From Alternet: http://www.alternet.org/economy/pilots-and-professors-barely-scraping-9-surprising-jobs-pay-pittance
It’s not only fry chefs who are struggling to make ends meet.
By Joshua Holland
April 24, 2013
In the first two years of “recovery” from the Great Recession, the top one percent of households captured 121 percent of the economy’s gains, according to economist Emanuel Saez, leaving the rest of us poorer than we were when the reversal began. Wall Street pay has more than bounced back, with average pay higher today than it was before the crash.
The top 25 hedge fund managers continue to take in close to a billion dollars per year each, on average. As Les Leopold noted, it would take a middle-class family 47 years to bring in what they make in just one hour. What value do they add to our society? Well, when they’re not wrecking the global economy, they’re pricing people out of the housing market and ripping off small investors.
As for the rest of us, the reality is that a disproportionate share of the jobs being created in America since the crash are low-income McJobs. According to a study by the National Law Employment Project, low-income jobs represented 21 percent of the total lost in the crash, but 58 percent of those added during the recovery ( PDF). In contrast, 60 percent of the jobs lost in the downturn paid a middle-class wage, but they’ve only made up 22 percent of those added during the recovery.
One of the problems one finds talking about the proliferation of crappy, low-wage jobs is that many people have a mental image of teenagers flipping burgers at a fast-food joint. But those minimum-wage service jobs aren’t the only ones that pay a pittance. You might be surprised at some of the professions where people make around $25,000 per year. Many require relatively scarce skills; others provide real value for our society.
1. Regional Airline Pilots
Senior pilots working for major international carriers earn a pretty good living. But flying for regional carriers – which employ about 13 percent of all pilots – means not only having to worry about weather and navigation, but also how you’ll pay your bills at the end of the month.
According to the Houston Chronicle, starting salaries for pilots at regional airlines start at as low as $16,500. The average starting salary is about $20,000, and with years of experience, these pilots can pull their way up to a maximum wage of around $60,000.
Continue reading at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/pilots-and-professors-barely-scraping-9-surprising-jobs-pay-pittance
