Top 10 Overpaid Jobs

Career Journal has a listing of the top overpaid jobs in the U.S. that contains the following:

10) Wedding photographers. Photographers earn a national average of $1,900 for a wedding, though many charge $2,500 to $5,000 for a one-day shoot, client meeting and processing time that runs up to 20 hours or more, and the cost of materials.

9) Major airline pilots. While American and United pilots recently took pay cuts, senior captains earn as much as $250,000 a year at Delta, and their counterparts at other major airlines still earn about $150,000 to $215,000 - several times pilot pay at regional carriers - for a job that technology has made almost fully automated.

8) West Coast longshoremen. Next year, West Coast dockworkers will earn an average of $112,000 for handling cargo, according to the Pacific Maritime Association, their employer. Office clerks who log shipping records into computers will earn $136,000. And unionized foremen who oversee the rank-and-file will pull down an average $177,000.

7) Skycaps at major airports. Many of the uniformed baggage handlers who check in luggage at curbside at the busiest metro airports pull in $70,000 to $100,000 a year -- most of it in cash. On top of their salaries, peak earners can take in $300 or more a day in tips.

6) Real estate agents selling high-end homes. While most agents hustle tail to earn $60,000 a year, those in affluent areas can pull down $200,000-plus for half the effort, courtesy of the fatter commissions on pricier listings.

5) Motivational speakers and ex-politicians on the lecture circuit. Former President Reagan raised the bar back in 1989 when he took $2 million from Japanese business groups for making two speeches. Bill Clinton earned $9.5 million on 60 speeches last year, though most of those earnings went to charity and to fund his presidential library.

4) Orthodontists. For a 35-hour workweek, orthodontists earn a median $350,000 a year, according to the Journal of Clinical Orthodontics. General dentists, meanwhile, earn about half as much working 39 hours a week on average, in a much dirtier job.

3) CEOs of poorly performing companies. CEOs at chronically unprofitable companies and those forever lagging industry peers stand as the most grossly overpaid. The ultimate excess comes after they're finally forced out, usually by insiders tired of seeing their own stock holdings plummet. These long-time losers draw multimillion-dollar severance packages as a reward for their failed stewardship.

2) Washed-up pro athletes in long-term contracts. NBA player Shawn Kemp, for instance, earned $10 million in a year he averaged a pathetic 6.1 points and 3.8 rebounds a game. Atlanta Braves pitcher Mike Hampton earned $9.5 million -- in the second year of an eight-year, $121 million contract -- while compiling a 7-15 won-loss record for the Colorado Rockies with a pitiful earned-run average of 6.15.

1) Mutual-fund managers. Stock-fund managers can easily earn $500,000 to $1 million a year including bonuses -- even though only 3 in 10 beat the market in the last 10 years.

If you look over this list, the reasons they are so highly paid are:

1. Unions. #9, #8, and #2 are impacted by unions. A couple of the others may be as well.

2. Supply. In some cases, there's simply a lack of people who want to do these jobs or only a few who CAN do these jobs, so the pay needs to be high. For instance, Shawn Kemp may have only scored 6.1 points per game, but that's about 6.1 more points per game than most people could have scored.

3. The system. Part of #3 and #1 is simply because that's how the system is set up. Not saying it's right, but that's often how things are done.

And a few other thoughts:

1. If I had to choose among these, I'd like to be #5. Now that's a sweet deal.

2. Unfortunately, I'm only qualified for #7 and #6.

3. I LOVE #1!!!! This is why I invest in index funds.

4. I KNEW I should have been an orthodontist. Man, what a sweet deal!

Comments

[Ed]

I have done a lot of finacial work for docs. and dentist in the past, and if a general dentist has good business sense, and many do, they can easily pull in 350K. Especially the ones that refuse to accept insurance.......

[Ron@TheWisdomJournal]

Wow, you hit the nail on the head. The key factor is the ability to perform a certain job and the supply of those willing to perform it for the given rate.

Great article. Now, to give this list to my kids so they can choose their profession . . .

[Fiscal Musings]

There isn't much in the list that I'd want to do, but the pay certainly would be nice.

[Kevin]

I had no idea longshoremen and skycaps made so much. I am skeptical of the skycap figures though, that seems too high for a job basically anyone could do.

[MonkeyMonk]

If you want to be a speaker the best thing you could do at this point would be to write a book in your area of expertise . . . and if you pick personal finance, hopefully something that has a different slant than the 100s of other personal finance books. Maybe a book on the interesection of religion, ethics, faith, and finance.

I work with a number of publishers and most of the authors we work with are writing books mainly as a boost to their speaking engagement careers.

[TMody]

If you think about #1 it actually may help indicate why most managers don't beat the market (of course the fees they take contribute greatly). But $500,000 - $1 million is actually very low for a senior level position in that industry - e.g. finance/investments. Think about it, typical associates just a couple years out of business school make more than $500,000 per year if they go to a hedge fund or investment bank. So why would the best talent go into mutual fund management? They don't.

I don't really think any of those people are overpaid except for the CEOs of poorly performing companies. The rest are getting what the market deems appropriate for the most part.

[Silicon Prairie]

Airline pilots? Yes the computer flies the plane 95% of the time, but the other 5% includes such minor details as taking off and landing. It might be a while before a computer can handle the course corrections and judgements on a landing flawlessly. I think the pay is as much a reflection of responsibility as skill - someone who chooses to take responsibility for delivering 400 people across the ocean safely and take every detail seriously should get more than the average salary even if they spend 7 hours chatting with the copilot.

For some of the others it's just the risk of the game - when you choose a CEO or pro athlete there's some level of risk, but you have to pay to play if you want the best people. If they don't work out you just have to move on and find the next one to try.

I can agree with mutual fund managers though :)

[beastlike]

I'm shocked that all the college graduates making 100k plus for the NY Wall Street didn't make the list... :)

[oimcherry]

I'd love to go shuffle paper for $136k a year. Think I'll be calling the Pacific Maritime Assn. to see if they need any help with that. :-)

Great article!

[Brion]

I wish unions and union-members would just look at their bloated payrolls every time they complain about jobs being moved offshore. Supply and Demand should set market rates - and if they did I'm sure there'd be a *lot* of people who'd do the jobs of longshoremen for 1/4 to 1/2 the salaries listed above. Wow...

[Silicon Prairie]

Brion, I've seen other blogs mentioning that the decline of a lot of unions is probably due to overseas competition reducing profit margins, which means there's less money to fight over and smaller rewards for controlling the agreements. There's some areas that are harder to compete with but I don't doubt that competition will continue to put pressure on overinflated salaries.

Personally, I'm all for any arrangement where people can get what they want by putting in the effort and not by overpowering the other side or government intervention...

[Rick]

Regarding "Silicon Prairie"'s comment about the airlines, perhaps it's true that a pilot is responsible for delivering 400 people safely. But what about a bus driver? The average bus driver in a large city probably transports at least that number of people in a day, all for a mere $12/hr (at least that's why my local city pays). And I doubt that flying a plane is really that much mroe dangerous than driving a bus. With either job, if you mess up, everyone under your transport could be killed.

You say the remaining 5% of the job includes landing and takeoffs. Is it really worth $200K a year for 30 minutes of real work in a day, and the remainign portion is automated?

I think a much fairer wage would be $100K/year for a pilot.

[SteveK]

Pretty much anyone with a drivers license (i.e. 95% of those over 16) can theoretically hop onto any city bus and drive it from point A to point B. It has a steering wheel, gas, brake, and a few other simple buttons and knobs that we all know about.

Can the same population just jump into a 757 and get to point A to point B? Don't think so.

Even with computers, piloting an airplane requires lots of skill.
Saying that "a computer does all the flying, so pilots should get paid lower" is ludicrous!

[birang467]

I don't think getting paid 70-100k/year for standing outside 8 hours a day in all kinds of weather, dealing with people who don't like to wait in line while repeatedly lifting 30-70 lbs is being overpaid.

In fact, they should probably get more, since it sounds like they're earning around $15/hour and have to rely on tips to make the job worthwhile. And I have no idea if they get benefits.

[AK]

Add pharmacists to this list. Yeah, I know I'll probably get a lot of flack from this comment but I feel it's true. Twenty-five year old PharmD's, fresh out of school, are making up to $60/hour plus TRIPLE time for working major holidays (such as Christmas). I have a coworker who's son graduated as a pharmacist in June, 2007 and began working for CVS at $55/hour!!! Not to mention his son received a $30,000 sign-on incentive!!! It's ridiculous how much money they make (at least for retail pharmacists).

I'm a bit jealous, because my coworker's son was only in school for five calendar years to earn his PharmD (he's a bit of an overacheiver)- but still- my jealously aside it is a ridiculous amount of money for a profession that can easily be automated.

Oh, I forgot to mention that CVS retail pharmacists that work the overnight shift can earn 20% more!!

Maybe I'll go back to school to earn a PharmD and ride the gravy train.

[Foobarista]

I'll admit that when I'm flying, I'm nervous enough without wondering if the airline is skimping on the pilot's pay. Sure, 99% of the time, the pilot isn't doing much, but that 1% of the time is why they make the big bux.

[To AK]

To AK:

The reason pharmacists make what they do is because there is a LACK OF SUPPLY. If tons of students were going into pharmacy the pay would obviously drop. I went to a school that had a big pharmacy program (Rutgers). What you typically saw was the people who went into pharmacy were people who wanted to go into medicine but not put in the work or want to deal with the competition of going to med school or dental school (which was typically the next choice for people who couldn't get into med school). Also. people think that pharmacists just dispense medicine but that is extremely naive and an uneducated assertion. I know a number of pharmacists (my family and friend circle is full of them) and they really have to know and understand every single drug and all its interactions with other medicines, etc. Pharmacists are correcting erroneous prescriptions written by doctors all the time. The fact that the person who is responsibile for giving you the right medicine and making sure it is safe for you given your profile and other medicines you take is making a fairly typical middle to upper-middle class salary shouldn't upset anyone. $60/hour works out to $120,000 per year - big whoops. Not exactly raking in the dough.

[aaktx]

I am suprised that physicians were not on the list. Despite erroding compensation, rising overhead, and increased paperwork, this field is littered with dead-weights who refer you to specialists. Most docs still pull in over 200k, and I think their salaries should be like schoolteachers and postal workers. Most of them are subsidized by the government and contribute siginificantly to rising health care costs( in addtion to big pharma and hospitals). We should have a national health service and make these folks salaried employees. There are plenty of Phds who have studied equally as hard and fail to make anywhere the income. I trust policemen and firemen with my lives. I know that doctors serve an important role in society equal to those civil servants and should be compensated comparably.

[calgirlfinance]

"Office clerks who log shipping records into computers will earn $136,000."

What the . . . . ? I must be in the wrong position! Thanks for bringing this article to my attention.

beastlike - I don't think the college grads pulling in over $100K/year on Wall Street are overpaid due to all the hours they work. It ends up being around $10/hour.

[xshanex]

the real estate one absolutely kills me. Talk about a low barrier to entry for those positions. A couple week class and they're selling houses and getting stupid rich on putting people into loans they can't afford. A few years ago they and mortgage brokers were raking in insane amounts of cash for minimal effort and hustling that could be likened to used car salesman. I think their days are just about done with the amount of homes for sale and the increased ability of people to have what was once proprietary information. I am definitely not going to pay someone 3% of the cost of my home to show me any number of homes that I can find on my own. When I buy it will be a flat rate or through another service. Selling is another matter altogether and in this market they're starting to actually work for their money. Additionally the real estate industry also has powerful lobbying and marketing that allows disinformation to be spread. David Lereah is a prime example of that when he served as the chief economics person for the National Association of Realtors putting out completely false predictions and information for years.

many of the others are based on high education costs in time and money(college and pilot training costs big bucks), connections(those union jobs aren't exactly posted on careerbuilder), old style bad business ideas that live on, and the rest are based on being the top .01% of their very specialized field.

BTW the photographer one seems very high for weddings. Also another low barrier to entry position which requires minimal specialized equipment and highly questionable "training" or "expertise."

[AK]

Yeah, I knew I'd get dinged on the pharmacist comment I made.

"I know a number of pharmacists . . . and they really have to know and understand every single drug and all its interactions with other medicines, etc. Pharmacists are correcting erroneous prescriptions written by doctors all the time . . . [and] giving you the right medicine and making sure it is safe for you given your profile."

Pharmacists provide a valuable service, please don't get me wrong. I just think the compensation far, far outweighs the job. But, as the above commenter suggested, it is all about supply and demand. Supply for retail pharmacists is very high and demand is very low.

[AK]

Ooops. Didn't proof.

Should read "Demand for retail pharmacists is very high and supply is very low."

Apologies to FMF and readers.