
Which professions are paid too much given their value to society? - BenjaminTodd
https://80000hours.org/2017/06/which-jobs
======
wyldfire
This thread seems to have few comments on the article and several on the
title. It's not an HN survey, it's an article regarding a research paper [1].

IMO -- this kind of data could/should benefit teachers and researchers who
want to argue that their benefit to society isn't reflected in the existing
high school/undergrad/graduate metrics. Instead of paying teachers/researchers
the wage that reflects an equilibrium between available supply and job demand,
maybe we could offer something that offsets their (positive) externality. I
suppose it only makes sense for public schools since private entities aren't
focused on things like this. But there's a lot of debate over public school
funding and this seems like a great input to that debate.

[1]
[http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1324424](http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1324424)

~~~
raleighm
Perhaps, but teachers not capturing enough of the _economic value_ of their
teaching shouldn't be the core of an argument to pay teachers more.

This is an impoverished view of the value of education (from the paper you
linked): "We calculate the social product of teaching as the impact of an
additional year of schooling on aggregate earnings of all workers in the
economy. The spillover from teaching is then this social product less the
annual earnings of all teachers."

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thedevil
Note that GDP is only a proxy for value to society. It's based on what's
measurable, not on what's valuable.

Prisons and wars increase GDP but make us worse off. Likewise, many free apps
(e.g. Google Maps) significantly improve our lives but don't significantly
impact GDP.

This matters because the approach used to measure externalities may undervalue
software engineers and teachers and overvalue defense contractors and
lobbyists.

Edit: This is really important for software. Software has low marginal cost so
the market price (and therefore measured GDP) trends towards 0 but the (mostly
unmeasured) consumer surplus is huge.

Another Edit: Note that externalities for defense contractors and lobbyists
actually weren't measured here and probably couldn't be reliably measured with
this technique due to international differences, but they made great examples
for my explanation.

------
istorical
Something I've always questioned is why certain jobs in the United States are
expected to be tipped but others aren't:

Why does a bartender at a bar that isn't very busy who simply pours me a draft
beer out of a tap deserve a dollar when a guy making burritos at Chipotle
during the lunch rush who can't take a break for 3 hours straight doesn't get
any tips? I've had bartenders hand me a can of beer for 2 dollars, I come back
20 minutes later and ask for another and they say "ok but I'm going to charge
you extra because you didn't tip".

If I ever did that when I worked at any fast food job I've ever had I would
have been fired.

Either have a tipping culture or don't, but don't have social punishments for
skipping tipping on bartenders or restaurant waiters but then don't tip me
EVER when I work a different minimum wage job that can be just as hectic.

Many bartenders and waiters take the approach of tipping constantly at other
low paying service jobs, which is very admirable.

But others will berate you if you mention that you don't tip for every drink
at a bar while they themselves see no hypocrisy or problem that they aren't
tipping low paid workers in other industries.

Before someone mentions that some of those tipping jobs can have pay that's
less than minimum wage - remember that if tips don't make up the difference
then the employer is legally required to pay the minimum wage for that shift.

~~~
valbaca
> employer is legally required to pay the minimum wage for that shift.

Right because if you're getting paid $2/hr + tips and make less than min wage
because you didn't get tipped, you sure have the means to file a lawsuit.

If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to eat out.

~~~
loco5niner
> If you can't afford to tip, you can't afford to eat out.

Sure, if you only go to places where it is proper to tip, but there are plenty
of places to eat out where NOT tipping is appropriate.

I believe that tipping should be based on the level of service provided, not
on the financial status/need of either the provider or the consumer. If I'm
getting takeout, I rarely tip more than a dollar. If it's a place where I bus
my own table and pickup my food at the counter, I don't tip at all. On
numerous occasions where I felt I got wonderful service, I've tipped $20 on a
10 dollar meal. Generally, I'll tip 15% - 20% based on service level.

------
sorokod
An easy example for the opposite question of "Which professions are paid too
little given their value to society? ".

Hospital nurses in UK, they perform life saving work and paid rubbish money.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Before or after overtime? My understanding is that here in Canada most nurses
doing shift work make 6 figures. Hospitals are understaffed so there's lots of
overtime available, and of course nursing is a 24/7 job. The night shift
premium and the overtime premium multiply so picking up a single extra night
shift can gross $1000.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Nurses in the U.K. don't get overtime. They can join bank nursing which is
like a separate pool of nurses to cover these gaps. Pay is a bit higher but
not by much.

NHS pay rates are here: [https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/about/careers-
nhs/nhs-pay-a...](https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/about/careers-nhs/nhs-pay-
and-benefits/agenda-change-pay-rates)

Registered nurses are on band 5 and start at the bottom (22k GBP). They move
up a point every year.

No band 5 nurses in the UK make six figures.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Also to add to this:

\- nurses pay around 500 gbp per year for their nursing pin (registration) and
union membership, which is required for insurance purposes

\- nhs pensions take out a further 7%

------
whitefish
Real estate agents (in the USA at least)

~~~
treehau5
As someone who just recently sold FSBO, this rings true to me. Real Estate
agents provide an entirely 100% superfluous service especially in relation to
the absurd amount of commission they charge. The important aspects of selling
a home are done by inspectors, appraisers, and lawyers. The Real Estate agents
are basically leeching middlemen that keep as many people out as possible to
keep their perceived monopoly, which sadly most of us are forced to use out of
our own will because despite it being explicitly laid out as unethical in
their guidelines, real estate agents will only work with other agents and skip
over homes that are FSBO. The only other equivalent I have found is financial
advisors.

* a little caveat: I am little bit bitter about the process and the "locking out" I faced. One real estate agent even told me this up front, which I was like "Dude you know I could report you for saying this and you could lose your license right?" But alas I just shook my head and carried on.

~~~
jstanley
> real estate agents will only work with other agents and skip over homes that
> are FSBO

Is it typical in the US for a buyer to have an estate agent too? If so, why?
If not, I don't understand what this means.

Where I'm from, typically only the seller would have an estate agent.

~~~
arielweisberg
I just purchased a home. Basically as a buyer the buyer's agent is paid out of
the sellers end of the sale. The fee paid to the sellers agent really, but the
seller pays in the end.

So... I can not have a buyer's agent and pay for it anyways. Or I can have an
agent. The only advantage of having an agent is that getting showings is a
little easier and you spend less time on the phone.

Houses have showings on Saturday/Sunday and offers are in on Monday in hot
markets. There is no time to negotiate reducing the price in exchange for not
using a buyers agent. If you have a complicated offer it might not get
selected. People are waving inspection and financing contingencies in some
markets.

I think it more or less comes down to buyers and sellers being kind of stupid.
Heck... just about everyone I dealt with throughout the process was kind of
stupid. The lender (at least the one I finally ended up with) and home
inspector were both competent. Everyone else demonstrated they had no idea how
to do their job.

I walked into so many houses with rat poop and dead insects everywhere. Houses
were priced and bid on with only a weak correlation between the location and
quality of the house and what people offered. It's obvious neither the buyers
or the sellers knew whether what they were looking at was any good and major
deficiencies were not being priced in. A house could be right next to an
active commuter rail (not a stop, just the track) and it wouldn't be reflected
in the price!

------
Silhouette
Managers, as a group.

A good manager on the right project can make a huge contribution to that
project's success. Ditto a good senior leader running a large organisation. I
have no problem with these people being compensated accordingly.

However, many people in management positions aren't particularly good at it,
yet still command compensation as if they were.

In far too many cases, a manager is even making their organisation _less_
effective overall than if they just left and let the people doing the work
figure something out between them, yet still commanding that high
compensation.

------
michaelt
It would be interesting to see these results cross-checked, by applying the
methods from one job to another - for example by applying the methods used for
law and engineering (Cross-country regression of GDP on <job> per capita) to
the other fields listed.

Personally I find the results presented surprising - especially the claim of
research being worth 25% of GDP, which seems very high to me.

~~~
thrden
I agree, they said that they were basing the externality on how much people
would theoretically pay for longevity. That number is very likely to be
inflated, as people are likely "willing to pay" more than they may be actually
able to pay. Further not all research is medical longevity enhancement
research. Overall it seems very sloppy.

------
hkmurakami
BadicLly any profession with high levels of credential based regulation and
supply constraining that reduces competition.

Dentistry is a great example that forbids even simple procedures to be done by
non certified practitioners.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Dentistry in other non-USA countries is much less regulated than medicine
(which is pretty much socialized). So in Israel, if you want to make money,
you become a dentist rather than a doctor.

------
xwvvvvwx
Obviously bankers

------
Overtonwindow
I think we can find groups of people in every profession that are paid too
much given their value to society. I wouldn't say one profession over the
other is overpaid. Someone is paying for that profession. I think there's a
lot of tenured college professors who are grossly overpaid for the little
value they bring to teaching, but as a whole, professors do bring value to
society. It's a tough question to answer.

------
blakesterz
The title of that post is "Which jobs do economists say create the largest
spillover benefits for society?" and is about a paper "Taxation and the
Allocation of Talent"

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1324424](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1324424)

------
lawn
Lobbyists.

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joezydeco
High speed trading quants?

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matthewmcg
Based on the table with the article, asset managers seem to have the largest
_negative_ externality.

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marvel_boy
Head hunters.

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mdekkers
politicians

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pavlakoos
Polititians

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ableton
The main reason for this is government regulation artificially limiting
supply. For example, being a lawyer isn't that hard. You could intern with a
lawyer and read books on law yourself and get just as good an education.
That's what our founding fathers did. However the lawyers want as few people
as possible to enter their profession so they make incredibly stupid
requirements for becoming a lawyer, such as having to have an undergrad
degree.(which can be for literally anything) Policies like this are horrible
because they drive up the cost of both lawyers and school. It also lowers the
quality of education because educators are now in a position of unfair power
over prospective lawyers since they can say who can and can't practice law.

