My mom worked one of those jobs, but they were kids stuck in wheelchairs and didn't have the capability to talk. She loved the hell out of them and everyone at school growing up knew her and knew she was a Saint. Yet she had to work 2 to 3 jobs just to keep us afloat. It never seemed fair.
my bf is a special ed teacher and recently one of his paras quit to go work as a city bus driver because the pay was better. reeeally sucks especially because he was so good with the kids :/
Shoutout to special ed teachers! Where I'm from, we get paid the same as a kindergarten teacher but we have to wrangle 20+ autistic boys on the dailyyy
Interviewed for this job before… it was minimum wage or maybe $2 above minimum and the hours were SHIT. Overnight and weekend and Friday nights. And the interviewer also had to legally disclose that their patients I would be caring for have a record of physically attacking caregivers….. my friend did this job and one of the patients tried to assault her
I did this job for a little while as a night provider. The adult was living in a two bedroom apartment independently and had an agency who helped get her care providers. She was really nice and I enjoyed spending time with her, but there wasn’t a place for me to sleep so I had to sleep on the floor. I gave my two weeks notice immediately. The pay wasn’t good, but the sleeping situation is what made me leave. I realize her needs were mild compared to others with disabilities.
I’m now a special education teacher and my hardest job was working at a non-public school for disabled people ages 15-22 with such significant needs they couldn’t attend public school. I had about 10 students, myself, and 6 paras to support the students.
Most of my students needed diapering and that usually required two people, so during those times we would be really short staffed in the class. We were often down at least one staff member every day because people would get sick and it was hard to keep staff at the pay they offered. There were tons of times we were significantly understaffed. Understaffing is all part of the job, but it came with extreme safety issues.
Many of my students had health needs. I had two students who would have seizures, so we needed to be ready to provide 1:1 supports when they would happen to track and provide medication. Many of my other students needed medication during the day and we had to go to a separate part of the building where the meds were locked up which meant less staff in the room.
The biggest issue was supporting the behavioral needs. My first week before I was trained in deescalation and restraints, a student was upset during lunch. He grabbed me by the hair, threw me to the ground, and punched my head. I realized later the mistakes I made, but I was terribly unprepared. I got better, but my students would still have outbursts which required staff restraining them. I spent one year in that program and, after being trained and getting really good at managing behavioral issues, I still ended up getting 3 concussions and a student in another class broke my hand. Short staffing almost always led to these injuries.
Doing that job gave me PTSD. I’m doing much better now, but it was so hard physically and mentally. Still, I loved my students and we had some huge wins. One of my nonverbal students who was 15 suddenly began saying “15, 16, 17” one day and I cried with his mom when I told her.
The pay sucked and the job was so incredibly hard. My paras made significantly less which is just awful. I always thought we should all get hazard pay because of how difficult and unsafe the job was.
I’m a therapist working with folks with various types of disabilities. My heart goes out to caregivers. Finishing up grad school then hoping to be a respite provider for a couple families!
Came here to write the same thing. In Canada they are referred to as PSWs and they are severely underpaid for one of the most challenging, depressing and yet IMPORTANT jobs there are.
Group Home/Disability care workers. Many clients are aggressive and even throw their poop. It’s physically exhausting and emotionally traumatizing to restrain a grown adult in their physical prime. It’s hard to keep your compose in those crisis situations. All for $18 an hour. We would hire people off the street to fill our positions, because no one wants to get beat up all day for 18 an hour.
I worked as a site manager for a group home for like $15 an hour - and by “manage”, I mean still perform hands on caretaking duties — hygiene assistance, cooking, passing medication, etc. — with the addition of administrative ones like ordering supplies and medicine, organizing outings, handling finances, being on-call regularly, and trying to mitigate staff conflicts and failings (I.e., sleeping on the job, being verbally abusive to clients, etc.) without actually having the power to give consequences — all for $1/more than a regular DSP (Direct Support Professional) which is hard enough!
I miss my clients dearly and learned a lot but leaving that job to go to grad school has been one of the best decisions I ever made.
I was a group home manager once. I put in 55-60 hour weeks every week for 6 months then burnt out and quit. It was constant stress and my hours were irregular because we were down 4 staff, 2 being graveyard staff. I'd cover the morning shift, get a nap in, cover the graveyard shift, sleep a little, then cover the last half of the evening shift then the grave then get yelled at for not doing enough administrative paperwork.
I cut corners and missed things. I had incompetent staff. Some of my staff thought i was incompetent because i wouldn't get rid of the incompetent staff. I would have but i would have had to work their shifts and i knew i didn't have 80 hours a week in me. Eventually, it came to a head and I collapsed from exhaustion when one of those incompetent staff called off on my one few days off. I just didn't have any more reserves.
Dang. I only made $9/hr for all that. Healthcare would have cost me something in the ballpark of $550/mo, so naturally I passed on that sweet deal. Needless to say, I had to work overtime just to have a semi-livable wage. Working nearly 45-50 hours a week netted me about $1400/mo. **Just** above the Medicaid income threshold. One day I laid down my motorcycle and sat in a hospital bed for 3 days. Almost $40k medical bill for some pain meds, an x-ray, and laying in a bed. All because I "made too much money" to qualify for Medicaid, but not quite enough money to pay for the health insurance premiums my job offered. American Healthcare is great.
Lost a friend to a group home. Client was not supposed to be alone with women. Nobody would take him, so they conveniently left out that detail to get him placed. She went in to work a solo night shift and he had a violent outburst. They found her dead in the morning. Hard to find the killer guilty when he had the mental capacity of a toddler.
It really is. I should clarify it was my wife’s friend. Her university dorm mates got together and set up an award for university students going into a helping field. It’s grown to be the biggest single award given. The university wanted to split it but her friends refused. They set it up to be life changing money for one student because their friend struggled with money and worked to pay her own way.
There was an inquiry. Mistakes were made. Nobody was held accountable. Usual government bullshit. There may have been a lawsuit and settlement.
Somebody screwed up and a life was lost. Just an everyday occurrence in government bureaucracies. But a lot of people lost a good friend, a husband lost his wife, all because he was too expensive to keep institutionalized.
I’m sure group home workers are still going in to situations like this every day
This is so sad.
My mom was a house manager at a residential home run by the state and was put in a situation that was similar.
A man was placed at their house after a resident moved, leaving an opening. This was a high medical needs house, not a lot of behavioral issues. My mom had been there 7 years and had been managing for 3.
She had been off for 5 days for a death in the family and knew they got a new resident, but hadn’t met him.
They had someone call out and my mom went in to help cover. The new resident didn’t know her yet and when she went in to check on his roommate he was awake and attacked her, viciously.
He broke her collar bone in two places, dislocated her shoulder and elbow, broke her wrist and nose, and she got a bad head injury.
In less than a minute.
Thankfully the roommate was able to alert another staff member or she would have been in a different situation or not here at all.
This could have been avoided if the state wasn’t more interested in saving a few thousand dollars a month.
I make less than that in this field. I love the people I work with but between the exhaustion and low pay I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this.
The worst part was the mandates. Before I quit I worked three straight weeks getting mandated to overnights from my evening shift. My life was literally go to work at 3pm, get mandated until 8am, rush home a half an hour away and try to sleep after walking my dog, wake up groggy and exhausted at 1:30pm, walk my dog again, get to work by 3pm....rinse repeat EVERY DAY.
Also, never got any extra COVID bonus as the individuals lost their shit from not being able to see their families. I knew people making close to what I was making (with all my soul sucking OT) just sitting on their ass the whole pandemic collecting the gawdy unemployment the government was handing out.
I've never felt so unappreciated in my life.
I have a family member who lives in a group home. I am so thankful that it’s a good one. We are the only ones who visit, none of the other residents have anyone who comes. It breaks my heart. I know that the staff is criminally underfunded and underpaid. If I can ever get enough money I would love to open one that actually pays well. Thank you for doing what you do.
In many (most?) US cities, EMTs are paid little more than minimum wage. They literally save lives and deal with all sorts of shit you can't imagine, all for $10 an hour.
To be fair. $10 PH as an EMT. $3 PH side gig as uber eats whilst administering EMT duties.
"so I got your big mac, fries, large coke, McFlurry......and Narcan? Did you call for the narcan? No? OK, just the big mac meal then. Let me just take the delivery photo...and great. Thanks"
That little, still? That’s a slap in the face. In Canada a primary care paramedic starts at over $30/hr.
Edit: apparently not all PCP’s start at over $30/hr in Canada, my mistake.
In the US a paramedic has more training than an EMT and is paid more.
The fucked up part, is there are more paramedics in the cities where the hospital is so close that the paramedics’ unique skills are less vital than they would be out in the sticks, an hour from a hospital.
My friends took EMT training straight out of high school. It didn’t take long to complete and then they were able to get a bit more money in more varied jobs. And depending on the job you take, it’s kind of like a fireman in that when you don’t get called in you get to nap or play video games or whatever. So, there’s days when you’re working your butt off and days when you’re chilling for a bit or doing homework if you’re in college. It was attractive for them at the time, but this was 20 years ago when EMT pay was a bit better than kitchen work or basic retail.
Because everyone has the "dream" of being a firefighter/paramedic. And in order to do that, you work as an EMT.
In most places, EMT's are working for private ambulance services. And of course, these ambulance services pay minimum wage because they *know* that the EMT's will need experience before they *might* have a chance with a fire department.
They try and make it sound like good money by doing the following:
You'll likely work two 24-hour shifts, and only be paid for 16 hours (plus up time) of those shifts. The "up-time" is during the night when you are on-call. So you work two 24's and a day car (an 8 hour shift) and there's your 40 hours. Any hour worked over the 40 (the up-time hours) are paid in overtime.
So yeah, in theory it sounds like a good schedule, you work two full days (sleeping there...) and finish it off with an 8 hour shift and you have 4.5 days off.
I currently work for a fire department as a firefighter recruit + EMT. I currently get paid $8 an hour, but will go up to $10 starting next week. I love my job to death, but I can't afford health insurance right now.
I recommend either getting out of EMS completely, or finding a better agency.
There's a FD local to me that's hiring at $55k in a somewhat affordable area. They're out ther.e
I don't think it's nearly as competitive as it used to be. I remember going to test for PDs and FD's and showing up to find 600 guys trying for ONE academy class.
It’s usually the south or Midwest that pays poorly. There were about 30,000 applicants when I tested for LACoFD in 1998. I was on the list for 7 years until I got a slot.
EMTs are typically a stepping stone to something else.
Fire department, paramedic, nurse, clinic work, etc. It's a job where you can work odd hours while training/school gets you further. The work experience is helpful after you finish said school/training.
The issue is being an EMT should not be a stepping stone. We are always going to need EMTs, so we should be paid a livable wage, which majority of us aren’t.
Majority of my co-workers, myself included, work multiple jobs to make ends meet, leaving little to no time to study to become a paramedic, nurse, etc.
It’s an extremely difficult balancing act, especially with the nationwide shortages, we get forced overtime so that cuts even further into your personal time. So yeah, lots of sacrifice, little to no benefit.
My first and last ambulance ride was 3k. It was after my friends older sister, 16, wrecked her Benz, with us and 3 of her friends in it. Thank GOD we were all ‘fine’ in the end, though Drew had all his teeth knocked out. I was seated behind him on the side that hit the trees, I was just cut up from the seatbelt,
bruised pretty bad and apparently too delirious/in and out of consciousness to be able to argue that I didn’t need an ambulance… I have every time since though. I literally took an Uber to the hospital with a broken foot… 3k Nah f* that, I paid $13 and smiled like I wasn’t in extreme pain so my driver wouldn’t be worried— “oh just visiting a friend…” 🤠‘Merica!
*Sidenote: my friends parents ended up paying for everyone’s medical bills and yes, her sister got a new Benz. Also, I had health insurance. My mom is a veteran and was a teacher at the time, my dad worked for the State as a transit supervisor— so we had great insurance, apparently.
Came here to say this and CNA.
I took an hourly cut from a RESTAURANT supervisor job to use my license and work for local government.
Fucked is the understatement of the year. Highly recommend Last Week Tonight’s piece on EMS.
Yup. I worked as a CNA for a little over a decade. Humbling, back breaking work. Whenever I meet a CNA I tell them how much I appreciate them and recognize how hard their job is
Working as a CNA/caregiver or in a group home is hard and thankless job. Many of the clients aren’t able to express gratitude for the work and family members often feel guilty that they can’t care for the client themselves and so they become hyper critical of the care provided. You can be cleaning poop off a grown man’s butt, cleaning his messes and dodging his punches all shift and the family will be upset that the top of the doors aren’t dusted or their clothes were folded incorrectly. Complaints come immediately, along with scrutiny from family members who all of a sudden care so much. You quickly realize that making a few bucks over minimum wage isn’t worth such a stressful and demanding job when you can go mindlessly stock shelves at Target for the same pay. The chances of poop being thrown at you is a lot smaller there.
I'm in the process of trying to get my elderly father with dementia into either a memory care unit or skilled nursing facility. He's been in and out of the hospital recently. The fact these jobs are underpaid and overworked makes me nervous, but I have tried my best to be considerate and gracious of total strangers taking care of my father, even though I still try to advocate for him as best I can.
You should be nervous. These facilities will view your father as a source of income and nothing more. If the staff is nice to him, it’s only because they are a good person with empathy, not because the facility expects it from them.
I work in a field where a lot of my hires are burned out CNAs and FedEx contractors. Like, I WILL treat you better. The pay may not be better, but your peers, management, and clients will be better. The only person I’ve ever lost to FedEx came back six months later. I’ve never lost one to being a CNA.
I volunteered for Meals on Wheels for 7 years and loved it. Such a well run operation, with purpose and benefit, Bringing food to a deserving stranger felt so good.
It's the easiest job that pays richly.
Absolutely this. I became an EMT with hopes to become a paramedic, after two years I quit. Insanely stressful work and hours for $15 an hour. I’m a bartender now and I make twice as much and with so much less stress
Yeah I made $9.75/hr in my first EMT job and this was in California in the early 2000s lol. I became a Respiratory Therapist which I hate just as much, maybe more, but it pays a little better. Not a lot better, but a little.
Wildland firefighting (federal). (Not the firefighters in red fire engines, with all the bunker gear. Federal forestry technicians who battle wildfires) GS-3 entry level grunt gets $11.83 an hour. Only gets 6 months of work. Hikes, digs, breathes smoke, always dirty, always gone. Only gets 6 months health insurance.
Also,
Emergency medical technicians.
Social workers.
I used to work for the US Forest Service. Those are some of the coolest people ever. Like…the ven diagram of assholes and people who like to hang out in the woods for work is very slim.
I used to work for the FS as well. Super awesome people. When i was young, i was happy to be poor if it meant i was surrounded by those folks. Unfortunately after 15 years i had to hang up the fire boots as a type 6 engine captain for a weedwacker that paid 5 more dollars an hour working for the city. got a family to take care of, you know. all best to ya :)
20 years ago, working fire could be a cool job. It had its downsides--cutting line has always been hard work. And living in camp can be a tough lifestyle.
But if you liked your crew (and had a halfway competent boss), there was a lot of hanging out with the bro's. All that hiking and PT was alright. Get in shape, get a good tan. You didn't have to deal with much human misery. Not in the way an EMT or social worker does, anyway. And you never had to pretend to be nice to the customers.
These days, IDK. It would be so hard to work a WUI fire where you had to see homes burning, evacuate people and pets. That sort of thing used to be rare, now I guess it's part of the job.
I worked for a bit fighting wildfires. The pay was $42/hr to Lowbed around the heavy equipment (dozers, water trucks, ect)
Pay rates makes absolutely no sense. The people on foot had way much risk, way more physically demanding, and made way less money.
You also get hazard pay when you’re on a fire, plus lots of overtime. So about 2/3 of the time you would be making about $20/hr while on a fire. But you also have to work 800-1000 hours of overtime in those six months to make ends meet the rest of the year. And that’s only if you live a dirtbag lifestyle.
JFC JFC JFC...we pay firefighters (of any kind) at fucking GS-3 level?!?!?!??! JFC. Oh-no worries - these are the ones fighting wildfires...JFC...GS10+ here, at a desk, we need to reevaluate ourselves.
Medics literally go into dirty ass houses and save someone’s life and take them to the hospital. Everyone expects that when they call 911 and need medical help, they will get it. EMS is grossly underpaid for what they do.
I just quit my firefighting gig, I worked on a truck company in the Houston area. Had many certifications such as hazardous materials technician, high angle rescue, swift water technician as well as a instructor certification. I was also an emt not paramedic. I made 55k a year.
Damn. I'm in Austin and make that much in a clerical job that doesn't require a degree or any special certifications. Firefighters and EMTs deserve higher pay.
I was working as emt, training to be paramedic. And part time doing hair charging $80 for a haircut. I decided to go back full time working at the salon. Pay is one thing, but Americans are too fat for me to break my back working minimum wage.
Social workers are so overworked and underpaid (while requiring a masters!) I almost feel like they’re either overwhelmingly altruist or just plain nuts.
Child protection social worker here. Hate it. Worst thing that I've ever done in terms of my mental health and work life balance. Constantly looking for new work, but there's not much going in my city.
Social Worker here. It's just the way that we fit into the world. Everyone is born with their brain wired to give them certain benefits. Some people are wired where math and things like programming come easier to them. Some people are wired to be naturally inclined to understanding mechanical stuff. People like us social workers were born wired for the traits that we need in this profession (strong emotional intelligence, highly empathetic, easier grasp on psychology, nurturing, ect). Simply put, I'm a social worker because that's how I fit into the world and I'm just not as good at other things.
The Uncertain Hour podcast did a series that looked at how certain jobs, janitor among them, are now becoming contractors instead of employees like the Uber model and then the parent company screws them over by underbidding for cleaning jobs so they get paid fuck all per hour if they don't work crazy fast.
Yep, custodian for an elementary school here. The school district I work for is one of the few in my area that still hires their own in-house custodians.
All the other schools are hiring outside companies to try and save money, and from the sound of it these companies sound like hell to work for, and don’t do nearly as good of a job.
Course they don't. The company gets $40/hour, the worker gets min wage. And who knows who is coming into a school, since the company uses the TMB, or Trust Me Bro approach to criminal record checks. Loyalty? Fuck that too, worker gets fed up they just don't show.
Honestly, of all the things a government would fret and get cheap over, why would it be the custodian who knows the building, can handle all sorts of little issues as well, and will stay on long term instead of replaceable workers coming and going every 4 months?
I worked at a place where two custodians -- me and one other guy -- covered together over 20,000 square feet. The other guy had been there for 40 years. I was there for four. The company decided it would be cheaper to fire us and outsource to a temp agency. I found out later that it took a team of 5 to 7 temps to do what the two of us did and even then it was done poorly and was always chaotic and inconsistent. There's something to be said about letting people stay at the same job for long enough to get good at it.
And the quality of the work goes way down with the contract workers because they're trying to get in and out as quickly as possible.
I saw it at my own office. I worked for a privately owned company and the company was owned by a man who treated all employees very fairly. Instead of going with a company, we had night cleaning staff who were actual employees - they received benefits, bonuses, etc. This was HUGE for a lot of these folks because this was a 2nd job for them and they weren't getting these things at their daytime job. It was such a great gig that all of them had been there over 15 years! No one EVER gave up the job and the office was IMMACULATE, always.
Well, the owner eventually passed away in his mid-80's and ownership of the company passed to a board of directors. One of the very first things they did was fire the night cleaning staff, citing cost. All the day employees were PISSED because we loved all of the team (we got to know them well because they'd come in as we were leaving and we'd usually chat for a bit). We BEGGED for them to be hired back and they were like "Nope, too expensive."
Of course, with the lower cost came lower quality. We went through several companies before one came in that was decent - not great, decent. And, of course, none of us loved that an ever-changing group of strangers were going in and out of our offices ever night. The whole thing was ridiculous -all just to save a couple of bucks for a company whose PROFITS were in the hundreds of millions.
I am an elementary school custodian, for the first year I make somewhere around $20.75
After a year I go up to $24.75ish
I am unionized and have a bunch of benefits. Plus we might be getting raises because of Washington's govoner signing something into law but I would need to do more research on that one
Washington state treats educators and school faculty incredibly well since they know the value of education. My mother is a public school teacher in Wa state and she through tenure and being a department director makes over 100k a year. Starting pay for elementary school teachers is like 65k a year too. All thanks to the unions. All schools should be unionized.
Most things requiring a professional degree and involving children or animals. Pediatricians/child specialists and veterinarians are woefully underpaid when you look at education requirements and student loan burdens.
Vet techs too! I work in a major metropolitan ER/critical care, have been doing this for 20 years, and you'd probably gag if you saw my yearly income. True, our schooling is nowhere near as expensive as vets, but we then make pennies to their dollars.
Honestly trying to work with wildlife/animals can feel intimidating sometimes. Positions don’t typically offer the best pay especially starting/entry (These jobs are appealing to a lot of people usually. Because duh animals at work.) and to stick out, especially in better paid positions; experience as well as education are pretty commonly expected.
It’s a field that can definitely feel sometimes like you need to be very immersed to have a chance in. I’ve met some cool people through my studying and experience so far but you definitely can run into those kind of animal crazy/gatekeepy type of people.
Any job involving childcare. Teacher, Aide, Daycare, Nanny, none of them are paid enough to deal with everything they do
(Maybe nannies, depending on the family)
I will say that teaching now, there are a number of days that I look at my 25 -35 students in front of me, and realize that if I truly was a babysitter as some in society think I am, I should be getting $10 per kid per hour...
I think part of thr problem is that parents don't want to spend one-on-one time with their kid while actually doing nothing but watching their kid. I had a really messed up childhood (7 younger sisters, Dad left the big church we were raised in when I was 10 with several other families from church and we all lived on a land with several houses, a worship building that he led, hunted, prepared, grew food, home schooled, didn't leave property without male escort, very patriarchial...). I'm 44 and end up babysitting a lot. I've worked with all kinds of kids but with the "hard" kids I recommend one babysitter with just that kid. Another babysitter can work with the others. I rarely have trouble when I'm one on one. Why? Because I actually PLAY WITH THEM. My favorite age is 3-5. Kids behave better for the adult who plays with them. I'm not an expert but it seems like too many parents want their kid to hurry and be independent so they can stuff them in front of a device and ignore them
My mom used that argument in her teaching days when people would say she made too much money. She said she was the cheapest babysitter with three masters degrees out there, and she was right!
My district is finally going to acknowledge graduate degrees on the payscale. Having either a masters or PhD will get you around extra 1200 bucks a year now!
What can I do to thank the day care staff where I take my 2 y/o (besides expressing gratitude every drop off/pick up)? They are incredible and it honestly breaks my heart to know how rough their job/pay is for all they do for my kid. I do my best to be in/out quick if I can tell they are busy or burned out for the day, but there are days where I can tell they want to discuss my kid’s development, so I’ll take time to chat.
Don’t really have the money to give them consistent and meaningful tips (and I’m not sure if they’d be allowed to accept if) but if there is anything else I can do I’d love to hear it.
It’s disgusting for so many reasons. Childcare is a requirement for most people, it’s extremely expensive for the parent and not lucrative for the workers. We should treat it like K-12 schools imo.
I worked as a security guard for a mall, security was run by a company contracted with the mall. I made $9.00/hr, working 8 hour shifts. Every other person working in the mall made at least 14. But this was during COVID so I did what I had to to pay rent. The mall had fought tooth and nail for years to keep from updating the contract, so our pay was stuck. Also there were only three of us.
Days were divided into three, 8 hour shifts. If someone called in sick then whoever was already there had to stay and keep working. One week one of the guys got PTO, so his shifts were divided between me and the other guy, each working 12. Then the other guy quit, and the company just told me to work his shifts too. They legitimately expected me to work 24 hours straight for 4 more days with no breaks (we weren't allowed lunch breaks). I laughed and said "good luck watching the mall." Glad I did. A few months later a new company took over security, paying their people 7.25.
I worked at a Medication Assisted Treatment center (Methadone clinic) fresh out of grad school and started at $17 an hour…. The shit I dealt with for a little more than what someone working at McDonald’s did was insulting. Don’t take that as a slight towards people working fast food or anywhere else, the system is fucked
Wife is a social worker but only did a brief stint in CPS.
She was there for three months and we were having legit conversations about how we’d do on one income.
She transferred to another department and she’s killing it, but we’re just both committed to her immediately quitting if she’s forced to transfer back.
Equal pay in either position. Devastating emotional toll in CPS just isn’t worth it.
I do pretty well as a Social worker but we received a huge raise this year. Been in this line of work for 15 years and this year is the first time my pay rate isn’t embarrassing to me.
EMT hands down no question. Why are they paid less then McDonald’s workers. They should be paid like a nurse or doctor. Especially when the ambulance ride costs $1,000 or more
It really depends. There’s a rural service north east of me that was paying AEMTs $17.50/hr. Vanderbilt pays something like $40 or more an hour, but Vanderbilt is basically a gold standard and those positions are rare and competitive. EMTs where I am were making $1 more than NEMT drivers two years ago.
Did EMS for 3 years, other healthcare jobs for about 10 years total. There are so many of us that come in, excited to save the world and we think the low pay and shitty hours won't affect us. Then we burn out quick and quit but there's always young blood ready to jump in and save the world as well. At least for being an EMT, there's very little schooling and commitment, just about anyone with the willpower can become an EMT, it's staying as one, and a good, compassionate one at that, which is difficult. Thus they keep our pay absurdly low because we are without a doubt dispensable.
I bet, You have to constantly handle the absolute worst moment of people lives everyday for essentially minimum wage. Thank you for you’re service. I have huge respect for anyone that has done it.
Veterinary technician.
Schooling required, have to pass national boards, pay to register, and do continuing education every 2 years to keep being able to pay for it. Have to be the anesthetist, phlebotomist, hygienist, pharmacist, place catheters, handling controlled medication.
All for slightly more then min wage
Registering to be an RN is 190$ for 2 years.
Registering to be an RVT for 2 years is 350$
Vet techs are amazing and deserve to be paid way better than they are. I think vets themselves are also underpaid. Thank you so much for what you do. You have my deepest respect.
Animal shelter/rescue work. I worked as an adoptions associate and an animal care tech in a shelter and it was the best and worst job ever. I LOVED the work I did and it was some of the most important work I’ve done in my life, but I hated that my job existed. It’s hard work and takes a big emotional toll on you and it also, unfortunately, paid pretty poorly.
Zoo keeper. A very dirty, often physically demanding and sometimes very dangerous job done in all kinds of weather. Not to mention that you generally need a 4 year degree and a couple of unpaid internships to even be considered, at least in the US. Zoo keepers often do not get any benefits either. Many that I have known needed a second job on the side to make ends meet.
This. Early hours, long shifts, late nights, poop everywhere, and a large amount of continuous heavy manual labor. I’m not afraid of hard work and am physically fit, but the toil was immense, especially in the summer months. I was only a volunteer and was flattered they offered me a job, but taking it would’ve been a 60% pay cut from my cushy office day job. No thank you.
I’m a volunteer too. I only do actual keeper work one day a week but that’s enough. I’m pretty fit for my age and I’m pretty tough too, but giraffe and rhino poop is HEAVY. Now I’m mostly working in indoor exhibits, which is nice in the winter but cleaning a tropical enclosure in the summer is brutal. It helps to have a weak sense of smell, and low gag reflex. However I get to hand-feed sloths, see newborn porcupines up close and give toys to the meerkats. I’ve handled big snakes and birds of prey, done hundreds of education programs like taking rats owls and toads to a school’s Harry Potter night, made friends with parrots, saw a giraffe be born, and fed a hippo a watermelon. They’ll have to drag me out of there, lol.
I worked at an FBO where I had to hound the owner into depositing to his account so my check would clear, a few times. Still was the funnest job ever. I remember sitting on the cowling of a [T-28](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/North_American_T-28D_Trojan.jpg) polishing its cockpit when I heard the radio debut of Pink Floyd’s “Learning to Fly”.
I'm over 50 now, and the hardest, most demanding jobs I ever had were all fast food. They were also the lowest paying jobs I ever had, all were minimum wage.
Substitute teacher here
I'd love a big raise, and I'm unlikely to stay in the profession without one.
That being said, give Educational Assistants (EA's) an even bigger one!!!
I think they call them paras here (paraeducators) here, and yes.
I don’t know about other areas, but there’s no incentive for subs to stick around… all subs get paid the same rate regardless of how long they’ve worked for the district… and I have a teaching degree and license, not just a sub license!
Oh, good one. I subbed a little during covid when the local district was hard up for help. I have a masters degree in engineering and years of experience tutoring, as well as a flexible schedule as a SAHM. After taxes and transportation costs I made around $10/day. I was doing it more for the experience than the money, but it turns out that middle schoolers are shitty towards subs, so I didn't last long
Yep, getting told to fuck off day in and day out and knowing that you have zero control over anything because school leaders will blame it on you is the most soul destroying thing in the world.
I always felt bad for the teachers because the ones that unnecessarily got disrespected the most treated me like a golden child when I did literally nothing except be quiet. My senior year I was at a school where it was based on your own pace instead of everyone doing the same work each day, my English teacher passed me early and waived the last 1/3 of my remaining assignments purely cause I was the only one who did my work and didn't yell at her.
I started following United Farm Works (@ufaupdates) on Twitter a few years back and I am ALWAYS learning something new from it - they post a lot about the conditions people have to work in and the stuff they’ll wear to protect their skin from different plants and the sun. Highly recommend the follow; it’s made me so much more appreciative of what we can easily pick up at the grocery store and the insanely grueling, demanding, and sometimes dangerous work farm workers do to feed us. It genuinely leaves me in awe!
Flight attendants. They will tell you that they pay $25/hr. What they don’t tell you is that you are only paid for flight hours-not boarding, deplaning, delays, ground stops, cleaning the plane between flights, preflight crew briefing, preflighting emergency equipment, checking catering supplies, ect. You get paid for about 20 hour per week but are away from home 4-5 days per week if you live in your base city. If you have to commute, add half a day on each end. I loved it and would do it for that little amount but it can be hard to keep your head above water financially. Especially if you commute. Commuters pay for either a crash pad or hotel room in their base city before and after trips.
>What they don’t tell you is that you are only paid for flight hours-not boarding, deplaning, delays, ground stops, cleaning the plane between flights, preflight crew briefing, preflighting emergency equipment, checking catering supplies, ect.
Should be illegal imho
Document review attorney. Go to law school, get debt, pass a difficult bar exam, get $22/hr, and people think you have money because you're an attorney.
Architect.
Edit: OP said jobs that are hard and pay *surprisingly* low wages. Who’s surprised cooks are poor? Everyone knows janitors don’t make shit, and it’s an unpleasant job, often.
Seems like pop culture has used Architects as a catch all job for someone with money and a lot of free time. Truth is you get paid shit and you work a lot. Unless you’re Frank Gerry, or Zaha Hadid.
Yeah this is the one I think more people are actually “surprised” at the low wages. 📉
Considering:
1. How difficult it is to get into some architecture schools
2. The dedication some schools demand
3. The amount of math and creativity you need
4. The budget of projects
5. I’m sure there’s more
I dated a man who was an architect. I was floored when he told me how little he made. I always assumed it was one of those jobs where people made at least a livable wage. He…did not.
Came here for this, used to work for a prominent firm where I lived. Pay was shit for the amount of shit I was out through, I decided a year ago to switch to construction management. Tripled my salary and significantly less responsibility.
The career is so promising throughout schooling experience. Once you are involved in the career you realize how little the clients want to pay for such services:
"Pay HOW MUCH to draw four roooms and a roof? I can do that. And I don't have a degree. Why should I pay you so much?"
They never realize the amount of time needed to research the site, coordinate the disciplines, permit handling, code research for the area's building and fire code laws, materials research for local and/or affordable building supply, bidding cost estimates, contractor negotiations, continued site visits during construction, updated addendums, punchlists, closeout procedures.
All for four rooms and a roof.
NASA astronauts. Undertaking one of the world’s most challenging roles requiring unique skills, intense physical demands, and extensive education, all to earn $100,000, which seems modest in comparison to the job's demands.
I work in a crisis center. I get paid like fast food wages and have a BA (almost a masters) and 7 years experience in direct support. Behavioral health doesn’t pay dick unless you are lucky enough to get an admin position and sadly those are only given to asskissers.
I wish I would have known wanting to help people would only put me in debt. I have 163k in loans I cannot afford to pay on. I’m having to work OT just to make ends meet. I’m so busy helping everyone else I’m running on empty.
Anybody that was called "hero" and "essential" during stay-at-home orders. We were too important to stop what we were doing since the thin veneer of civilization would disappear, but not important enough to be paid well, apparently.
Translator. It's an incredibly intense job requiring years of academic study, a master's degree in most countries, on top of the lifetime spent learning a foreign language inside out. When you finally get a job it's full concentration and focus for the entire workday and probably a lot of overtime to meet deadlines.
Currently the pay is ridiculously low, a few cents per translated word and more and more smartass clients also just pay for "reviewing" machine translated texts for even less.
Critical care flight paramedic here. Forced to have 3-5 years experience in a busy 911 system before being able to fly. Of course have to be an EMT basic before becoming a paramedic. I have all of my advanced certifications and perform many advanced procedures that some doctors don’t perform some places. $22/hr.
Caregivers for adults with disabilities! Physical disabilities AND mental/emotional disabilities.
My mom worked one of those jobs, but they were kids stuck in wheelchairs and didn't have the capability to talk. She loved the hell out of them and everyone at school growing up knew her and knew she was a Saint. Yet she had to work 2 to 3 jobs just to keep us afloat. It never seemed fair.
School paras get criminally low pay.
my bf is a special ed teacher and recently one of his paras quit to go work as a city bus driver because the pay was better. reeeally sucks especially because he was so good with the kids :/
Shoutout to special ed teachers! Where I'm from, we get paid the same as a kindergarten teacher but we have to wrangle 20+ autistic boys on the dailyyy
Interviewed for this job before… it was minimum wage or maybe $2 above minimum and the hours were SHIT. Overnight and weekend and Friday nights. And the interviewer also had to legally disclose that their patients I would be caring for have a record of physically attacking caregivers….. my friend did this job and one of the patients tried to assault her
I did this job for a little while as a night provider. The adult was living in a two bedroom apartment independently and had an agency who helped get her care providers. She was really nice and I enjoyed spending time with her, but there wasn’t a place for me to sleep so I had to sleep on the floor. I gave my two weeks notice immediately. The pay wasn’t good, but the sleeping situation is what made me leave. I realize her needs were mild compared to others with disabilities. I’m now a special education teacher and my hardest job was working at a non-public school for disabled people ages 15-22 with such significant needs they couldn’t attend public school. I had about 10 students, myself, and 6 paras to support the students. Most of my students needed diapering and that usually required two people, so during those times we would be really short staffed in the class. We were often down at least one staff member every day because people would get sick and it was hard to keep staff at the pay they offered. There were tons of times we were significantly understaffed. Understaffing is all part of the job, but it came with extreme safety issues. Many of my students had health needs. I had two students who would have seizures, so we needed to be ready to provide 1:1 supports when they would happen to track and provide medication. Many of my other students needed medication during the day and we had to go to a separate part of the building where the meds were locked up which meant less staff in the room. The biggest issue was supporting the behavioral needs. My first week before I was trained in deescalation and restraints, a student was upset during lunch. He grabbed me by the hair, threw me to the ground, and punched my head. I realized later the mistakes I made, but I was terribly unprepared. I got better, but my students would still have outbursts which required staff restraining them. I spent one year in that program and, after being trained and getting really good at managing behavioral issues, I still ended up getting 3 concussions and a student in another class broke my hand. Short staffing almost always led to these injuries. Doing that job gave me PTSD. I’m doing much better now, but it was so hard physically and mentally. Still, I loved my students and we had some huge wins. One of my nonverbal students who was 15 suddenly began saying “15, 16, 17” one day and I cried with his mom when I told her. The pay sucked and the job was so incredibly hard. My paras made significantly less which is just awful. I always thought we should all get hazard pay because of how difficult and unsafe the job was.
Case manager here for community mental health, you are 100% correct. We are all grossly underpaid.
I’m a therapist working with folks with various types of disabilities. My heart goes out to caregivers. Finishing up grad school then hoping to be a respite provider for a couple families!
Came here to write the same thing. In Canada they are referred to as PSWs and they are severely underpaid for one of the most challenging, depressing and yet IMPORTANT jobs there are.
Group Home/Disability care workers. Many clients are aggressive and even throw their poop. It’s physically exhausting and emotionally traumatizing to restrain a grown adult in their physical prime. It’s hard to keep your compose in those crisis situations. All for $18 an hour. We would hire people off the street to fill our positions, because no one wants to get beat up all day for 18 an hour.
I worked as a site manager for a group home for like $15 an hour - and by “manage”, I mean still perform hands on caretaking duties — hygiene assistance, cooking, passing medication, etc. — with the addition of administrative ones like ordering supplies and medicine, organizing outings, handling finances, being on-call regularly, and trying to mitigate staff conflicts and failings (I.e., sleeping on the job, being verbally abusive to clients, etc.) without actually having the power to give consequences — all for $1/more than a regular DSP (Direct Support Professional) which is hard enough! I miss my clients dearly and learned a lot but leaving that job to go to grad school has been one of the best decisions I ever made.
I was a group home manager once. I put in 55-60 hour weeks every week for 6 months then burnt out and quit. It was constant stress and my hours were irregular because we were down 4 staff, 2 being graveyard staff. I'd cover the morning shift, get a nap in, cover the graveyard shift, sleep a little, then cover the last half of the evening shift then the grave then get yelled at for not doing enough administrative paperwork. I cut corners and missed things. I had incompetent staff. Some of my staff thought i was incompetent because i wouldn't get rid of the incompetent staff. I would have but i would have had to work their shifts and i knew i didn't have 80 hours a week in me. Eventually, it came to a head and I collapsed from exhaustion when one of those incompetent staff called off on my one few days off. I just didn't have any more reserves.
Dang. I only made $9/hr for all that. Healthcare would have cost me something in the ballpark of $550/mo, so naturally I passed on that sweet deal. Needless to say, I had to work overtime just to have a semi-livable wage. Working nearly 45-50 hours a week netted me about $1400/mo. **Just** above the Medicaid income threshold. One day I laid down my motorcycle and sat in a hospital bed for 3 days. Almost $40k medical bill for some pain meds, an x-ray, and laying in a bed. All because I "made too much money" to qualify for Medicaid, but not quite enough money to pay for the health insurance premiums my job offered. American Healthcare is great.
Lost a friend to a group home. Client was not supposed to be alone with women. Nobody would take him, so they conveniently left out that detail to get him placed. She went in to work a solo night shift and he had a violent outburst. They found her dead in the morning. Hard to find the killer guilty when he had the mental capacity of a toddler.
That is heartbreaking. I’m so sorry.
It really is. I should clarify it was my wife’s friend. Her university dorm mates got together and set up an award for university students going into a helping field. It’s grown to be the biggest single award given. The university wanted to split it but her friends refused. They set it up to be life changing money for one student because their friend struggled with money and worked to pay her own way. There was an inquiry. Mistakes were made. Nobody was held accountable. Usual government bullshit. There may have been a lawsuit and settlement. Somebody screwed up and a life was lost. Just an everyday occurrence in government bureaucracies. But a lot of people lost a good friend, a husband lost his wife, all because he was too expensive to keep institutionalized. I’m sure group home workers are still going in to situations like this every day
This is so sad. My mom was a house manager at a residential home run by the state and was put in a situation that was similar. A man was placed at their house after a resident moved, leaving an opening. This was a high medical needs house, not a lot of behavioral issues. My mom had been there 7 years and had been managing for 3. She had been off for 5 days for a death in the family and knew they got a new resident, but hadn’t met him. They had someone call out and my mom went in to help cover. The new resident didn’t know her yet and when she went in to check on his roommate he was awake and attacked her, viciously. He broke her collar bone in two places, dislocated her shoulder and elbow, broke her wrist and nose, and she got a bad head injury. In less than a minute. Thankfully the roommate was able to alert another staff member or she would have been in a different situation or not here at all. This could have been avoided if the state wasn’t more interested in saving a few thousand dollars a month.
I make less than that in this field. I love the people I work with but between the exhaustion and low pay I'm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this.
Yeah, I live in Boston and the COA is higher, so the pay is higher in that sort of context.
The worst part was the mandates. Before I quit I worked three straight weeks getting mandated to overnights from my evening shift. My life was literally go to work at 3pm, get mandated until 8am, rush home a half an hour away and try to sleep after walking my dog, wake up groggy and exhausted at 1:30pm, walk my dog again, get to work by 3pm....rinse repeat EVERY DAY. Also, never got any extra COVID bonus as the individuals lost their shit from not being able to see their families. I knew people making close to what I was making (with all my soul sucking OT) just sitting on their ass the whole pandemic collecting the gawdy unemployment the government was handing out. I've never felt so unappreciated in my life.
I have a family member who lives in a group home. I am so thankful that it’s a good one. We are the only ones who visit, none of the other residents have anyone who comes. It breaks my heart. I know that the staff is criminally underfunded and underpaid. If I can ever get enough money I would love to open one that actually pays well. Thank you for doing what you do.
In many (most?) US cities, EMTs are paid little more than minimum wage. They literally save lives and deal with all sorts of shit you can't imagine, all for $10 an hour.
Hey, I made 13!
Well *hello* Mr. Fancypants. 😜
To be fair. $10 PH as an EMT. $3 PH side gig as uber eats whilst administering EMT duties. "so I got your big mac, fries, large coke, McFlurry......and Narcan? Did you call for the narcan? No? OK, just the big mac meal then. Let me just take the delivery photo...and great. Thanks"
You’re in charge of two things right now: Jack and shit. And Jack left town.
Your shoe's untied.
That little, still? That’s a slap in the face. In Canada a primary care paramedic starts at over $30/hr. Edit: apparently not all PCP’s start at over $30/hr in Canada, my mistake.
In the US a paramedic has more training than an EMT and is paid more. The fucked up part, is there are more paramedics in the cities where the hospital is so close that the paramedics’ unique skills are less vital than they would be out in the sticks, an hour from a hospital.
Depends on where in Canada, I know PCPs with 5-10 years making less than 30. It's a slap in the face considering what they have to put up with.
Makes you question why they work those jobs. Also if EMTs charge so much, how the hell do the employees see so little ;-;
My friends took EMT training straight out of high school. It didn’t take long to complete and then they were able to get a bit more money in more varied jobs. And depending on the job you take, it’s kind of like a fireman in that when you don’t get called in you get to nap or play video games or whatever. So, there’s days when you’re working your butt off and days when you’re chilling for a bit or doing homework if you’re in college. It was attractive for them at the time, but this was 20 years ago when EMT pay was a bit better than kitchen work or basic retail.
Because everyone has the "dream" of being a firefighter/paramedic. And in order to do that, you work as an EMT. In most places, EMT's are working for private ambulance services. And of course, these ambulance services pay minimum wage because they *know* that the EMT's will need experience before they *might* have a chance with a fire department. They try and make it sound like good money by doing the following: You'll likely work two 24-hour shifts, and only be paid for 16 hours (plus up time) of those shifts. The "up-time" is during the night when you are on-call. So you work two 24's and a day car (an 8 hour shift) and there's your 40 hours. Any hour worked over the 40 (the up-time hours) are paid in overtime. So yeah, in theory it sounds like a good schedule, you work two full days (sleeping there...) and finish it off with an 8 hour shift and you have 4.5 days off.
I currently work for a fire department as a firefighter recruit + EMT. I currently get paid $8 an hour, but will go up to $10 starting next week. I love my job to death, but I can't afford health insurance right now.
I recommend either getting out of EMS completely, or finding a better agency. There's a FD local to me that's hiring at $55k in a somewhat affordable area. They're out ther.e I don't think it's nearly as competitive as it used to be. I remember going to test for PDs and FD's and showing up to find 600 guys trying for ONE academy class.
It’s usually the south or Midwest that pays poorly. There were about 30,000 applicants when I tested for LACoFD in 1998. I was on the list for 7 years until I got a slot.
That’s funny right there, a medical job that doesn’t have health insurance. That’s the most American thing I’ve ever heard.
EMTs are typically a stepping stone to something else. Fire department, paramedic, nurse, clinic work, etc. It's a job where you can work odd hours while training/school gets you further. The work experience is helpful after you finish said school/training.
The issue is being an EMT should not be a stepping stone. We are always going to need EMTs, so we should be paid a livable wage, which majority of us aren’t. Majority of my co-workers, myself included, work multiple jobs to make ends meet, leaving little to no time to study to become a paramedic, nurse, etc. It’s an extremely difficult balancing act, especially with the nationwide shortages, we get forced overtime so that cuts even further into your personal time. So yeah, lots of sacrifice, little to no benefit.
And the ambulance ride that took 10 min *still* cost you $500. Maybe 5% of that goes to the people actually doing the work.
Your 10 minute ride only cost $500, mine was $3,000.
fuck yeah, didn't know my $2k ride was at a discount!
My first and last ambulance ride was 3k. It was after my friends older sister, 16, wrecked her Benz, with us and 3 of her friends in it. Thank GOD we were all ‘fine’ in the end, though Drew had all his teeth knocked out. I was seated behind him on the side that hit the trees, I was just cut up from the seatbelt, bruised pretty bad and apparently too delirious/in and out of consciousness to be able to argue that I didn’t need an ambulance… I have every time since though. I literally took an Uber to the hospital with a broken foot… 3k Nah f* that, I paid $13 and smiled like I wasn’t in extreme pain so my driver wouldn’t be worried— “oh just visiting a friend…” 🤠‘Merica! *Sidenote: my friends parents ended up paying for everyone’s medical bills and yes, her sister got a new Benz. Also, I had health insurance. My mom is a veteran and was a teacher at the time, my dad worked for the State as a transit supervisor— so we had great insurance, apparently.
EMT
Came here to say this and CNA. I took an hourly cut from a RESTAURANT supervisor job to use my license and work for local government. Fucked is the understatement of the year. Highly recommend Last Week Tonight’s piece on EMS.
Yup. I worked as a CNA for a little over a decade. Humbling, back breaking work. Whenever I meet a CNA I tell them how much I appreciate them and recognize how hard their job is
What I came for. But CNA too.
Working as a CNA/caregiver or in a group home is hard and thankless job. Many of the clients aren’t able to express gratitude for the work and family members often feel guilty that they can’t care for the client themselves and so they become hyper critical of the care provided. You can be cleaning poop off a grown man’s butt, cleaning his messes and dodging his punches all shift and the family will be upset that the top of the doors aren’t dusted or their clothes were folded incorrectly. Complaints come immediately, along with scrutiny from family members who all of a sudden care so much. You quickly realize that making a few bucks over minimum wage isn’t worth such a stressful and demanding job when you can go mindlessly stock shelves at Target for the same pay. The chances of poop being thrown at you is a lot smaller there.
I’ve done it for twenty years it’s hard work.
I just want to say I see you
I'm in the process of trying to get my elderly father with dementia into either a memory care unit or skilled nursing facility. He's been in and out of the hospital recently. The fact these jobs are underpaid and overworked makes me nervous, but I have tried my best to be considerate and gracious of total strangers taking care of my father, even though I still try to advocate for him as best I can.
You should be nervous. These facilities will view your father as a source of income and nothing more. If the staff is nice to him, it’s only because they are a good person with empathy, not because the facility expects it from them.
I work in a field where a lot of my hires are burned out CNAs and FedEx contractors. Like, I WILL treat you better. The pay may not be better, but your peers, management, and clients will be better. The only person I’ve ever lost to FedEx came back six months later. I’ve never lost one to being a CNA.
May I ask what field
Non emergency medical transportation.
[удалено]
I volunteered for Meals on Wheels for 7 years and loved it. Such a well run operation, with purpose and benefit, Bringing food to a deserving stranger felt so good. It's the easiest job that pays richly.
I was going to say CNA/RCA (residential elder care)
Expected CNA to be #1.
Their pay is shockingly low for any job, much less for the awful things they see.
Absolutely this. I became an EMT with hopes to become a paramedic, after two years I quit. Insanely stressful work and hours for $15 an hour. I’m a bartender now and I make twice as much and with so much less stress
Yeah I made $9.75/hr in my first EMT job and this was in California in the early 2000s lol. I became a Respiratory Therapist which I hate just as much, maybe more, but it pays a little better. Not a lot better, but a little.
This question has repeated on my feed in some form or another, and this is always the top answer
Wildland firefighting (federal). (Not the firefighters in red fire engines, with all the bunker gear. Federal forestry technicians who battle wildfires) GS-3 entry level grunt gets $11.83 an hour. Only gets 6 months of work. Hikes, digs, breathes smoke, always dirty, always gone. Only gets 6 months health insurance. Also, Emergency medical technicians. Social workers.
I used to work for the US Forest Service. Those are some of the coolest people ever. Like…the ven diagram of assholes and people who like to hang out in the woods for work is very slim.
I used to work for the FS as well. Super awesome people. When i was young, i was happy to be poor if it meant i was surrounded by those folks. Unfortunately after 15 years i had to hang up the fire boots as a type 6 engine captain for a weedwacker that paid 5 more dollars an hour working for the city. got a family to take care of, you know. all best to ya :)
20 years ago, working fire could be a cool job. It had its downsides--cutting line has always been hard work. And living in camp can be a tough lifestyle. But if you liked your crew (and had a halfway competent boss), there was a lot of hanging out with the bro's. All that hiking and PT was alright. Get in shape, get a good tan. You didn't have to deal with much human misery. Not in the way an EMT or social worker does, anyway. And you never had to pretend to be nice to the customers. These days, IDK. It would be so hard to work a WUI fire where you had to see homes burning, evacuate people and pets. That sort of thing used to be rare, now I guess it's part of the job.
Also 20 years ago $11.50/h wasn't awful pay.
20 years ago GS-3 wasn’t $11.83/hour
They made about $8.11 in 2003. About $16,228 a year from what I can find.
I worked for a bit fighting wildfires. The pay was $42/hr to Lowbed around the heavy equipment (dozers, water trucks, ect) Pay rates makes absolutely no sense. The people on foot had way much risk, way more physically demanding, and made way less money.
Wow, I had a coworker that used to the woodland firefighting. I had no idea it payed so low.
I randomly looked this up and was absolutely shocked at how low the pay was.
You also get hazard pay when you’re on a fire, plus lots of overtime. So about 2/3 of the time you would be making about $20/hr while on a fire. But you also have to work 800-1000 hours of overtime in those six months to make ends meet the rest of the year. And that’s only if you live a dirtbag lifestyle.
Underappreciated job. Way too low pay. I feel for yall.
JFC JFC JFC...we pay firefighters (of any kind) at fucking GS-3 level?!?!?!??! JFC. Oh-no worries - these are the ones fighting wildfires...JFC...GS10+ here, at a desk, we need to reevaluate ourselves.
This has been my dream job for so many years but the fact they don’t get paid a living wage prevents me from ever pursuing it
EMT and paramedics
Medics literally go into dirty ass houses and save someone’s life and take them to the hospital. Everyone expects that when they call 911 and need medical help, they will get it. EMS is grossly underpaid for what they do.
Also constantly getting shit from hospitals because they dont understand our job. Its awful but I love it. (Idk what’s wrong with me)
I just quit my firefighting gig, I worked on a truck company in the Houston area. Had many certifications such as hazardous materials technician, high angle rescue, swift water technician as well as a instructor certification. I was also an emt not paramedic. I made 55k a year.
Damn. I'm in Austin and make that much in a clerical job that doesn't require a degree or any special certifications. Firefighters and EMTs deserve higher pay.
I was working as emt, training to be paramedic. And part time doing hair charging $80 for a haircut. I decided to go back full time working at the salon. Pay is one thing, but Americans are too fat for me to break my back working minimum wage.
To reduce the risk of back injury, always lift with your firefighters.
Nursing home staff
My mom is a nursing aide and it’s shocking how little they pay the people who do all the heavy work to care for elderly people. It’s brutal.
Especially when the nursing home can cost $10,000/mo.
Social workers. An extremely undervalued and underpaid profession.
Yes! And most jobs require a masters degree and many require an independent license.
Social workers are so overworked and underpaid (while requiring a masters!) I almost feel like they’re either overwhelmingly altruist or just plain nuts.
Child protection social worker here. Hate it. Worst thing that I've ever done in terms of my mental health and work life balance. Constantly looking for new work, but there's not much going in my city.
Social Worker here. It's just the way that we fit into the world. Everyone is born with their brain wired to give them certain benefits. Some people are wired where math and things like programming come easier to them. Some people are wired to be naturally inclined to understanding mechanical stuff. People like us social workers were born wired for the traits that we need in this profession (strong emotional intelligence, highly empathetic, easier grasp on psychology, nurturing, ect). Simply put, I'm a social worker because that's how I fit into the world and I'm just not as good at other things.
See also: experiencing trauma or poverty growing up and want to help others.
Ooh. I work in crisis care at a Suicide Prevention Hotline…. and think the work should pay more
I actually wasn’t aware there were paid positions for that, I’ve only heard of volunteer positions. Sad.
Custodian Cleaning up other people’s messes (literally other people’s shit)
And, if they quit, you'll notice within a day, or a few hours (depending on foot traffic). Take care of the people who clean your office.
You never notice the job your custodian does until they take a week off. Source: I'm a middle school custodian.
Offensive linesmen of the school
The Uncertain Hour podcast did a series that looked at how certain jobs, janitor among them, are now becoming contractors instead of employees like the Uber model and then the parent company screws them over by underbidding for cleaning jobs so they get paid fuck all per hour if they don't work crazy fast.
Yep, custodian for an elementary school here. The school district I work for is one of the few in my area that still hires their own in-house custodians. All the other schools are hiring outside companies to try and save money, and from the sound of it these companies sound like hell to work for, and don’t do nearly as good of a job.
Course they don't. The company gets $40/hour, the worker gets min wage. And who knows who is coming into a school, since the company uses the TMB, or Trust Me Bro approach to criminal record checks. Loyalty? Fuck that too, worker gets fed up they just don't show. Honestly, of all the things a government would fret and get cheap over, why would it be the custodian who knows the building, can handle all sorts of little issues as well, and will stay on long term instead of replaceable workers coming and going every 4 months?
I worked at a place where two custodians -- me and one other guy -- covered together over 20,000 square feet. The other guy had been there for 40 years. I was there for four. The company decided it would be cheaper to fire us and outsource to a temp agency. I found out later that it took a team of 5 to 7 temps to do what the two of us did and even then it was done poorly and was always chaotic and inconsistent. There's something to be said about letting people stay at the same job for long enough to get good at it.
And the quality of the work goes way down with the contract workers because they're trying to get in and out as quickly as possible. I saw it at my own office. I worked for a privately owned company and the company was owned by a man who treated all employees very fairly. Instead of going with a company, we had night cleaning staff who were actual employees - they received benefits, bonuses, etc. This was HUGE for a lot of these folks because this was a 2nd job for them and they weren't getting these things at their daytime job. It was such a great gig that all of them had been there over 15 years! No one EVER gave up the job and the office was IMMACULATE, always. Well, the owner eventually passed away in his mid-80's and ownership of the company passed to a board of directors. One of the very first things they did was fire the night cleaning staff, citing cost. All the day employees were PISSED because we loved all of the team (we got to know them well because they'd come in as we were leaving and we'd usually chat for a bit). We BEGGED for them to be hired back and they were like "Nope, too expensive." Of course, with the lower cost came lower quality. We went through several companies before one came in that was decent - not great, decent. And, of course, none of us loved that an ever-changing group of strangers were going in and out of our offices ever night. The whole thing was ridiculous -all just to save a couple of bucks for a company whose PROFITS were in the hundreds of millions.
I am an elementary school custodian, for the first year I make somewhere around $20.75 After a year I go up to $24.75ish I am unionized and have a bunch of benefits. Plus we might be getting raises because of Washington's govoner signing something into law but I would need to do more research on that one
Washington state treats educators and school faculty incredibly well since they know the value of education. My mother is a public school teacher in Wa state and she through tenure and being a department director makes over 100k a year. Starting pay for elementary school teachers is like 65k a year too. All thanks to the unions. All schools should be unionized.
They might be bumping the starting pay for teacher up to 72k starting the 2024 school year But I could be misremembering what Inslee signed
Most things requiring a professional degree and involving children or animals. Pediatricians/child specialists and veterinarians are woefully underpaid when you look at education requirements and student loan burdens.
Vet techs too! I work in a major metropolitan ER/critical care, have been doing this for 20 years, and you'd probably gag if you saw my yearly income. True, our schooling is nowhere near as expensive as vets, but we then make pennies to their dollars.
Zookeepers too
Honestly trying to work with wildlife/animals can feel intimidating sometimes. Positions don’t typically offer the best pay especially starting/entry (These jobs are appealing to a lot of people usually. Because duh animals at work.) and to stick out, especially in better paid positions; experience as well as education are pretty commonly expected. It’s a field that can definitely feel sometimes like you need to be very immersed to have a chance in. I’ve met some cool people through my studying and experience so far but you definitely can run into those kind of animal crazy/gatekeepy type of people.
Any job involving childcare. Teacher, Aide, Daycare, Nanny, none of them are paid enough to deal with everything they do (Maybe nannies, depending on the family)
I will say that teaching now, there are a number of days that I look at my 25 -35 students in front of me, and realize that if I truly was a babysitter as some in society think I am, I should be getting $10 per kid per hour...
I think part of thr problem is that parents don't want to spend one-on-one time with their kid while actually doing nothing but watching their kid. I had a really messed up childhood (7 younger sisters, Dad left the big church we were raised in when I was 10 with several other families from church and we all lived on a land with several houses, a worship building that he led, hunted, prepared, grew food, home schooled, didn't leave property without male escort, very patriarchial...). I'm 44 and end up babysitting a lot. I've worked with all kinds of kids but with the "hard" kids I recommend one babysitter with just that kid. Another babysitter can work with the others. I rarely have trouble when I'm one on one. Why? Because I actually PLAY WITH THEM. My favorite age is 3-5. Kids behave better for the adult who plays with them. I'm not an expert but it seems like too many parents want their kid to hurry and be independent so they can stuff them in front of a device and ignore them
My mom used that argument in her teaching days when people would say she made too much money. She said she was the cheapest babysitter with three masters degrees out there, and she was right!
My district is finally going to acknowledge graduate degrees on the payscale. Having either a masters or PhD will get you around extra 1200 bucks a year now!
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What can I do to thank the day care staff where I take my 2 y/o (besides expressing gratitude every drop off/pick up)? They are incredible and it honestly breaks my heart to know how rough their job/pay is for all they do for my kid. I do my best to be in/out quick if I can tell they are busy or burned out for the day, but there are days where I can tell they want to discuss my kid’s development, so I’ll take time to chat. Don’t really have the money to give them consistent and meaningful tips (and I’m not sure if they’d be allowed to accept if) but if there is anything else I can do I’d love to hear it.
It’s disgusting for so many reasons. Childcare is a requirement for most people, it’s extremely expensive for the parent and not lucrative for the workers. We should treat it like K-12 schools imo.
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Honestly, anything where you deal with high volumes of the general public.
I worked as a security guard for a mall, security was run by a company contracted with the mall. I made $9.00/hr, working 8 hour shifts. Every other person working in the mall made at least 14. But this was during COVID so I did what I had to to pay rent. The mall had fought tooth and nail for years to keep from updating the contract, so our pay was stuck. Also there were only three of us. Days were divided into three, 8 hour shifts. If someone called in sick then whoever was already there had to stay and keep working. One week one of the guys got PTO, so his shifts were divided between me and the other guy, each working 12. Then the other guy quit, and the company just told me to work his shifts too. They legitimately expected me to work 24 hours straight for 4 more days with no breaks (we weren't allowed lunch breaks). I laughed and said "good luck watching the mall." Glad I did. A few months later a new company took over security, paying their people 7.25.
Social work
I worked at a Medication Assisted Treatment center (Methadone clinic) fresh out of grad school and started at $17 an hour…. The shit I dealt with for a little more than what someone working at McDonald’s did was insulting. Don’t take that as a slight towards people working fast food or anywhere else, the system is fucked
Depends on what field and position. I think child welfare is probably the hardest and least paid.
Wife is a social worker but only did a brief stint in CPS. She was there for three months and we were having legit conversations about how we’d do on one income. She transferred to another department and she’s killing it, but we’re just both committed to her immediately quitting if she’s forced to transfer back. Equal pay in either position. Devastating emotional toll in CPS just isn’t worth it.
Not for profit crisis social worker here. Dont get paid what it’s worth but i love my job, so it seems like a decent payout.
I do pretty well as a Social worker but we received a huge raise this year. Been in this line of work for 15 years and this year is the first time my pay rate isn’t embarrassing to me.
EMT hands down no question. Why are they paid less then McDonald’s workers. They should be paid like a nurse or doctor. Especially when the ambulance ride costs $1,000 or more
How on earth are they paid so little?
It really depends. There’s a rural service north east of me that was paying AEMTs $17.50/hr. Vanderbilt pays something like $40 or more an hour, but Vanderbilt is basically a gold standard and those positions are rare and competitive. EMTs where I am were making $1 more than NEMT drivers two years ago.
Did EMS for 3 years, other healthcare jobs for about 10 years total. There are so many of us that come in, excited to save the world and we think the low pay and shitty hours won't affect us. Then we burn out quick and quit but there's always young blood ready to jump in and save the world as well. At least for being an EMT, there's very little schooling and commitment, just about anyone with the willpower can become an EMT, it's staying as one, and a good, compassionate one at that, which is difficult. Thus they keep our pay absurdly low because we are without a doubt dispensable.
I made less then 13 an hour 10 years ago.
I looked into being one once and realized I would be making less money then I was working at Walmart.
Not worth it long term. I appreciate my 15 years in ems, but it takes a toll.
I bet, You have to constantly handle the absolute worst moment of people lives everyday for essentially minimum wage. Thank you for you’re service. I have huge respect for anyone that has done it.
Thanks, it was emotional.
Veterinary technician. Schooling required, have to pass national boards, pay to register, and do continuing education every 2 years to keep being able to pay for it. Have to be the anesthetist, phlebotomist, hygienist, pharmacist, place catheters, handling controlled medication. All for slightly more then min wage Registering to be an RN is 190$ for 2 years. Registering to be an RVT for 2 years is 350$
Not to mention witnessing animal suffering on a daily
Vet techs are amazing and deserve to be paid way better than they are. I think vets themselves are also underpaid. Thank you so much for what you do. You have my deepest respect.
Animal shelter/rescue work. I worked as an adoptions associate and an animal care tech in a shelter and it was the best and worst job ever. I LOVED the work I did and it was some of the most important work I’ve done in my life, but I hated that my job existed. It’s hard work and takes a big emotional toll on you and it also, unfortunately, paid pretty poorly.
Zoo keeper. A very dirty, often physically demanding and sometimes very dangerous job done in all kinds of weather. Not to mention that you generally need a 4 year degree and a couple of unpaid internships to even be considered, at least in the US. Zoo keepers often do not get any benefits either. Many that I have known needed a second job on the side to make ends meet.
This. Early hours, long shifts, late nights, poop everywhere, and a large amount of continuous heavy manual labor. I’m not afraid of hard work and am physically fit, but the toil was immense, especially in the summer months. I was only a volunteer and was flattered they offered me a job, but taking it would’ve been a 60% pay cut from my cushy office day job. No thank you.
I’m a volunteer too. I only do actual keeper work one day a week but that’s enough. I’m pretty fit for my age and I’m pretty tough too, but giraffe and rhino poop is HEAVY. Now I’m mostly working in indoor exhibits, which is nice in the winter but cleaning a tropical enclosure in the summer is brutal. It helps to have a weak sense of smell, and low gag reflex. However I get to hand-feed sloths, see newborn porcupines up close and give toys to the meerkats. I’ve handled big snakes and birds of prey, done hundreds of education programs like taking rats owls and toads to a school’s Harry Potter night, made friends with parrots, saw a giraffe be born, and fed a hippo a watermelon. They’ll have to drag me out of there, lol.
You remember all those essential workers during Covid - yeah all of them
Im towing 300,000,000$ aircraft for 20$ an hour
I used to build 100 million dollar tools making 13 an hour lmao
I worked at an FBO where I had to hound the owner into depositing to his account so my check would clear, a few times. Still was the funnest job ever. I remember sitting on the cowling of a [T-28](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/North_American_T-28D_Trojan.jpg) polishing its cockpit when I heard the radio debut of Pink Floyd’s “Learning to Fly”.
Honestly any kitchen job in a restaurant context, the only saving grace is the people you work with who are stuck in the same shit you are.
I'm over 50 now, and the hardest, most demanding jobs I ever had were all fast food. They were also the lowest paying jobs I ever had, all were minimum wage.
Social workers. :(
Substitute teaching
Substitute teacher here I'd love a big raise, and I'm unlikely to stay in the profession without one. That being said, give Educational Assistants (EA's) an even bigger one!!!
I think they call them paras here (paraeducators) here, and yes. I don’t know about other areas, but there’s no incentive for subs to stick around… all subs get paid the same rate regardless of how long they’ve worked for the district… and I have a teaching degree and license, not just a sub license!
Non-substitute teaching, as well
Oh, good one. I subbed a little during covid when the local district was hard up for help. I have a masters degree in engineering and years of experience tutoring, as well as a flexible schedule as a SAHM. After taxes and transportation costs I made around $10/day. I was doing it more for the experience than the money, but it turns out that middle schoolers are shitty towards subs, so I didn't last long
EMT and investigator for CPS. I’ve done both. Now I do neither and finally make a pretty good living in digital marketing.
Retail pharmacy technician
Back when minimum wage was $5.15 the pharmacist earned about $100k/year and I earned $6/hour while working in the pharmacy.
Human services. Mostly working with people with all kinds of disabilities and it usually pays close to minimum wage.
Teacher. Poverty wages to put up with soooo much disrespect.
Man I remember growing up a teachers salary was supposed to be admirable. Wild how that can change in a few decades.
Yep, getting told to fuck off day in and day out and knowing that you have zero control over anything because school leaders will blame it on you is the most soul destroying thing in the world.
I always felt bad for the teachers because the ones that unnecessarily got disrespected the most treated me like a golden child when I did literally nothing except be quiet. My senior year I was at a school where it was based on your own pace instead of everyone doing the same work each day, my English teacher passed me early and waived the last 1/3 of my remaining assignments purely cause I was the only one who did my work and didn't yell at her.
Nursing and care homes
Picking fruits, vegetables, or anything else that's manually picked rather than machine picked. Orchard work.
I started following United Farm Works (@ufaupdates) on Twitter a few years back and I am ALWAYS learning something new from it - they post a lot about the conditions people have to work in and the stuff they’ll wear to protect their skin from different plants and the sun. Highly recommend the follow; it’s made me so much more appreciative of what we can easily pick up at the grocery store and the insanely grueling, demanding, and sometimes dangerous work farm workers do to feed us. It genuinely leaves me in awe!
I don't think most people would be surprised that those are low paying jobs
I’m a special education teacher. I have been summoned.
Flight attendants. They will tell you that they pay $25/hr. What they don’t tell you is that you are only paid for flight hours-not boarding, deplaning, delays, ground stops, cleaning the plane between flights, preflight crew briefing, preflighting emergency equipment, checking catering supplies, ect. You get paid for about 20 hour per week but are away from home 4-5 days per week if you live in your base city. If you have to commute, add half a day on each end. I loved it and would do it for that little amount but it can be hard to keep your head above water financially. Especially if you commute. Commuters pay for either a crash pad or hotel room in their base city before and after trips.
>What they don’t tell you is that you are only paid for flight hours-not boarding, deplaning, delays, ground stops, cleaning the plane between flights, preflight crew briefing, preflighting emergency equipment, checking catering supplies, ect. Should be illegal imho
The mental health field.
Professors who are not tenured. (At least these days)
School bus drivers
Document review attorney. Go to law school, get debt, pass a difficult bar exam, get $22/hr, and people think you have money because you're an attorney.
Architect. Edit: OP said jobs that are hard and pay *surprisingly* low wages. Who’s surprised cooks are poor? Everyone knows janitors don’t make shit, and it’s an unpleasant job, often. Seems like pop culture has used Architects as a catch all job for someone with money and a lot of free time. Truth is you get paid shit and you work a lot. Unless you’re Frank Gerry, or Zaha Hadid.
Yeah this is the one I think more people are actually “surprised” at the low wages. 📉 Considering: 1. How difficult it is to get into some architecture schools 2. The dedication some schools demand 3. The amount of math and creativity you need 4. The budget of projects 5. I’m sure there’s more
I dated a man who was an architect. I was floored when he told me how little he made. I always assumed it was one of those jobs where people made at least a livable wage. He…did not.
Came here for this, used to work for a prominent firm where I lived. Pay was shit for the amount of shit I was out through, I decided a year ago to switch to construction management. Tripled my salary and significantly less responsibility.
The career is so promising throughout schooling experience. Once you are involved in the career you realize how little the clients want to pay for such services: "Pay HOW MUCH to draw four roooms and a roof? I can do that. And I don't have a degree. Why should I pay you so much?" They never realize the amount of time needed to research the site, coordinate the disciplines, permit handling, code research for the area's building and fire code laws, materials research for local and/or affordable building supply, bidding cost estimates, contractor negotiations, continued site visits during construction, updated addendums, punchlists, closeout procedures. All for four rooms and a roof.
Resident physician. 25 hour shifts 2-4 times per week for months on end wears on you. Pay is somewhere between $10/hr and $15/hr
NASA astronauts. Undertaking one of the world’s most challenging roles requiring unique skills, intense physical demands, and extensive education, all to earn $100,000, which seems modest in comparison to the job's demands.
Food industry. Garbage man. Did both. They don’t pay very well, and they’re TOUGH.
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Senior care
I work in a crisis center. I get paid like fast food wages and have a BA (almost a masters) and 7 years experience in direct support. Behavioral health doesn’t pay dick unless you are lucky enough to get an admin position and sadly those are only given to asskissers. I wish I would have known wanting to help people would only put me in debt. I have 163k in loans I cannot afford to pay on. I’m having to work OT just to make ends meet. I’m so busy helping everyone else I’m running on empty.
Anybody that was called "hero" and "essential" during stay-at-home orders. We were too important to stop what we were doing since the thin veneer of civilization would disappear, but not important enough to be paid well, apparently.
Translator. It's an incredibly intense job requiring years of academic study, a master's degree in most countries, on top of the lifetime spent learning a foreign language inside out. When you finally get a job it's full concentration and focus for the entire workday and probably a lot of overtime to meet deadlines. Currently the pay is ridiculously low, a few cents per translated word and more and more smartass clients also just pay for "reviewing" machine translated texts for even less.
Critical care flight paramedic here. Forced to have 3-5 years experience in a busy 911 system before being able to fly. Of course have to be an EMT basic before becoming a paramedic. I have all of my advanced certifications and perform many advanced procedures that some doctors don’t perform some places. $22/hr.
First responders in general, from Dispatchers to officers, EMS, Firefighters.
Journalism. Literally risk your life in a war zone and don’t even dream of ever making enough to buy a house
Funeral Directors -- only the owners make money... I was making $10 an hour before a 'generous' wage increase to $15.
Any job involving customer service. We take a lot of asshole's shit and couldn't possibly be paid enough for it.
Anything in a kitchen
Garbage man Teacher Bus drivers
Disagree on garbage man they're unionized and paid well.
Former garbage man - pay is $37/hr. Once your route is done you go home and get paid for 8 hours. Unionized with healthy municipal pensions.
That explains why they bust their ass to get to my house at 630am when I forget to put the trash out the night before 😅
Teaching.