Everyone Works Hard for What They Have, so Why aren’t Jobs Paid Equally?

We all work to build ‘good lives’ for ourselves

I’ve worked hard all my life to have the things that I have now, so I feel like I deserve to have them. A house that is paid off. A car that is paid off. A new iPhone. A nice vacation.

My work, and my partner’s work, paid for all of them.

I put myself through college, sometimes working as many as three jobs at once, all the while taking care of a family. I went without sleep, without vacations, I worked myself into the ground for the entire decade of my 20’s. And I built something out of it.

I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and made something out of my life.

So, should I feel guilty for being able to sit back and enjoy it now?

Most people would say not.

I’m self-supporting. I’m not sponging off of the government. I don’t take any kid of public assistance. I’m doing my share and earning my keep.

But, there are other people who have worked just as hard as I have and ended up with less to show for it. Most people would say that is their fault, and blame their individual life choices.

We think we deserve nice things because we work for them.

It’s a fallacy of our capitalistic way of thinking. We train for years for a well-paid job, and then we sit back and rest on our laurels. We don’t think about the people who aren’t doing as well as we are. We think, if we could work for a life like this, then they could too. People’s achievement is only limited by the amount of effort that they put in.

The problem with that is, not all work has equal value. Not everyone is paid the same amount for the same amount of work. I have the luxury of sitting behind a computer all day to earn my keep, and other people are working ‘harder’ in fields and factories.

I got a good education, so I could get a good job with good benefits. I had a good healthcare plan. I got to take time off of work when my kids were sick, or I wanted to take a trip. Not everyone gets to do that.

We live in a system that values individual effort. We clock in at the beginning of the day and clock out at the end. We get paid for hours worked. Our time has a certain value set to it. And yet, not everyone’s time is found to have the same value. Not all wages are equal.

How do we decide which work is more valuable? How do we decide how people get paid?

Some would argue that it is the law of supply and demand at work. If you have skills that in small supply and high demand, then you will make more money. You have more choice and more freedom if you find a career that is profitable.

So, people go to school and train for jobs that will make them the most money.

Are these the jobs that really ‘should’ be paid the most, though? We have chronically low rates of people becoming teachers and chronically low pay for them. And yet, our entire system is based around people getting an education to get the most lucrative jobs.

What are the most important jobs?

You would think, that the jobs that provide the most basic needs of humanity would be the most well paid. If this was the case, it would be farmers raking in the big bucks, because everyone needs to eat.

According to Kansas Farm Food Connection,

On average, farmers and ranchers receive 15 cents of every dollar spent on food. The rest of that money (85 cents if you’re doing the math) goes to other areas of food retail like production and processing, marketing, and transportation and distribution.

Since there is so much that goes into getting food into our supermarkets, only a fraction of the money is actually going to the people growing our food. And that is in an uneven split between farm managers and owners, and the average farm worker.

Many farm workers are migrants, and go from region to region harvesting and planting different crops with the seasons.

According to the National Farm Worker Ministry,

Farm worker earnings are difficult to generalize. Many factors play into how much a farm worker is paid. The average farm worker family earns a total of $25,000 to $29,999 per year, which includes both farm labor and any other source of income

In some cases, depending how large of a family the farm worker has, this could put them at or below the poverty line.

However, our society as a whole is dependent on this work, since everyone needs to eat. You would think we would place a little more value on the people providing our food. It constitutes our basic survival.

In general, it is CEO’s, managers and owners of big companies that are making the most money. They are managing the people who are doing the ‘work on the ground’ and reaping more of the benefits of the work that is being done. Yet, without those workers, there would be no one to manage.

True, many people do have to work their way up to management positions throughout their careers. At least this was historically the case. They too, pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. Or, they invented a new product and made it sell. We do reward creativity and ingenuity.

However again, it still goes back to education. People couldn’t go into tech or engineering if they hadn’t gotten degrees and training to do so. People can innovate, but they need to know the basic building blocks in order to do so.

You need to know math, science, reading, and so much more to be able to invent something new. You need the foundation and the building blocks.

So yes, you are earning based off of your own hard work and creativity. But you are standing on the shoulders of others who came before in order to do so.

We all like stuff

We all like to have nice things, and a comfortable lifestyle. We like to have more good things to add to our lives. We like entertainment and comfort. And we are willing to pay for it.

In the name of convenience and entertainment we have innovated as well as a human species. We have created the telephone, television, the internet, smartphones, automobiles, airplanes and so much more.

All of these achievements have warranted some form of financial compensation. Just look at how much money actors and musicians can make.

We work hard for what we have, so we think we deserve our lives of comfort and leisure. Maybe we do. Maybe we have earned it.

Is capitalism fair?

But what about other people, working equally hard (or harder in some cases!) who have less than we do?

We accuse them of being lazy, wasting their money, or not trying hard enough to achieve something with their lives. We blame the poor for being poor, so that we don’t have to worry about helping them. If they truly deserve their lot in life, then they are getting exactly what they have worked for.

Our reliance on a capitalist model of society makes us all believe that people deserve their place. But do they? Do they really?

If we were going to lift everyone up out of poverty, we would all have to do with a little bit less. Since we worked so hard for what we have, we are loathe to give it up. But our system needs to equalize itself somehow, or it is bound to fail.

Would we be willing to do with a little bit less to be able to afford a decent life for everyone?

For more exclusive content, sign up for my newsletter on Substack.