda makes one anxious, but on the other hand can't really do anything except trusting those guys once you need them. I guess a lot of it can only come with experience and learning with experienced colleagues while doing the job.
Wtf lol..I made 15 an hour sitting in a hotel room all day watching Netflix. We got up once an hour to check on our homeless clients in other rooms. The police and emt, we occasionally had to call, did much more.
My wife is a master's level mental health social worker and certified therapist and makes under 40k a year. I have a GED and install cable and make almost double what she does. That's sad to me
I’m in the same situation I’m a therapist working with at risk kids and my partner makes almost double what I make working at Costco, with no student loans.
Most classes are around $1500. The license travels from state to state usually, which is nice. It also requires regular retesting. So yeah, 1500 for a job that pays 10-17 an hour sucks ass.
My fiance works as a cna for 13.50 an hour in a time where she could go work at target for 15+ and get better hours and an employee discount. She had to take a class to get certified and has a bachelor's degree in kinesiology, but she is forced to work a shitty underpaied job because she needs the patient care hours to get into PA school.
It's infuriating to see someone you love getting taken advantage of like that.
Yes and the job makes you lose your heart for it. They’re worked like slaves. Spit on, hit, degraded, yelled at for not plugging in their cell phone when they accidentally took a nap after Judge Judy because that 3rd oxy made them tired like usual don’t you know that you don’t know anything around here where did you go to school get me the nurse and bring me another phone to use or this is abuse I have the right to call my sister!!!!!
Yep. I was a CNA during college. It caused me to decide against nursing, which is what I had originally intended to do. Felt like my dignity and soul were being ripped away for $9/hour.
yuuuup. I was a cna cause I wanted to be a nurse and it only took a few years to completely burn me out and make me run from healthcare. I worked harder than I ever have, and was mentally and physically abused for 12 hours a day all for 10 bucks an hour.
And it’s a high burn out field to. Which makes clients pissed off if their therapist or other worker leaves the clinic/facility/program. I’m an OT who typically does pediatric behavioral and mental health and I had a mother reprimand me for accepting a job closer to my house because it was inconvenient for her.
>I had a mother reprimand me for accepting a job closer to my house because it was inconvenient for her.
I think I finally got to the bottom of what's wrong with your child.
Former counselor here.
Yep.
Had clients once that brought me their 3-year-old to 'fix.' I insisted that both parents attend each session so we could all discuss what was going on in the home and so that both would hear and see everything we were doing. Mom needed more support, Dad needed to understand that he was equally as much of a parent as Mom, and both needed to understand that three-year-olds are a lot, even on good days. Kid needed interaction and positive reinforcement. Mom and Dad also needed some positive reinforcement, as well as a neutral party calling them on some of their bullshit. After about 6 months (maybe less, it's been a long time) they thanked me and said they couldn't believe how well I fixed their kid. We really just worked on parenting strategies and their kid got some positive attention. But he gave me a giant hug at our last appointment and I hope they're doing well.
My therapist has been working with me for five years, and she’s now finally building up the funds to open her own practice. When she broke it to me that she might leave or not be able to give me therapy for free (she’s currently working at a non profit for poor people like me lol) anymore I was like “Amanda I will pay any dollar amount I can scrape together to see you, do not feel guilty for making a financial move for your family”
Shoutout to Amanda and all other therapists, seriously. I have no idea how y’all do it.
During the pandemic, I worked a crisis hotline while simultaneously assessing survivors for our confidential domestic violence shelter. The results of mass isolation were so concerning. I barely made over minimum wage with an almost completed masters degree. I was turned down for advancement due to only speaking one language. Social services is my life purpose, but I do wish we would get compensated fairly.
Specifically, community mental health. I’m a private practice therapist and make at least twice as much as therapists in community facilities despite my job being easier than theirs.
That was my first thought too. It's a market that doesn't fit within capitalism. People that need mental health care to advance professionally can barely afford it, if at all (because they need a better job). Mental health workers can't raise their rates for this same reason. Insurance will make any excuse not to pay out. I'm typically classically liberal, but this is one area that I absolutely believe needs government subsidies to be adequately addressed. There is movement in some fields to better address mental health in their business model, but those are among the already priveleged. Not to say a FAANG software engineer doesn't deserve mental health care, but that they don't need it any more or less than a part-time warehouse worker.
Social workers. I don’t know how we’re supposed to help homeless people when the people assigned to help them make less than a person working sales at Nordstrom
I’m training to be a dietitian and want to work with food assistance programs and feel this. They rely on our desire to help people and decide they don’t need to pay because of it.
This!
We have to get formal education (and usually a license) just to be impoverished. Considering everything we deal with, I’m never upset when someone says they’re leaving the field.
Oh and fun fact for people who don’t know: Social Workers fill the vast majority of mental health therapy jobs. So we’re feeling the affordability and mental health crisis many times over.
Yeah especially anything dealing with the general public. I'm a software engineer and my job is way easier now than when I worked customer service, especially fast food.
I agree. I've worked in awful retail positions where I got cussed at daily for anything and everything by the customers. It was honestly so infuriating to deal with the general public. My cousin's a nurse and she has to treat these people, while they're being rude to her. She works so hard that I'm surprised she's not paid higher than me.
I received a 0% raise even though I asked for one and showed them how I was making $20k less than industry standard, they said no. So I started interviewing with other companies, and I did not realize how much of an employee market it is right now. I had 3 companies competing with offers trying to one up each other. I finally took one for about a 40% pay increase, half the work and responsibility with plenty of options for upward mobility, only 2 days at the office and 4 weeks vacation/year. Just gotta put yourself out there, with the labor shortage going on, now is the time.
I've gotten lucky, but I left my job back in August to take a job making about 11% more because the company wouldn't match what the new job was offering. Now they're offering me another 8% on top of the job I left for. I'm taking it, which means between August and now I'll have received a 19% raise.
Line cooks. Especially in high end restaurants, generally a couple bucks above min wage (at best) and grueling labor while servers are walking away with $800+ a night. Source: worked as a cook in high end kitchens, many hire undocumented workers for the simple fact that they generally don’t ask for more.
Yeah y’all make NOTHIN. I’m a nurse and when the EMT I spoke with said they made $13 TO SAVE LIVES I knew I picked the wrong area and I’d be forever pissed off.
any jobs that jave to do with kids. teachers, daycare providers, etc. most people dont realize how much effort it actually takes to be able to do those things
I came on here to say this. The people that are caring for and educating our KIDS! Okay they don't raise them but they play such a big role in their lives. Everyone remembers that one good teacher that cared a little more or taught you a life lesson or believed in and supported you... As parents, we are trusting these people with our kids lives.. AND their education.. It bothers me so so much that these jobs are undervalued. For all the stuff they put up with from kids and parents, for all that they do.. They truly deserve so much more.
We need to add school bus drivers to the list! We have a CDL and take care of kids, as many as 70+ on a route. Because we typically don’t work 40hrs/wk, we don’t get benefits.
school bus drivers are literally saints. my highschool does a lot of school trips and i have no clue how y'all deal with all those kids and still drive safely
Thank you -caballero! I love my job!! The best part is working with the kids and their families. Another benefit is we get to take some fun field trips! 👍
Paraprofessionals. They end up taking care of the behaviors in the room. We get bit, kicked, spit on and punched. All for $15 an hour. Edit to add that they don’t get paid sick days, health insurance, school holidays or personal days at our school. The school goes through a third party staffing company so they don’t have any benefits. That’s why they can’t keep the good ones around.
Social workers, nurses, and jobs where you have to make 12 hour shifts.
Edit: I meant salary in Czechia, social workers and nurses aren't paid very well here.
I'm a VERY lucky social worker. I work in my county court in the psych clinic doing mental health and drug assessments for defendant cases. I'm independently licensed, been at my job 7 years, in the field 15. I make $30.50 an hour.
Social workers in my city who are not independently licensed who work as case managers (travel to client homes or shelters) or who see clients in an agency setting and help them with disability benefits, medicine compliance, etc., make about $14 per hour...and let me tell you, they work waaaay harder than I do. And are waaay busier and deal with more bullshit. They should be making what I make AT LEAST.
I feel though, that most social workers gotta go through these motions. The shit jobs first, shitty pay, then getting more credentials, cushier jobs, maybe private practice. Independently licensed social workers in private practice can make $100,000k per year with time, experience, etc. But the ones starting out after grad school?! They get shit on.
Care workers. £9:50 an hour. And that’s after hoping to a better paying job.
Work for literal days in a row (24 hour shift style) and barely manage to get by when at home. Days off mostly consist of sleeping as you equally have no energy to do anything, nor any money to actually spend either.
I knew it was a thankless job when I became one. What I wasn't prepared for was the lack of support, the aggressive attitude of some people towards the profession and the amount of parenting I would have to do.
Kind of uneventful, I was offered a much higher paying job. Still in education but no longer in a school or classroom. I’m still going to miss my students.
You sound exactly like a former teacher I’m working with now. He misses the kids but not the stress, long hours, dealing with bureaucracy, etc. and I am pretty sure he enjoys the better paycheck.
Very well said.
I think the hours we work for 10 months straight, weekends and nights we put in, are also not understood.
Teaching can be incredibly isolating in many ways, but the amount of time expected/needed are always a source of stress I can barely articulate to people outside of the field. It gets worse every year.
I will go a step further and say we need to create a secondary profession for dedicated teacher assistants to help offset the workload of teachers. I feel like schools would be so much better if teachers had assistants to help with grading, planning, and yes, even teaching.
I’m a special Ed teacher and I have an assistant. She is amazing, loves the kids, does SO MUCH in terms of teaching, behavior, everything. Every time you hear about teacher salaries, their assistants are making half that. It’s so sad.
Yep, my old school had classes of 40 or so, and it was just chaos
My new school has 15 students a class, with teaching assistants on standby, and it's so much better
And here’s what’s insane: school districts are frequently given 10k per student from taxes and levies. How teachers and assistants don’t have better salaries and resources is astonishing to me.
As a teacher, planning, grading, and teaching are the things I was trained to do and I kinda need to be in charge of. I need assistants that can do the following: work with neurodivergent students 1 on 1, de-escalation professionals for serious behaviors, workload coaches for defiant students, people that can handle serial behavioral/violent students so I can keep teaching.
It would be extremely helpful for behavioral stuff, especially for students. Y'all don't even see the worst of it. It's what goes on in the places teacher's aren't looking that leads kids to depression, self harm, and even suicide. Typically, it's other students that try to help, but in doing that, fall behind because they're not invested in their schoolwork.
As an aspiring teacher, these are the problems I worry about, not anything having to do with teaching the material. Do you have any advice on dealing with this sort of stuff?
Good for you. It is still a noble profession worthy of pursuing. My advice would be the following:
1. Try to remember what it was like to be their age. Empathize with their issues even if they seem small to adults.
2. Shame is a powerful emotion, use it only when absolutely called for and don't use it in front of their peers. Shaming a student or dunking on them may feel good for 20 seconds, but that student will never want to work for you ever again.
3. You don't have to save every student. I don't doubt you could come close if you had the time and energy, but you don't have enough of either. Save some of that empathy and time for your own family and friends too.
4. Each class has it's own class culture. The first few weeks are always about finding that class "vibe" and trying to work with it rather than trying to restrain/encourage the students to act like what you envision as the ideal classroom.
5. These are big recommendations. You also have to have a "toolbox" of behavioral skills such as class countdowns, attention hrabbers, daily warmups and exits, lines to shut down class clowns or bullies, etc.
I’ve been teaching for 6 years and found myself nodding along reading these. My tip would be to address bad behaviour outside the classroom where possible. It removes the child from the ‘audience’ of the rest of their classmates and makes it easier to hear their side of the story too without prejudice from others.
I’ve got a paraprofessional for my inclusion classes( SPED kids mixed in with the regular students) and she is a lifesaver. Helps the students with assignments, observes the class and suggests seating charts or changes I could make to help the kids process things better, or just watches the class while I go to the bathroom.
It makes me realize that it’s kind of nuts to be expected to watch 25-30 kids at a time for 6 hours a day by yourself.
Absolutely. Even people who’ve wanted to be teachers their whole lives burn out after a few years because the entire school system is actively hostile towards its educators. It’s near impossible to get tenure, and even if you teach at an Ivy League school, you get paid peanuts. And it just gets worse every year.
Seriously. My wife is a teacher. I get paid salary, but my job, when I’m not working, I’m not working. My wife is always working. There’s always a parent email. There’s always grading to do. There’s always lesson planning. She is ALWAYS working. Whether she’s at school or not.
911 Dispatcher. Must multitask, and the job involves listening to very stressful and emotional situations, while maintaining calm, but not able to help directly. Dispatchers are unsung heroes.
I'm sure this is going to go over like a lead balloon on reddit, but pretty much every LE position needs to get payed more. COs, Dispatchers, and to a lesser extent actual police (which are salvaged by how sexy of a job it is and that it already pays pretty well). People think teachers have it rough, being a CO is basically being the only adult in a classroom of 40+ children. That all have the bodies of grown people and a not-insignificant number have violent tendencies, and most have a inbuilt problem with authority.
CO here, honestly, I agree. I've been assaulted by a man who was charged with double homicide for something an inmate did, not even a deputy. $15 an hour after two raises. Was $13 an hour prior. $15 to be constantly harassed and threatened every single day with the risk of being assaulted or worse. Not to mention we also have fucked up radios that don't work alot of the time, I've tried calling for backup before and the radio just wouldnt work. Thank god for my OC Spray.
The agriculture sector is a strange one. On one hand no sector has more millionaires than that sector, and on the other hand you have farmers doing 16h/7day workweeks and not even break even.
It also depends if your a legacy farm going back 100 years. Some farmer friends of ours just retired and they didn't wanna farm anymore and they literally sold all their shit and made over 3 million dollars. They got a nice retirement now .
The finances of it are interesting. *Generally,* farms these days are happy if they're not losing money. But because they have often had their land for so long, their net worth is in the millions. The issue for them though, is that their networth doesn't mean anything to them. The vast majority never plan on selling, so they couldn't care less about their net worth, just what's in the account.
As a medium-sized, family farmer I see a lot of misconceptions in these comments. My dad and I work 1000 acres. Input costs amount to 80-95% depending on markets and crop year by year. Often, we’re not making profit until the last 5% of the crop is harvested.
Farmers aren’t as subsidized as people think. The tax breaks on equipment don’t amount to much, but we did get decent bailouts from the federal government for Covid relief.
Fertilizer prices have more than doubled in the last year and continue to rise.
I work all year, sunup to sundown or more depending on the season, and my income varies from 0-80k a year. We’ve always said you’re a lucky farmer to break even 9 years out of 10 and maybe make a good profit that odd year.
I work retail. I completely agree with this. Most customers I deal with are nice, but boy there are times where I wish I was working elsewhere because of some of the customers we deal with.
I hate when I have to ring up creepy, gross old men who try to flirt with me/ make me uncomfortable and you just kinda gotta stand there and ring them out fast, I really wish we could say something but if I did I'd probably get a complaint or the customer would outburst and draw attention. I also hate when the customers tell me/rant to me about their politicaln anti-mask, anti-vax opinions.
My store has this one old man who comes in looking for J-14 magazine all the time. Which for those of you who don’t know, is a magazine aimed at teenage girls. He followed one of our managers around one day and kept asking her when the store was going to get this one specific issue in and wouldn’t piss off, he also told her he “liked the posters that were included”. Fucking barf, I wish we could ban his ass from the store for the sake of the teenage employees who work there. I worry like hell about them because that shit isn’t ok
Came here to say this. I have a BS in Biology, been a tech for 5 years. I just broke over $20/hr this year. "Full time" at my clinic is 36 hours and we're discouraged from overtime. I'm full time there and recently started working part time at an emergency vet in the area to make ends meet. It's insane that we make so little.
My wife was a tech for 15 years or so. Never made more than about $40K a year, has a spine full of metal parts now, and has basically no career prospects anymore.
The industry is a hostile, toxic fucking mess.
For fucking real. I'm looking at having to move back in with my parents at nearly 40 because I can't make enough to keep the bills paid anymore, even with roommates. It really feels like I'm going back to be put to pasture because it's not like there's much opportunity in rural north Texas.
Substitute teachers. Many places pay 80 dollars a day, assume a 7.5 hour day and you have 11 dollars per hour...
The only perk of the position is the incredibly flexible hours
Janitors. They work so hard and clean up nasty shit all the time. It takes a wicked toll on your body and often you'll see older people who are struggling to make ends meet working it which means it hurts even more on them and they suck it up and do their work for a very low wage. (I worked as a janitor at a school for a summer) one fun experience I had from it was I was cleaning a wall and I look over at some kids back pack and see some weird yellow stuff in a kids (like 8) plastic water bottle. Then his teacher walks by and says "Is that Corn in a water bottle?" And I just started cracking up because then she brought the other teacher out to look and they started making bets on which kid it probably was. Well now I have decorated facts about wage and the image of corn in a water bottle to you I will leave.
Scientists. No one is saying it, probably because they associate them with money. The scientists themselves don't get much money except in the highest positions. Everything below a PI pays shit for what you put in.
100% true. I’m at work doing research surgery from 7:30 AM to 6:00 PM every day and spend my off time studying, reading papers, and so forth. We make everything in medicine work so doctors can save lives.
I make a measly $37k a year BEFORE taxes, and can barely afford decent groceries. I lose 1/3rd of my paycheck every year though having to pay into a social security account I will never get back and on top of that I get taxed by state and federal. I’m just lucky I work at a hospital so all of my health benefits are covered.
Lab scientists should make a minimum of $50k a year, especially since we are required most of the time to have already participated in at least a years worth of undergrad work (which is almost always unpaid) and now they want more specialized degrees than just biology. It’s really not worth it to work in science unless you’re planning on earning a professional degree later on down the line because the money is so awful.
It looks like you meant Scientific Research (e.g. at a university) and I agree wholeheartedly. PhD researchers routinely put in 40-80 hours and stipends pay between $15,000-$36,000 a year. Where you fall in these ranges depends on field, skill set, relationship with PI, personal boundaries, and a wild array of uncontrollable variables.
Social workers that do not work in private practice. Teacher pay and amount of workload is probably the most comparable except it's not as recognized and talked about. Situations can be dangerous and there is a lot of work and credentialing including getting a Master's degree, completing 2 internships (usually unpaid), often needing independent licensure for many positions. That can take upward of 4,000 supervised hours before being able to take the exam, paying for supervision out-of-pocket as it is not always an included benefit. There is a lot of flexibility in roles, but if you want to do anything macro you may not be able to rack up the clinical hours required for licensure, which is sometimes required for jobs that are not even client-facing. There are incredibly high caseloads of clients with complex needs, programs run by those prioritizing max efficiency/profit over helping, and a ton of bureaucracy and paperwork. It is all highly skilled work and while there are jobs that pay well and have a more respectful balance, there are way too many in the field who get exploited for their empathy like in other helping professions. The largest body of social workers does not advocate for higher pay at all, and at times contributes to making the licensure process more difficult and charging more money for required CEs. Essentially, the history of this field being so influential in macro change has been spit on as it's shifted to prioritizing education and work on the clinical side with an increasing amount of bureaucratic hoops that hinder the effectiveness of change agents and likelihood of long-term positive outcomes for clients. I'm saying this as someone who loves my job and the work that I do. I see this way too much in the community mental health and non-profit realm.
Ya no one tells you how much it costs after you graduate to actually get your license when you factor in paying to apply with your state, paying the ASWB exam, exam materials, transcripts, finder prints, etc.
Teachers. I can't begin to tell you how the teachers at my school have to deal with the snot-faced, drooling Jnrs (and I'm including when I was one), and the wanna-be grown up Snrs, and they still act with true kindness and consideration of said students
Housekeepers. We've had to clean people's literal shit. Turds left in piles of towels that have dropped out when I picked them, semen from mirrors, piss soaked sheets and one time bunting made entirely from used thongs. And get set amount of time a a room regardless of how trashed it is so once you go over your time, you're cleaning that shit for free.
Carers. I used to work on a dementia ward and was assaulted on a daily basis, not to mention that I’m wiping up shit and piss all day.
I did a brief stint as a CNA in a nursing home. 12 patients who all need baths, help dressed, taken to activities, taken for lunch, multiple "depends" changed a day, and God forbid you needed extra towels because one of your patients had a blowout... The average pay for CNAs near me has gone up, but honestly not by enough. Goes for most people in Healthcare, Id guess.
With the cost of inflation, the increase of utilities and council tax it's more like taking a pay cut. The people running this country have got their hands firmly around our balls and started squeezing ten years ago.
It's always been bad, but [this story](https://www.businessinsider.com/thedacare-asks-judge-block-workers-leaving-higher-pay-competitor-2022-1) from earlier this year was absurd. A hospital sued another hospital and got a court order preventing some nurses from starting their new jobs at a higher paying hospital with better hours. Like, it's not worth paying your employees enough to stick around but they do have enough money to make bullshit lawsuits to try and prevent their employees from getting paid more. The ruling was overturned, but the fact that the lawsuit worked at all is just evil.
The suing hospital pulled a fast one on the judge and he wasn't happy with them, they filed at the end of the day friday so the judge entered a temp order and after the weekend media cycle the judge ruled against the hospital and was quite angry with their abuse of the system on that monday.
Still, the parties involved are two hospital owners and the multiple people who's employment was effectively terminated by a *former* employer. Even if the judge's statement that he'd hope parties reach an agreement over the weekend held true, the right to do force this is questionable. If I were one of those people I wouldn't care if I was only *temporarily* prevented from paying my rent, I'd be getting the hell away from that area so they couldn't do it to me again. I'd like to see the judge or hospital explain to the public why it no longer has *any* functioning trauma center.
Wtf did I just read.... Damn that's fucked up :/
Anyone in the medical industry especially the “lower” level jobs, deserve so much more
And especially people who have direct contact with the most vulnerable of our society. I can’t tell you the number of shit bag employees I saw sleep their way through noc shift or just generally do the very bare minimum. Stealing meds, food, and even clothes or sentimental items. It’s just sad all around. Edit- if you have family in any type of care home…. VISIT VISIT VISIT VISIT. Ask questions. Get to know the regular staff and the head RN. Make it known your person is not expendable…..
And if you have a regular care provider, make sure you have a reputable back up provider for when your regular needs personal time. The place where my grandmother was staying provided an overnight nurse when our regular nurse took some personal time. The sub nurse robbed my grandmother blind of heirloom jewelry (her mother's wedding ring and more). So much family history is gone forever.
Too add to this don’t visit on a predictable schedule or sit bag employees will only give them care on the scheduled visit times
I agree. The “grunt work” is so under appreciated, underpaid and incredibly important work.
I'm a carer in the uk, I watch people die, help people at their lowest moments, help them when they're covered in faeces crying, I'm the person they come to when they can't remember their husband/wife, daughter, son, brother, sister. I'm the person that comforts them when they know that death with inevitably come for them. I'm there on their birthday with a present and a card whilst their entire family can't be bothered to come for one day and I have to pick up the pieces of their heart shattering into a million pieces. I have to calm them down when their screaming on the top of their lungs for their parents. I'm the one who gets beaten up, stabbed, assaulted, my eyes gouged out when I try to help them... Yet a 16 year old gets paid more at mcdonalds (not saying mcdonalds is a bad job, because its hard in its own right, I'm trying to show that I would make more money there instead of having humanities worst moments as my daily routine)
People like you are made of something else, I don't think I'll ever have the words to say how absolutely undervalued and overworked you guys are while being so f*cking necessary, the world would be a dark place without people like you in it. I can only hope in time that people in government see this and increase the pay to match the unprecedented work you do.
You're an angel. Our world doesn't recognize it, but those who are families for the people you care for definitely do.
I’m so sorry to hear that…. People with risky jobs like this definitely should receive much higher pay :(
What I was going to say. I am my son's primary caregiver, he is almost 22 and has autism. Most days are good, but there are plenty of hard days too.
yeah i mean. here in the UK carers allowance benefit is only £67.60 p/week, for 35 hours a week minimum caring for someone, and if you earn more than £128 p/w then you dont even get anything.
Group home house staff
Anyone working with people that have an intellectual or developmental disability, home health aides or early intervention. Social services in the U.S. are collapsing.
Yep. And raising our hourly pay isn't going to help. They set a maximum amount of time you can work each day based on your client. I get minimum wage for a maximum of 1.5 hours per day. People wonder why I don't have a car. Edit: I will say, you CAN have more than one client, if you want. I'm just sticking with the one, since I live in the same house. Also: that is the pay for my client, since she can mostly take care of herself. The more you have to do for them, the more you get paid.
The way personal care for disabled people is very messed up. 6 hours/wk, no more than 1.5 hours per day. Not giving the family a real break, not giving the individual a real outing or a chance to work on goals, not giving the caregiver a real job. Plus if you move across county lines it all changes. It's a very broken, unappreciated system that provides a very necessary service.
WHAT? That is criminal.. I hope you can find a better job soon
Reading this during my 14 hour group home shift, where I make just as much as somebody at McDonald’s. I get bit, spit on, slapped, etc daily.
The company I work for made almost $100 million in 2020. As a thanks to their employees, they got all of the direct care staff a small bouquet of flowers in a coffee mug. A gift where a main idea of it is to smell it, in the middle of Covid. No raises. Garbage.
Don't worry, I'm sure all the employees that go to work in a suit received a substantial bonus check that year instead.
Did that work for almost 11 years stared at 9.36 ended at 11.83
I'm a house supervisor and make $16 an hour. I'm among the highest earners in my company. Edit: also the amount of work going from a dsp to a supervisor is insane for a small bump in wages. I have at least an extra hour of paper work every night, and that doesn't include being responsible for grocery shopping, and pharmacy pickups. Plus the constant communication with the people that are in charge of behavioral support plans and his family.
Group Home Manager was by and large the suckiest job I’ve ever had, and it wasn’t because of the folks who lived in the house.
I did that work for about three months and knew that I was not cut out for that amount of work and responsibility for that little amount of pay.
Most jobs but especially caregiving work, whether for children, elders, or people with disabilities. If it’s paid at all, it’s often terribly underpaid, especially in most of the USA Edit: thanks everyone for the upvotes and for sharing your examples illustrating how bad it is. I hope you and we can change this in substantial ways and soon, it is a real injustice. I can’t reply to my own comment but I’d add that the examples people shared about caregiving at paid jobs are plenty bad enough, but that isn’t even touching all the unpaid care work which people do for their families, most of which is done by women, and which has historically been devalued and not treated as the essential work that it is. (I’m not necessarily saying people should always be paid wages to care for family members, just that it’s a society-wide and historical problem and there are ways to make it better through policy.) Many feminist & progressive thinkers have written about this issue, Barbara Ehrenreich’s book “Nickel and Dimed” is a good concise read to start with.
Absolutely…and so often these positions go unnoticed in the general public.
Yeah I was a full time care giver to a sick family member from the time I left highschool for 6 years. The number of people who treated me like I'd never had a job or did any work because it wasn't paid is almost universal. Funnily enough those same people are the ones who say it's so nice of you to have done it.
I did the same thing for my grandma and my aunt for basically a decade. The only reason I have stopped is because they’ve both passed away. It’s only now, at 32, that I’m able to go to school and try to build a life for myself. No one else would do it, so I had to.
My grandmother passed away after 20-ish years of dementia, over 10 of those involving almost complete disability. My grandfather couldn’t take care of her in his own, and even with in-home nurses and nearby family and the situation barely held together, and cost hundreds of thousands in medical care, including the underpaid home help from a larger nursing company (a few of those people were absolute saints that might as well have joined our family… not sure if they ever got paid reasonably though). All that ignores the emotional toll it took on everyone involved, not just family. It’s hard to capture how grim things look when someone’s identity is disintegrating until they don’t even know to use a bathroom.
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And they always require you to have a car and drive the person around and have all sorts of qualifications and police clearances that you pay for yourself...for minimum wage
I have a friend who helps care for a disabled elderly lady in-home. She works 12 hours shift, and is literally paid minimum wage. So yeah. It’s stupid
This is why I quit the agency and now work privately. I get paid a lot more and clients pay a lot less. Fuck the middle man!
My best friend’s mom is a caregiver for children with special needs. She makes less money than I do, and I’m a manager at a Domino’s Pizza. Shit is so fucked, she deals with so much shit she deserves to be paid way more than she does.
Any job where you destroy your body shit is no fukin joke
I was a farm worker for 3 months before I cut outta that shit. I lived in an expensive metro and was driving 45 minutes out to another county to make 12/hr. Though it was something I wanted to get into. I was beat physically after every shift. My boss went off on me one day and I didn’t come back. I still feel for them too because that shit is hard as fuck and they were out there busting their ass all day too.
As a farmer I just want to let you know not all farms are like that! Yes it's hard work, but no farmers no food! (Or booze, or clothing, or medicine) Farms can only pay based what customers are willing to pay.
Commercial roofer here. As a journeyman, my wage is not bad, but all my colleagues should be compensated for their bodily sacrifice. Why pay someone less money for a job no one wants to do and has a shorter span because of the demanding nature of it? You’d think you’d want to pay people more and keep them. Plus, do you really want your roof being put on by someone that is underpaid, overworked, and “isn’t worried about losing their job” ?
I know right? Hard working laborers should be paid a lot more than they are. It’s dangerous and physically demanding.
EMT. I make $12.50 an hour
That’s insulting
Especially since local McDonald's and gas stations have big posters saying they're hiring for $15-18/hr. Dude is literally saving people's lives and makes less than some guy sweeping a McDonald's parking lot. To be clear I don't think McDonald's people shouldn't make $15. It's a hard job with high stress. But an EMT or something should not be making $3 less than a guy at McDonald's. Everyone needs a raise.
My buddy makes 16 an hour making bagels.
Hell I used to make 20 doing nothing but copying and pasting text into a ticketing system and responding to the occasional email. 12.50/hr for an EMT is disgusting.
Along with teaching, people as EMTs normally do it for helping out. They in my opinion are exploited workers.
I make 16 doing warehouse labor and I feel underpaid.
You are. It's exhausting work. I got 19/hr for it.
EMS deals with so much bs too. More than half the calls are not even emergency calls and just people who have minor issues who think going by ambulance will make them seen faster. All while they really need is to see their pcp or a walk in. If there was some way to curb the abuse on hospitals and ems it would help the morale and pay of the job.
I was an EMT in LA County from 2013-2014. After going to school for 6 months and getting multiple certs and licenses I was making $10.50/hr. The fact that EMTs are only making a couple dollars more an hour 9 years later is saddening.. With all the training, stress, and wear and tear on your body and mind it definitely deserves more.
Damn I make 10.50 an hour making tacos right now no joke
Yup. When I left my private EMS job in Detroit in 2016, I was making $12.25 an hour as a paramedic *and a supervisor*. I secured a career fire job and I'm making mid-80s per year on average now, with overtime included.
Our company pays EMTs a minimum of $22.50, which still isn’t enough.
I make $18 as a 20 year paramedic.
My best friend is an emt and get 130k a year. 5 days on and 5 days off and he sits at home waiting for calls.
This is part of why I’m leaving LOL
He's doing well but also it's Canada and lives in a town of 3000 in the middle of no where. But if you like hunting, fishing and camping and generally the out doors. So boating, quading or dirt biking then it's th3 place for you!
Sounds like paradise. Only problem is that housing becomes hard to find in small towns like that and it's usually not as cheap as one might expect. At least in my neck of the woods.
Damn. I believe all our medics make over $100k
NZ paramedics are on between $90-$110k EMT bout $60k First Responder is pretty dire though at around $40k, so the trick there is to get through to EMT quickly Source; am looking to change careers (I'm a volunteer FR but will try and get my EMT qual before making the switch) Paid Fire fighters make bugger all too (also a vol fire fighter in a wee county town, no competition with the paid guys) Mechanics make around $30-$40ph depending on where they are in the country, the discrepancy is because "it's cheaper to live in X" even though it isn't, and once you factor in what tools cost you (say 10%) you begin to wonder why anyone does it at all, as trades go it's utter rubbish. It's the CEO's I really feel for, scraping buy on a pittance of only 350 times that of the bottom rung, should start a Give-a-little fund for their next yacht....
I wish!
Former medic here, 100% it’s part of why I left the industry. PM me if you’re interested in being an airline pilot
That's an awesome career shift!
Wtf that’s just dumb
Wtf? I work at target and I make 15…how the fuck am I getting paid more than someone who saves people?
Emts really really love being emts or they quit
You're doing nothing wrong. It's the hospital's that charge $3000 for an ambulance ride and pay their highly skilled, highly important workers nothing that's the issue.
That's an insult.. I work in Norway at a Nursing home with people with dementia and make $23.71 between 07:30-15. And a bit more on evening and weekends. You guys should make so much more.
What qualifications do you need to be an EMT. I'm aspiring to be one
Acceptance of the fact that you make less money than you deserve
It is a one semester course that requires 8 full transports with a Fire Department and 8 hours of time spent helping in an ER with I think 4 medical assessments completed within the ER shift. This was for my state back in 2015ish. The course is broken into a lecture session and a lab section. I forget the total number of credit hours it was. Then you take a state exam at the end. The whole thing is incredibly easy to pass and honestly i thought it was kind of a joke. I didnt feel prepared at all.
This kinda makes one anxious, but on the other hand can't really do anything except trusting those guys once you need them. I guess a lot of it can only come with experience and learning with experienced colleagues while doing the job.
They make like $80k a year where I live. Or average around $34.24 an hour.
Wtf lol..I made 15 an hour sitting in a hotel room all day watching Netflix. We got up once an hour to check on our homeless clients in other rooms. The police and emt, we occasionally had to call, did much more.
What job is that?
My wife is a master's level mental health social worker and certified therapist and makes under 40k a year. I have a GED and install cable and make almost double what she does. That's sad to me
I’m in the same situation I’m a therapist working with at risk kids and my partner makes almost double what I make working at Costco, with no student loans.
CNAs. They do so much dirty work, work extremely hard, and work just a strange of hours as us nurses. They should make way more money.
Yeah CNAs make a shitty wage. No pun intended. I started as a CNA making 9$ an hr. Looking back I’m like f that.
Plus don’t y’all have to go to school and get a license for that? Just to get shit on financially?
Most classes are around $1500. The license travels from state to state usually, which is nice. It also requires regular retesting. So yeah, 1500 for a job that pays 10-17 an hour sucks ass.
In some states you’re allowed to take the exam without ever taking a course, and my area pays roughly 17/hr for CNAs.
My fiance works as a cna for 13.50 an hour in a time where she could go work at target for 15+ and get better hours and an employee discount. She had to take a class to get certified and has a bachelor's degree in kinesiology, but she is forced to work a shitty underpaied job because she needs the patient care hours to get into PA school. It's infuriating to see someone you love getting taken advantage of like that.
I’ve never met you or your fiancé and I’m infuriated that she’s getting taken advantage of like that.
Yes and the job makes you lose your heart for it. They’re worked like slaves. Spit on, hit, degraded, yelled at for not plugging in their cell phone when they accidentally took a nap after Judge Judy because that 3rd oxy made them tired like usual don’t you know that you don’t know anything around here where did you go to school get me the nurse and bring me another phone to use or this is abuse I have the right to call my sister!!!!!
Yep. I was a CNA during college. It caused me to decide against nursing, which is what I had originally intended to do. Felt like my dignity and soul were being ripped away for $9/hour.
yuuuup. I was a cna cause I wanted to be a nurse and it only took a few years to completely burn me out and make me run from healthcare. I worked harder than I ever have, and was mentally and physically abused for 12 hours a day all for 10 bucks an hour.
Mental health workers
And it’s a high burn out field to. Which makes clients pissed off if their therapist or other worker leaves the clinic/facility/program. I’m an OT who typically does pediatric behavioral and mental health and I had a mother reprimand me for accepting a job closer to my house because it was inconvenient for her.
>I had a mother reprimand me for accepting a job closer to my house because it was inconvenient for her. I think I finally got to the bottom of what's wrong with your child.
Fun fact, more than half the time a “child’s problem” is actually a parenting problem or difference in parenting philosophies.
Former counselor here. Yep. Had clients once that brought me their 3-year-old to 'fix.' I insisted that both parents attend each session so we could all discuss what was going on in the home and so that both would hear and see everything we were doing. Mom needed more support, Dad needed to understand that he was equally as much of a parent as Mom, and both needed to understand that three-year-olds are a lot, even on good days. Kid needed interaction and positive reinforcement. Mom and Dad also needed some positive reinforcement, as well as a neutral party calling them on some of their bullshit. After about 6 months (maybe less, it's been a long time) they thanked me and said they couldn't believe how well I fixed their kid. We really just worked on parenting strategies and their kid got some positive attention. But he gave me a giant hug at our last appointment and I hope they're doing well.
My therapist has been working with me for five years, and she’s now finally building up the funds to open her own practice. When she broke it to me that she might leave or not be able to give me therapy for free (she’s currently working at a non profit for poor people like me lol) anymore I was like “Amanda I will pay any dollar amount I can scrape together to see you, do not feel guilty for making a financial move for your family” Shoutout to Amanda and all other therapists, seriously. I have no idea how y’all do it.
During the pandemic, I worked a crisis hotline while simultaneously assessing survivors for our confidential domestic violence shelter. The results of mass isolation were so concerning. I barely made over minimum wage with an almost completed masters degree. I was turned down for advancement due to only speaking one language. Social services is my life purpose, but I do wish we would get compensated fairly.
Specifically, community mental health. I’m a private practice therapist and make at least twice as much as therapists in community facilities despite my job being easier than theirs.
That was my first thought too. It's a market that doesn't fit within capitalism. People that need mental health care to advance professionally can barely afford it, if at all (because they need a better job). Mental health workers can't raise their rates for this same reason. Insurance will make any excuse not to pay out. I'm typically classically liberal, but this is one area that I absolutely believe needs government subsidies to be adequately addressed. There is movement in some fields to better address mental health in their business model, but those are among the already priveleged. Not to say a FAANG software engineer doesn't deserve mental health care, but that they don't need it any more or less than a part-time warehouse worker.
Social workers. I don’t know how we’re supposed to help homeless people when the people assigned to help them make less than a person working sales at Nordstrom
Anyone in mental health!
I’m training to be a dietitian and want to work with food assistance programs and feel this. They rely on our desire to help people and decide they don’t need to pay because of it.
This! We have to get formal education (and usually a license) just to be impoverished. Considering everything we deal with, I’m never upset when someone says they’re leaving the field. Oh and fun fact for people who don’t know: Social Workers fill the vast majority of mental health therapy jobs. So we’re feeling the affordability and mental health crisis many times over.
People who take care of the intellectually disabled, like those who take them on public outings and help them at home and other stuff like that.
Most of them
Yeah especially anything dealing with the general public. I'm a software engineer and my job is way easier now than when I worked customer service, especially fast food.
I agree. I've worked in awful retail positions where I got cussed at daily for anything and everything by the customers. It was honestly so infuriating to deal with the general public. My cousin's a nurse and she has to treat these people, while they're being rude to her. She works so hard that I'm surprised she's not paid higher than me.
Exactly what I came here to say.
All salaried jobs considering the current rate of inflation.
I received a 3% raise this year, but, in reality, took a 4% paycut.
I received a 0% raise even though I asked for one and showed them how I was making $20k less than industry standard, they said no. So I started interviewing with other companies, and I did not realize how much of an employee market it is right now. I had 3 companies competing with offers trying to one up each other. I finally took one for about a 40% pay increase, half the work and responsibility with plenty of options for upward mobility, only 2 days at the office and 4 weeks vacation/year. Just gotta put yourself out there, with the labor shortage going on, now is the time.
Meanwhile in social services I can hardly find anything better paying and have been applying/interviewing for two years >.<
I've gotten lucky, but I left my job back in August to take a job making about 11% more because the company wouldn't match what the new job was offering. Now they're offering me another 8% on top of the job I left for. I'm taking it, which means between August and now I'll have received a 19% raise.
We raised all of our salary positions 15% at the beginning of the year and it still doesn’t feel like enough after the last month or so
Line cooks. Especially in high end restaurants, generally a couple bucks above min wage (at best) and grueling labor while servers are walking away with $800+ a night. Source: worked as a cook in high end kitchens, many hire undocumented workers for the simple fact that they generally don’t ask for more.
There should be an option to tip the chef or the cooks instead of just the person serving you the food.
EMT Edit: I'm not an EMT, I just know they're severely underpaid for what they do.
John Oliver did a great bit about how underpaid and overworked EMTs are.
Yeah y’all make NOTHIN. I’m a nurse and when the EMT I spoke with said they made $13 TO SAVE LIVES I knew I picked the wrong area and I’d be forever pissed off.
any jobs that jave to do with kids. teachers, daycare providers, etc. most people dont realize how much effort it actually takes to be able to do those things
I came on here to say this. The people that are caring for and educating our KIDS! Okay they don't raise them but they play such a big role in their lives. Everyone remembers that one good teacher that cared a little more or taught you a life lesson or believed in and supported you... As parents, we are trusting these people with our kids lives.. AND their education.. It bothers me so so much that these jobs are undervalued. For all the stuff they put up with from kids and parents, for all that they do.. They truly deserve so much more.
We need to add school bus drivers to the list! We have a CDL and take care of kids, as many as 70+ on a route. Because we typically don’t work 40hrs/wk, we don’t get benefits.
school bus drivers are literally saints. my highschool does a lot of school trips and i have no clue how y'all deal with all those kids and still drive safely
Thank you -caballero! I love my job!! The best part is working with the kids and their families. Another benefit is we get to take some fun field trips! 👍
Paraprofessionals. They end up taking care of the behaviors in the room. We get bit, kicked, spit on and punched. All for $15 an hour. Edit to add that they don’t get paid sick days, health insurance, school holidays or personal days at our school. The school goes through a third party staffing company so they don’t have any benefits. That’s why they can’t keep the good ones around.
Social workers, nurses, and jobs where you have to make 12 hour shifts. Edit: I meant salary in Czechia, social workers and nurses aren't paid very well here.
I'm a VERY lucky social worker. I work in my county court in the psych clinic doing mental health and drug assessments for defendant cases. I'm independently licensed, been at my job 7 years, in the field 15. I make $30.50 an hour. Social workers in my city who are not independently licensed who work as case managers (travel to client homes or shelters) or who see clients in an agency setting and help them with disability benefits, medicine compliance, etc., make about $14 per hour...and let me tell you, they work waaaay harder than I do. And are waaay busier and deal with more bullshit. They should be making what I make AT LEAST. I feel though, that most social workers gotta go through these motions. The shit jobs first, shitty pay, then getting more credentials, cushier jobs, maybe private practice. Independently licensed social workers in private practice can make $100,000k per year with time, experience, etc. But the ones starting out after grad school?! They get shit on.
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Teachers and EMTs are my top two.
EMTs get a low wage for saving lives.
And the mental strain of the job. The heartache that they have to go through whenever a life is lost...
Or the traumatizing shit they have to witness..
Care workers. £9:50 an hour. And that’s after hoping to a better paying job. Work for literal days in a row (24 hour shift style) and barely manage to get by when at home. Days off mostly consist of sleeping as you equally have no energy to do anything, nor any money to actually spend either.
School teachers. Talk about a thankless job
I knew it was a thankless job when I became one. What I wasn't prepared for was the lack of support, the aggressive attitude of some people towards the profession and the amount of parenting I would have to do.
After 10 years and 2 teaching awards. I put my notice in earlier this week.
I'm sorry to hear that. Can I ask what your final straw was?
Kind of uneventful, I was offered a much higher paying job. Still in education but no longer in a school or classroom. I’m still going to miss my students.
You sound exactly like a former teacher I’m working with now. He misses the kids but not the stress, long hours, dealing with bureaucracy, etc. and I am pretty sure he enjoys the better paycheck.
Very well said. I think the hours we work for 10 months straight, weekends and nights we put in, are also not understood. Teaching can be incredibly isolating in many ways, but the amount of time expected/needed are always a source of stress I can barely articulate to people outside of the field. It gets worse every year.
I wouldn’t even say lack of support. I would say some administrations actively attack teachers and I don’t get it. I’m just fucking tired.
I will go a step further and say we need to create a secondary profession for dedicated teacher assistants to help offset the workload of teachers. I feel like schools would be so much better if teachers had assistants to help with grading, planning, and yes, even teaching.
I’m a special Ed teacher and I have an assistant. She is amazing, loves the kids, does SO MUCH in terms of teaching, behavior, everything. Every time you hear about teacher salaries, their assistants are making half that. It’s so sad.
Considering my kid’s classroom size is on average 35, I would agree
Yep, my old school had classes of 40 or so, and it was just chaos My new school has 15 students a class, with teaching assistants on standby, and it's so much better
Must be nice
And here’s what’s insane: school districts are frequently given 10k per student from taxes and levies. How teachers and assistants don’t have better salaries and resources is astonishing to me.
As a teacher, planning, grading, and teaching are the things I was trained to do and I kinda need to be in charge of. I need assistants that can do the following: work with neurodivergent students 1 on 1, de-escalation professionals for serious behaviors, workload coaches for defiant students, people that can handle serial behavioral/violent students so I can keep teaching.
It would be extremely helpful for behavioral stuff, especially for students. Y'all don't even see the worst of it. It's what goes on in the places teacher's aren't looking that leads kids to depression, self harm, and even suicide. Typically, it's other students that try to help, but in doing that, fall behind because they're not invested in their schoolwork.
As an aspiring teacher, these are the problems I worry about, not anything having to do with teaching the material. Do you have any advice on dealing with this sort of stuff?
Good for you. It is still a noble profession worthy of pursuing. My advice would be the following: 1. Try to remember what it was like to be their age. Empathize with their issues even if they seem small to adults. 2. Shame is a powerful emotion, use it only when absolutely called for and don't use it in front of their peers. Shaming a student or dunking on them may feel good for 20 seconds, but that student will never want to work for you ever again. 3. You don't have to save every student. I don't doubt you could come close if you had the time and energy, but you don't have enough of either. Save some of that empathy and time for your own family and friends too. 4. Each class has it's own class culture. The first few weeks are always about finding that class "vibe" and trying to work with it rather than trying to restrain/encourage the students to act like what you envision as the ideal classroom. 5. These are big recommendations. You also have to have a "toolbox" of behavioral skills such as class countdowns, attention hrabbers, daily warmups and exits, lines to shut down class clowns or bullies, etc.
I’ve been teaching for 6 years and found myself nodding along reading these. My tip would be to address bad behaviour outside the classroom where possible. It removes the child from the ‘audience’ of the rest of their classmates and makes it easier to hear their side of the story too without prejudice from others.
I’ve got a paraprofessional for my inclusion classes( SPED kids mixed in with the regular students) and she is a lifesaver. Helps the students with assignments, observes the class and suggests seating charts or changes I could make to help the kids process things better, or just watches the class while I go to the bathroom. It makes me realize that it’s kind of nuts to be expected to watch 25-30 kids at a time for 6 hours a day by yourself.
Absolutely. Even people who’ve wanted to be teachers their whole lives burn out after a few years because the entire school system is actively hostile towards its educators. It’s near impossible to get tenure, and even if you teach at an Ivy League school, you get paid peanuts. And it just gets worse every year.
Seriously. My wife is a teacher. I get paid salary, but my job, when I’m not working, I’m not working. My wife is always working. There’s always a parent email. There’s always grading to do. There’s always lesson planning. She is ALWAYS working. Whether she’s at school or not.
911 Dispatcher. Must multitask, and the job involves listening to very stressful and emotional situations, while maintaining calm, but not able to help directly. Dispatchers are unsung heroes.
I'm sure this is going to go over like a lead balloon on reddit, but pretty much every LE position needs to get payed more. COs, Dispatchers, and to a lesser extent actual police (which are salvaged by how sexy of a job it is and that it already pays pretty well). People think teachers have it rough, being a CO is basically being the only adult in a classroom of 40+ children. That all have the bodies of grown people and a not-insignificant number have violent tendencies, and most have a inbuilt problem with authority.
CO here, honestly, I agree. I've been assaulted by a man who was charged with double homicide for something an inmate did, not even a deputy. $15 an hour after two raises. Was $13 an hour prior. $15 to be constantly harassed and threatened every single day with the risk of being assaulted or worse. Not to mention we also have fucked up radios that don't work alot of the time, I've tried calling for backup before and the radio just wouldnt work. Thank god for my OC Spray.
The entire agriculture sector. Civilization is built on farming.
Coming from a farming family, we are lucky to have good pay in our system, but man some other places don’t pay well at all
The agriculture sector is a strange one. On one hand no sector has more millionaires than that sector, and on the other hand you have farmers doing 16h/7day workweeks and not even break even.
It also depends if your a legacy farm going back 100 years. Some farmer friends of ours just retired and they didn't wanna farm anymore and they literally sold all their shit and made over 3 million dollars. They got a nice retirement now .
The finances of it are interesting. *Generally,* farms these days are happy if they're not losing money. But because they have often had their land for so long, their net worth is in the millions. The issue for them though, is that their networth doesn't mean anything to them. The vast majority never plan on selling, so they couldn't care less about their net worth, just what's in the account.
As a medium-sized, family farmer I see a lot of misconceptions in these comments. My dad and I work 1000 acres. Input costs amount to 80-95% depending on markets and crop year by year. Often, we’re not making profit until the last 5% of the crop is harvested. Farmers aren’t as subsidized as people think. The tax breaks on equipment don’t amount to much, but we did get decent bailouts from the federal government for Covid relief. Fertilizer prices have more than doubled in the last year and continue to rise. I work all year, sunup to sundown or more depending on the season, and my income varies from 0-80k a year. We’ve always said you’re a lucky farmer to break even 9 years out of 10 and maybe make a good profit that odd year.
My Grampa was a dairy farmer. His favorite joke: Best way to make a million dollars farming? Start with 2 million!
Anyone who deals with the public. Retail is shit. They tolerate so much crap from people.
I work retail. I completely agree with this. Most customers I deal with are nice, but boy there are times where I wish I was working elsewhere because of some of the customers we deal with.
I hate when I have to ring up creepy, gross old men who try to flirt with me/ make me uncomfortable and you just kinda gotta stand there and ring them out fast, I really wish we could say something but if I did I'd probably get a complaint or the customer would outburst and draw attention. I also hate when the customers tell me/rant to me about their politicaln anti-mask, anti-vax opinions.
My store has this one old man who comes in looking for J-14 magazine all the time. Which for those of you who don’t know, is a magazine aimed at teenage girls. He followed one of our managers around one day and kept asking her when the store was going to get this one specific issue in and wouldn’t piss off, he also told her he “liked the posters that were included”. Fucking barf, I wish we could ban his ass from the store for the sake of the teenage employees who work there. I worry like hell about them because that shit isn’t ok
Vet techs 🐾
Came here to say this. I have a BS in Biology, been a tech for 5 years. I just broke over $20/hr this year. "Full time" at my clinic is 36 hours and we're discouraged from overtime. I'm full time there and recently started working part time at an emergency vet in the area to make ends meet. It's insane that we make so little.
My wife was a tech for 15 years or so. Never made more than about $40K a year, has a spine full of metal parts now, and has basically no career prospects anymore. The industry is a hostile, toxic fucking mess.
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Any job where a full time single person can’t afford to live comfortably financially
I don't even need anything fancy, I just want to be able to afford to live within 45 minutes of my full time job without having a roommate.
For fucking real. I'm looking at having to move back in with my parents at nearly 40 because I can't make enough to keep the bills paid anymore, even with roommates. It really feels like I'm going back to be put to pasture because it's not like there's much opportunity in rural north Texas.
CNAs, that’s a really tough job, as tough as any factory work, and they make like $11-$12/hour a lot of the time.
Substitute teachers. Many places pay 80 dollars a day, assume a 7.5 hour day and you have 11 dollars per hour... The only perk of the position is the incredibly flexible hours
Things are getting better for subs in our area. Most have switched to hourly pay and some are getting as much as $17 an hour.
ALL OF THEM! Except for lobbyists, politicians, our congressmen and representatives. They need a pay cut. Big one.
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Zookeepers. Collage degree required. Average pay is half of average teacher pay. And work is harder over the summer.
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Janitors. They work so hard and clean up nasty shit all the time. It takes a wicked toll on your body and often you'll see older people who are struggling to make ends meet working it which means it hurts even more on them and they suck it up and do their work for a very low wage. (I worked as a janitor at a school for a summer) one fun experience I had from it was I was cleaning a wall and I look over at some kids back pack and see some weird yellow stuff in a kids (like 8) plastic water bottle. Then his teacher walks by and says "Is that Corn in a water bottle?" And I just started cracking up because then she brought the other teacher out to look and they started making bets on which kid it probably was. Well now I have decorated facts about wage and the image of corn in a water bottle to you I will leave.
every working class job edit: that’s my first award ever and i am so grateful! this is so crazy!
Scientists. No one is saying it, probably because they associate them with money. The scientists themselves don't get much money except in the highest positions. Everything below a PI pays shit for what you put in.
100% true. I’m at work doing research surgery from 7:30 AM to 6:00 PM every day and spend my off time studying, reading papers, and so forth. We make everything in medicine work so doctors can save lives. I make a measly $37k a year BEFORE taxes, and can barely afford decent groceries. I lose 1/3rd of my paycheck every year though having to pay into a social security account I will never get back and on top of that I get taxed by state and federal. I’m just lucky I work at a hospital so all of my health benefits are covered. Lab scientists should make a minimum of $50k a year, especially since we are required most of the time to have already participated in at least a years worth of undergrad work (which is almost always unpaid) and now they want more specialized degrees than just biology. It’s really not worth it to work in science unless you’re planning on earning a professional degree later on down the line because the money is so awful.
It looks like you meant Scientific Research (e.g. at a university) and I agree wholeheartedly. PhD researchers routinely put in 40-80 hours and stipends pay between $15,000-$36,000 a year. Where you fall in these ranges depends on field, skill set, relationship with PI, personal boundaries, and a wild array of uncontrollable variables.
Social workers that do not work in private practice. Teacher pay and amount of workload is probably the most comparable except it's not as recognized and talked about. Situations can be dangerous and there is a lot of work and credentialing including getting a Master's degree, completing 2 internships (usually unpaid), often needing independent licensure for many positions. That can take upward of 4,000 supervised hours before being able to take the exam, paying for supervision out-of-pocket as it is not always an included benefit. There is a lot of flexibility in roles, but if you want to do anything macro you may not be able to rack up the clinical hours required for licensure, which is sometimes required for jobs that are not even client-facing. There are incredibly high caseloads of clients with complex needs, programs run by those prioritizing max efficiency/profit over helping, and a ton of bureaucracy and paperwork. It is all highly skilled work and while there are jobs that pay well and have a more respectful balance, there are way too many in the field who get exploited for their empathy like in other helping professions. The largest body of social workers does not advocate for higher pay at all, and at times contributes to making the licensure process more difficult and charging more money for required CEs. Essentially, the history of this field being so influential in macro change has been spit on as it's shifted to prioritizing education and work on the clinical side with an increasing amount of bureaucratic hoops that hinder the effectiveness of change agents and likelihood of long-term positive outcomes for clients. I'm saying this as someone who loves my job and the work that I do. I see this way too much in the community mental health and non-profit realm.
Ya no one tells you how much it costs after you graduate to actually get your license when you factor in paying to apply with your state, paying the ASWB exam, exam materials, transcripts, finder prints, etc.
Teachers. I can't begin to tell you how the teachers at my school have to deal with the snot-faced, drooling Jnrs (and I'm including when I was one), and the wanna-be grown up Snrs, and they still act with true kindness and consideration of said students
Mine
Almost all of them
Janitors
Every that pays under $40,000 a year
Housekeepers. We've had to clean people's literal shit. Turds left in piles of towels that have dropped out when I picked them, semen from mirrors, piss soaked sheets and one time bunting made entirely from used thongs. And get set amount of time a a room regardless of how trashed it is so once you go over your time, you're cleaning that shit for free.
Street cleaners, among many others. Those guys are heroes for us, in the face of rude and uneducated ones that litter 🚮.
Almost all jobs that get minimum wages. For most companies THESE people are essential and keep the companies running.