# Is there any group in America that is overpaid? Underpaid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 6, 2004, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868 "2004-07-06T23:29:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/61 "2004-07-09T21:56:05Z")
> [@blowero](#): > > Or for that matter, education, or even number of hours worked per week. There is no indication that the data is normalized at all. It would seem to be a pretty worthless statistical analysis. My gut feeling is that we can trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics to take care of that sort of thing even if the blurb on [InfoPlease.com](http://InfoPlease.com) didn’t reproduce the exact data/methodology. Source data may take some more digging. I found all kinds of stuff from earlier years(like **pervert’s** cite) but current first-tier source material was harder to find. I’ve only had a few minutes today to hit the SDMB and I don’t see that improving in the near future(baby due in three weeks, tons of stuff to take care of in the office and home before that time). Still I’ll re-visit this thread when I get a chance as well as get into some more analysis of risk/reward scenarios in another thread **pervert** and I were both in. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/62 "2004-07-09T21:56:13Z")
> [@Kel Varnsen - Latex Division](#): > > Is there any group in America that is truly overpaid? It is my understanding that if any group was truly overpaid that this would create an inefficiant system that would either correct itself or the system would die. And as long as the system remains efficiant there is no way for a group to consistently be overpaid. Both sides will continue to feel they are made better by their deal. There would be specific example of groups/individuals being overpaid at times but this would be corrected. > > By the same token is anybody really underpaid? Movie stars and professional atheletes are overpaid grossly. Eventually, their artificial pricing will come down around their heads. As a class, females tend to be underpaid, but much less than they used to be. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/63 "2004-07-09T22:05:17Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > (baby due in three weeks, tons of stuff to take care of in the office and home before that time). CONGRATULATIONS! > [@](#): > > Enjoy, > Steven Indeed! Enjoy away! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/64 "2004-07-09T22:33:58Z")
After all that on teachers, consider this: librarianship, another female profession, and one that (unlike teaching) _requires_ a masters’ degree, pays on average (according to an ALA committee for pay raises) 12% less than teaching. Think about that. Oh, and we work 40 hour weeks and don’t get the summer off. We have a bad habit of working for free or for little because we think it’s important, though. Nasty thing, that altruism. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/65 "2004-07-10T00:21:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > CEOs have a job very similar to movies stars. They are the face of the company. Their job is to not only direct the company but assure investors of the strength of their investment. A good CEO has more influence and produces more of a benefit to the economy than any actor. I have to disagree with this statement. I think the primary task of a CEO (and the rest of the exec team) is to cultivate, build, and maintain business relationships - whether those relationships are with customers, partners, vendors, aquistion targets, or aquistion sources. In fact, a fundamental asset that an exec has is the contacts and relationships he adds to the company. For example, when a company hires an executive VP of Latin American sales, the candidate needs to have tons of contacts with companies in South and Central America. True, a CEO does have to persuade analysts and the market in general that the company is on the right track, but I don’t think this is his primary task. And finally, these statements are IMO, but I think that is fair since most of the responses have been IMO. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/66 "2004-07-10T02:47:42Z")
Forgive my intrusion, **CaveMike** but it seems to me you listed several ways in which a CEO is the face of his company. I don’t think that **msmith537** meant that they only appear on TV. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/67 "2004-07-10T04:25:53Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > Any employee that is paid free from outside intervention in the free market is paid exactly what the market will bear. Neither under nor over. But in the real world, there’s hardly any such thing as a “free market” that’s “free from outside intervention”. (As others have pointed out, for example, having CEO compensation determined by a board of directors picked by the CEO in question is hardly an instance of free-market price-setting.) Lots of salary markets, not only government “monopolies”, are distorted by similar market failures. Many libertarians and other market advocates don’t realize it, but almost all real-world markets are riddled with distortions and inefficiencies; they can’t be counted on to operate in accordance with simplistic supply-and-demand models. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/68 "2004-07-10T04:32:36Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But in the real world, there’s hardly any such thing as a “free market” that’s “free from outside intervention”. (As others have pointed out, for example, having CEO compensation determined by a board of directors picked by the CEO in question is hardly an instance of free-market price-setting.) Ok, this has gone on long enough. This allegation is not an example of a market failure. If the CEO selects a board, it is because he controls a majority of the stock in that corporation. That is, the owners select the Board and the CEO. If the CEO happens to be a majority stockholder, it changes nothing about the nature or effectiveness of the free market. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of corporations are, in fact, controlled by the owners of that corporation. There may be problems with our current crop of corporate CEOs, but the idea that there is an insestuous relationship between CEOs and Boards of directors, and that this represents a failing of capitalism is not credible. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/69 "2004-07-10T07:24:29Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > If the CEO selects a board, it is because he controls a majority of the stock in that corporation. That is, the owners select the Board and the CEO. If the CEO happens to be a majority stockholder, it changes nothing about the nature or effectiveness of the free market. I don’t see how the free market, in the case of setting executive salary, can fail to be distorted by conflicts of interest such as members of executive compensation committees being influenced by their relationship to the CEOs whose salary they’re setting. As [this article](http://www.afrboss.com.au/magarticle.asp?doc_id=16339&listed_months=28) notes: > [@](#): > > But most disturbing is an emerging body of academic work that supports what many have suspected: the tenuous connection between executives, their package and performance and the massive potential conflicts of interest with boards. > > In a recent paper for the American National Bureau of Economic Research, Lucian Bebchuk, Jesse Fried and David Walker argue the conventional view of attempting to measure packages against shareholder returns has obscured what is actually taking place: classic rent seeking. > > “Under the optimal contracting view of executive compensation, which has dominated academic research on the subject, pay arrangements are set by a board of directors that aims to maximise shareholder value by designing an optimal principal-agent contract,” say the authors. “Under the alternative rent extraction view that we examine, the board does not operate at arm’s length; rather, executives have power to influence their own compensation, and they use their power to extract rents. As a result, executives are paid more than is optimal for shareholders and, to camouflage the extraction of rents, executive compensation might be structured sub-optimally.” > > Corporate governance scrutineer Dr Shann Turnbull, a fellow of the International Institute for Corporate Governance and Accountability at George Washington University is more blunt: “It’s an outrageous conflict where boards look after CEOs because CEOs have a lot of power with boards.” […] > > In their paper, Bebchuk, Fried and Walker argue the board and executive structures create the environment for rent extraction. “Indeed, rent extraction, and the desire to camouflage it, can better explain many puzzling features of compensation patterns and practices,” they say. “Whatever the appearances, executive compensation generally is not the product of arm’s length bargaining but is the result of a process that executives can substantially influence.” Now, how is that **not** an example of distorting the market in executive compensation? > [@pervert](#): > > There may be problems with our current crop of corporate CEOs, Hmm, the notorious “few bad apples” theory? > [@pervert](#): > > but the idea that there is an insestuous relationship between CEOs and Boards of directors, and that this represents a failing of capitalism is not credible. Cite? Quite a few respected economists and business analysts seem to think otherwise, as the above link indicates. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/70 "2004-07-10T07:50:10Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > INow, how is that **not** an example of distorting the market in executive compensation? Because the actors and the actees are both investors in the company. Again, the CEO is the board’s choice. As is his compensation package. Meanwhile, the board is the choice of the shareholders. > [@](#): > > Hmm, the notorious “few bad apples” theory? No, that is not what I meant. There are structural problems with the corporate culture of the last couple decades. But they are cultural or fashioable aberations. Not systematic failures of capitalism. Specifically, they are failures of the ability of boards and shareholders to measure CEO productivity in ways which are always in line with shareholder interests. Also, they are failures of the system to adjust to the current culture of mobile CEOs. Not that the system cannot or will not adjust, just that it has not done so completely yet. There are similar problems in many other fields. > [@](#): > > Cite? Quite a few respected economists and business analysts seem to think otherwise, as the above link indicates. Actually I don’t think it does. > [@](#): > > Rather than turn back the clock, it is more likely boards – together with remuneration experts – will try to precisely match long and short-term rewards with proper measures. According to Cornish, that will mean increasing executive pay growth rates, more complex structures – using total shareholder returns rather than just share price, for example – more pay at risk, stronger and more visible links between outcomes and business performance, and more layers of incentives to other managers. That is, the CEO packages will have to become more sophisticated so that they can be tied more directly to shareholder interests. Hardly a repudiation of capitalism. Look. We may be talking at cross purposes. The fact that the market does not in each and every case allot exactly the correct amount of resources to a given operation, is not an example of a market failure. Indeed, even large numbers of such misallocation might not be an example of such a failure. A market failure is when the market forces by thier nature cannot allocate the appropriate resources to a given type of operation. The problem of polution may be such a case. Inequality in CEO compensation is not. Can you find a cite where a respected economist sugests that CEO compensation are market failures? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/71 "2004-07-10T08:09:57Z")
No, it’s not a market **failure** (and I see where I did mistakenly suggest that in my first post, sorry), but it definitely seems to be a **distortion** of the operation of the market. > [@pervert](#): > > Hardly a repudiation of capitalism. Who has suggested that these problems require, or are producing, any “repudiation of capitalism”? Not me. All I was doing was pointing out to **Bone** that his categorical, sketchy description of how free markets work to set salaries doesn’t apply very closely to markets in the real world, and using the example of rent-seeking CEOs to illustrate that. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/72 "2004-07-10T08:23:29Z")
> [@Mtgman](#): > > My gut feeling is that we can trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics to take care of that sort of thing even if the blurb on [InfoPlease.com](http://InfoPlease.com) didn’t reproduce the exact data/methodology. Well I’ll certainly entertain the idea _when_ someone comes up with proof of that methodology, but I wouldn’t assume _anything_. I’ve seen _far_ too many bogus studies with poor methodology to _ever_ just assume they did it right. I’m not saying the data _wasn’t_ normalized, but I certainly wouldn’t just assume it was. And actually, **pervert’s** link suggests that the wage gap _is_ attributable to these factors, although it’s written in a rather confusing way, so I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/73 "2004-07-10T10:42:05Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > No, it’s not a market **failure** (and I see where I did mistakenly suggest that in my first post, sorry), but it definitely seems to be a **distortion** of the operation of the market. We did it again in this thread. This time, I lumped you in with a few other posters and over reacted to the phrase market failure. My appologies. For the record, I agree that there is a problem with CEO compensation packages. I feel that the primary problem has more to do with short term thinking on the parts of CEOs, Boards of directors, coupled with a disassociation of shareholders from the running of many companies. What I mean by this is that many stockholders of public companies are speculators and do not partake in the day to day management of the company. Even at the level that they are allowed/supposed to. This problem, I think can also be explained partly by the some of the changes happening in the world economy. These sorts of pressures are laid out in the article you linked to. The problem of how to link compensation to shareholder value or even better Return on Investment is a very complicated problem. I am more familiar with it from the point of view of software engineering management. That is, how do you measure the amount of value created by a particular amount of work done by a particular programmer. It is a difficult problem. Given that lots of lines of code can be written which do not produce many functional features, we cannot reliably use the lines of code measure. Every measure so far devised has similar problems. They all fail to achieve the basic goal of linking worker effort to stockholder value. The methods devised to measure CEO performance have similar, although vastly more complicated, problems. Many of the solutions which have been tried have proved inadequate. As long as we don’t get overly excited and start legislating the sorts of compensation packages allowed, it will all work out in the wash. So to speak. I guess this is why I over react to the use of market failure in relation to this problem. It starts me panicing about the possibilities of government corrections. Again, my appologies if I misconstrued your comments. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/74 "2004-07-10T11:54:03Z")
I have my own list of overpaid and underpaid, but it is not important, but the concept behind it is. When the free market is interfered with overpayment or underpayment can result. Gov’t is a big interference in the free market system. Also high barriors to entry into a market can create over/underpay. But the free market system is not w/o it’s own problems. At the high end you have natural monolopies which can control pricing. Also you have the same things with cartels (illegal inside the US, but internationally OK), which act as a monolopy. At the low end you have trade guilds (unions) which also raise prices as it prevents others from entering that trade, creating a overpayment situation by limiting supply. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2004, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/75 "2004-07-10T12:57:43Z")
I would cite athletes in major league sports and actors in hit television shows as being overpaid. The reason is a widespread, basic dishonesty when it comes to contracts that greatly favors players. A player signs a long-term contract for a moderate wage, then goes on to have an outstanding year, let’s say a rookie basball player signs a five year contract, then hits .350. Does the player honor the contract? Of course not, the player “renegotiates” his contract, which is code for he refusing to play rather than do what you agreed to do. This routinely results in another long-term contract at a much higher salary. Let’s say the player then returns to mediocrity. Does his contract get renegotiated? Nope, he continues to collect an inflated salary based on one good year. This also has the effect of pushing overall salaries higher much faster than they otherwise would go. If Bob Smith is making 10 million a year and hitting .275, then Tim Jones can argue that his .275 average is worth 10 million a year based on complarison with Bob, despite Bob’s salary actually having resulted from his .300 season three years ago. In certain areas at the top of the entertainment industry, the same basic dishonesty by the talent causes a very few to get inordinately high salaries. An actor whose first year television show is a hit knows he doesn’t have to honor the five-year contract he signed, and he’ll be getting a big raise. But that salary won’t be coming down commenserately with the ratings if the show doesn’t keep its big ratings. ---
**Author:** ![alison\_ashley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e9c0ed/32.png) [@alison\_ashley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alison_ashley)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/76 "2004-07-11T14:38:30Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally Posted By RickJay_ > So then why do teachers earn what they do? If people with their skills can make big bucks elsewhere, why don’t they? > > I find it fascinating that people continue to claim that teachers are underpaid, and yet teachers throughout the United states and Canada are all paid pretty much the same amount, if you account for local differences in standard of living. Nobody has thought to jack up teaching salaries to $100,000 in order to attract better teachers or make up for the teacher shortage that should always be present if they’re underpaid. Thousands and thousands of school boards have all arrived at very close estimates of what a teacher is worth. Private schools don’t pay teachers any more than the public scholls, either, on the average. (Around here, actually, they pay less.) Are they all colluding? > > There’s an inherent contradiction in what you’re saying. If teachers really were worth more, they would be paid more, or else we’d have a massive shortage of teachers. I specifically asked for an objective standard by which they are underpaid. “Well, it’s an essential social service” is not an objective standard. What objective evidence shows teachers are underpaid? We don’t live in an economy. We live in a society. People aren’t rational. Markets aren’t perfect. You are assuming perfect market conditions, conditions that bear little similarity to the setup of the education system and that are far from desirable for an education system. Firstly - and while this probably does not have much of an impact on teacher salaries, it should still be pointed out - a true free market relies on uninihibited access. In real life, this is just not going to happen. If a high school in Milwaukee decides that it will attract the best teachers in the country by paying all teachers $300 000 a year, and hence become the best high school in the country, there is no way it is going to attract very many students from Florida, no matter how poor the schools in Florida may be. Indeed, most students wouldn’t cross to the other side of a city to go to school. Secondly, there is an important difference between a school and an ordinary business. Most of the time, a business will gain its income from its customers. A school, however, will quite often receive its income from people who aren’t customers, and many of its customers will be people who do not provide the school with income. This is because schools receive there revenue from taxes, rather than fees. Many of the people who pay taxes but aren’t customers of the school do not feel great pressure to improve the school they are funding, because the positive effects of universal education tend to be long term. People tend to focus on the immediate. Of course, the solution to this would be to privatize all education, subjecting it to market forces. This, I’m sure, would be a libertarian’s wet dream, but it isn’t practical. Most libertarian wet dreams aren’t. It would create the circumstance where a quality education was available only to those who could pay for it (though this already happens to some extent), which is hardly just, and would deny society the potential benefits of a universal education system. Remember, I’ve already explained that “a society benefits from an educated workforce; if there are substandard teachers, the next generation will have less highly educated people, which would negatively affect a nation’s economy.” So what happens? Those responsible for budgeting for the education system notice a shortage of teachers. They can either raise salaries to entice better teachers, or they can lower the qualifications required to become a teacher. (Or they can ignore the problem, which is what also happens a whole lot). Risking the wrath of the taxpayer, they naturally choose to lower the qualifications required. Since the customers are not necessarily providing the income, they can’t as easily signal their displeasure at the decreased quality of their education system. They could in libertarian-world, but I’ve explained why schools should not be subjected to user-pays market forces. Also, voting can be a clumsy way of influencing government action. If both parties in a two party system have the same policy, there is little option for a voter who wishes to effectively show they are displeased with that policy. Voters also vote on a broad range of issues, not just one. If someone is getting most things right, chances are they won’t get kicked out of office over something they aren’t. Of course, it goes without saying that democracy is better than any alternative so far. And on the subject of teacher-qualifications, teaching is a job that requires specialist knowledge. It is not impossible for teachers to retrain, but their qualifications do not enable them to have a wide range of jobs to choose from. Further, teachers may feel compelled to teach, in spite of a lower salary out of a sense of civic duty. Sure, we could say that is their choice. I don’t feel that it is right to punish selflessness. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/77 "2004-07-11T18:51:59Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > IMO professional athletes are grossly overpaid. But the system is allowed to function because Congress has given pro sports an exemption from anti-trust regulations. Apply those regulations, and you would see salaries drop like a rock, as more and more teams entered the system. I think you have this backwards. Without the antitrust laws in effect the players woul be free to sign with the team with the most money. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2004, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/78 "2004-07-11T19:53:57Z")
> [@alison ashley](#): > > We don’t live in an economy. We live in a society. People aren’t rational. Markets aren’t perfect. > > You are assuming perfect market conditions, conditions that bear little similarity to the setup of the education system and that are far from desirable for an education system. We do in fact live in an economy. Markets aren’t perfect and people aren’t rational but that does not mean that market forces do not exist and that people don’t make rational choices. The board of ed couldn’t pay $100 a week and expect to get teachers of any quality. ---
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/79 "2004-07-12T02:34:33Z")
> [@wmulax93](#): > > Objective evidence of teachers being underpaid in the United States: > > As soon as I finish my degree in Secondary Education: English, I could move to South Korea or Japan and make double or triple what I’ll make here in Michigan. As a former high school English teacher in Japan, the salary is all relative. People become teachers in Japan because of the benefits, not because of the salary which is very average. It depends very much on the cost of living - I’m not knowledgeable about Michigan, but I would wager that the cost of living is way cheaper than in Japan (judging by how much it cost me to fill up my car and eat out whilst in the states). Also, is there not an inverse relationship between CEOs salaries and profits from their organisation? ---
**Author:** ![alison\_ashley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e9c0ed/32.png) [@alison\_ashley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alison_ashley)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2004, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868/80 "2004-07-12T14:27:32Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted By msmith537_ > We do in fact live in an economy. Markets aren’t perfect and people aren’t rational but that does not mean that market forces do not exist and that people don’t make rational choices. The board of ed couldn’t pay $100 a week and expect to get teachers of any quality. Jeez. You know, I checked all through my post to try to remove any way it could be read in a black and white fashion. Well, congratulations. You found a glib intro that could be taken, if you had a really monchromatic view of the world, as denying market forces. Well thanks for your very insightful post **msmith537**. Although I am too stupid to understand that market forces do have an impact, you cleared it all up for me. Maybe next you could explain something really complicated, like, why we can’t just print more money to pay teachers a million dollars a year. I will clarify my sentence for you. We live in more of a society than an economy. Since much social interaction is also economic, saying that we live in a society means that other factors are important _as well as_ economic ones. Market forces do explain a lot. But they don’t explain everything. Sometimes other forces play a part. The rest of my post discusses those other forces. I notice that you didn’t comment on the rest of my post, but rather chose to nitpick one sentence. Well, never mind. You may not have actually responded to any of the points I raised, but you still made a really useful post. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-group-in-america-that-is-overpaid-underpaid/253868.md?page=5)