Start Next Now: How to Get the Life You've Always Wanted by Bob Pritchett

Author:Bob Pritchett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Life skills., Success in business.
Publisher: Kirkdale Press
Published: 2015-10-19T22:00:00+00:00

Understand Supply and Demand

You need to own the responsibility for the price of your labor and get a good understanding of the forces of supply and demand at play in your market.

What a job pays is not a statement about the inherent value of the people performing the job or the goodness of the employer or the priorities of a society. What a job pays is a piece of information about the supply of people who can do the job and the demand for that job to be done. For example:

Air Traffic Controller: $108,000 / year. This is a job that pays more than double the average salary. It’s stressful, difficult, and requires specialized skills and personality characteristics. Not everyone has the training or can handle the complexity. The supply of people who can do the job is low.

Hand Laborers and Material Mover: $22,000 / year. Almost anyone can do hand labor and move stuff; no specialized education or skills are required. Many people are willing to do it to get a paycheck. The supply of people who can do the job is high, and consequently it pays half the average wage.

Hazardous Materials Removal: $37,000 / year. You don’t need a lot more skills or education to get into this job, and what training is needed is available on the job. But fewer people want to move hazardous materials than nonhazardous materials, and so it pays significantly more.

Fine Art Landscape Painter: $0 / year. It’s difficult to become a great fine art landscape painter. It can take years of study and practice to develop your eye, your technique, and the fine motor skills. Few people are qualified, and few people enter the field. The supply is very limited. However the demand is extremely limited too; who’s hiring fine art landscape painters? The aristocracy isn’t what it used to be, and so the wages for a full-time position in this field are approximately zero.

Teacher: not-enough / year. You don’t have to wait long in America to hear a politician or activist wringing their hands over teacher salaries. “What does it say about our society that teachers are paid less than [some low status job]?” ask lots of people on TV. It says that our society has a near-endless supply of young people who would like to be teachers and who are willing to teach for low pay. Maybe they like inspiring kids, maybe they like being in charge of a room, or maybe they just loved being in school. The reason doesn’t matter; the supply of potential teachers is enormous, and the demand is relatively fixed by population and demographics.

This is not a value judgment about teaching versus trash collection or sewage plant maintenance or custodial work. It’s a reflection of supply and demand in the labor market. (Though I’d put the value to society of the latter positions right up there with teaching: Education leads to a better life, and good public health lets you live to enjoy it.)

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