Robert Reich: Valuable workers to society are underpaid
What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society.聽
Does anyone seriously believe hedge-fund mogul Steven A. Cohen is worth the聽聽he raked in last year, despite being slapped with a $1.8 billion fine after his firm pleaded guilty to insider trading?
On the other hand, what鈥檚 the worth to society of social workers who put in long and difficult hours dealing with patients suffering from mental illness or substance abuse? Probably higher than their average pay of聽, which translates into less than $38,000 a year.
How much does society gain from personal-care aides who assist the elderly, convalescents, and persons with disabilities? Likely more than their average pay of聽, or just over $20,000 a year.
What鈥檚 the social worth of hospital orderlies who feed, bathe, dress, and move patients, and empty their ben pans? Surely higher than their median wage of聽聽or $24,190 a year.
Or of child care workers, who get聽, $21.490 a year? And preschool teachers, who earn聽, $27,570 a year?
Yet what would the rest of us do without these dedicated people?
Or consider kindergarten teachers, who make an average of聽.
Before you conclude that鈥檚 generous, consider that a good kindergarten teacher is worth his or her weight in gold, almost.
翱苍别听聽found that children with outstanding kindergarten teachers are more likely to go to college and less likely to become single parents than a random set of children similar to them in every way other than being assigned a superb teacher.
And what of writers, actors, painters, and poets? Only a tiny fraction ever become rich and famous. Most barely make enough to live on (many don鈥檛, and are forced to take paying jobs to pursue their art). But society is surely all the richer for their efforts.
At the other extreme are hedge-fund and private-equity managers, investment bankers, corporate lawyers, management consultants, high-frequency traders, and top Washington lobbyists.
They鈥檙e getting paid vast sums for their labors.聽Yet it seems doubtful that society is really that much better off because of what they do.
I don鈥檛 mean to sound unduly harsh, but I鈥檝e never heard of a hedge-fund manager whose jobs entails attending to basic human needs (unless you consider having more money as basic human need) or enriching our culture (except through the myriad novels, exposes, and movies made about greedy hedge-fund managers and investment bankers).
They don鈥檛 even build the economy.聽
Most financiers, corporate lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants are competing with other financiers, lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants in zero-sum games that take money out of one set of pockets and put it into another.
They鈥檙e paid gigantic amounts because winning these games can generate far bigger sums, while losing them can be extremely costly.
It鈥檚 said that by moving money to where it can make more money, these games make the economy more efficient.
In fact, the games amount to a mammoth waste of societal resources.
They demand ever more cunning innovations but they create no social value. High-frequency traders who win by a thousandth of a second can reap a fortune, but society as a whole is no better off.
Meanwhile, the games consume the energies of loads of talented people who might otherwise be making real contributions to society 鈥� if not by tending to human needs or enriching our culture then by curing diseases or devising new technological breakthroughs, or helping solve some of our most intractable social problems. 聽
Graduates of Ivy League universities are more likely to enter finance and consulting than any other career.聽
For example, in 2010 (the most recent date for which we have data) close to聽of Princeton graduates went into finance (down from the pre-financial crisis high of 46 percent in 2006). Add in management consulting, and it was close to 60 percent.
The hefty endowments of such elite institutions are swollen with tax-subsidized donations from wealthy alumni, many of whom are seeking to guarantee their own kids鈥� admissions so they too can become enormously rich financiers and management consultants.
But I can think of a better way for taxpayers to subsidize occupations with more social merit: Forgive the student debts of graduates who choose social work, child care, elder care, nursing, and teaching. 聽
