I would imagine teachers and librarians used to earn more coin relative to the rest of society than they do today. What are some dramatic examples of professions that experienced sudden upturns or downturns? Did CEOs always earn so much?
Well, naval officers used to get prize money from capturing vessels and could make a fortune in a good afternoon. Probably many a captain nowadays wistfully eyes supertankers and container ships as they sail by.
The most prominent “upturn” ones I can think of is being a professional athlete, for example baseball, football, and basketball players, and I suppose also things like golf and tennis.
These used to be things you could make a living at, or be comfortably well-off if you were a superstar. Now even baseball players of average ability make millions.
I think you may be off base on librarians. I was part of a discussion about the history of librarianship a few months ago, and apparently the profession was specifically developed with an eye to taking advantage of the low labor cost of women who, from a social perspective, needed to work in a respectable profession but didn’t need to earn much money, getting their primary support from parents or husbands. Maybe one of our librarians will be by with more.
In terms of net earnings, I think some types of physicians are in this category. For example, you hear about OB/Gyns leaving the field because malpractice premiums eat them alive. While not poorly paid now, the profession has perhaps “jumped the shark.”
The ability to maintain a website or set up a database no longer means you are a computer professional, but perhaps an administrative assistant or intern. (Obviously, not for all databases or websites.)
I suspect any type of Spanish translation in the US is going down the pay scale, due to a high supply of bilingual folks. Russian translation is probably down, too, now that the good spy-related gigs would go to Arabic translators.
Single parent has gone down to $0. At one time our welfare system treated women raising children as deserving of some guaranteed amount of support. Clinton’s welfare reform represented a serious philosophical shift on that. [NOT looking for a debate on the merits here…]
Interesting question.
Grocery stores were largely union workers until the 80’s. Workers currently earn about a third of what they earned when most were a union store. That’s not accounting for inflation either. Exceptions exist.
As I recall, secretaries used to be much less common, high status, better paid, and most or all male. As they became more common, the position became a low-paid, low status nearly all-female one.
Highly skilled soldiers.
I would guess artisans (who used to be paid like crap, and now get a pretty penny)…how do you think in the “old days” builders were able to afford to put all sorts of fancy sculptures on buildings?
Also plasterers, as it’s a dying art.
Sewage treatment plant operators used to be on the lower end of the pay scale. As it’s gotten more complicated, and gotten associated with ‘green’, the pay has gone up.
My Dad used to say that he got into shit before it was trendy.
Also before they stopped using the word sewage. It’s either Wastewater Treatment or Water Reclamation, now. And don’t ask about sewage sludge. No such thing as sewage sludge exists, now. (Pet peeve. Sorry.)
Fleet Street newspaper printers used to be insanely highly paid, right up until the big shake-up of the 1980s. Typesetters too, though that job has pretty much vanished. The unions specified insanely detailed piece-rate pay scales, and I’ve read (no cite) that the hot metal guys were earning more than the vast majority of the editorial staff.
Nowadays, of course, most of the jobs have vanished and those that are left are far from well paid.
Actors and Singers used to generally be considered low class professions. An actor might gain some fame and repute, but pre-movie era, they were never the “royalty” they present themselves as today. Ah, the benefits of creating your own propoganda!
Fifty years ago, one could make a decent living as a gas pump attendant: gas your car, check your oil, clean your windows. Now we get to do it ourselves.
Maybe it is just where I live, but I never understood when I see on TV that teachers are low-paid. Teachers in my area with like 10 years are upwards of $50,000 a year. I can tell you that is much more than the average in my area. And it gets talked about quite a bit when they want to raise school taxes.
A professional with ten years experience making only $50k? I’m sorry, that’s not good money.
It’s never been exactly easy making money playing live music, but it used to be at least possible before the onslaught of live event deejays.
Interestingly enough, the cost of hiring a live band went up while the number of gigs went way down.
Professional?
In elementary school you’re a babysitter with an agenda. Give me a break.
I don’t know where The Man In Black is from, but the median income in Texas is around $35,000. So $50,000 would be well above average. I’d call that good money.
I was going to say “scribe” but you beat me to it.
Only if the median worker has ten years experience.
Medical doctors in the United States. Yes, many of them still live well but it’s not like it used to be. It used to be that an MD degree was a license to make money, Rolls Royce type money. Now you come out of medical school with a mountain of debt, work ungodly hours, can’t give proper time and care to the patients and have to fight with the insurance companies to make a living. A resident surgeon in New York City gets a salary of $44,000 a year which is hardly enough to pay the rent in NYC not to mention paying off the loans.
Is there another profession that requires the skill and education of a medical doctor that has so little financial reward?