There are plenty of uncomfortable conversations to be had in life. Just think about politics or religion — these topics evoke such strong emotions, people are bound to find themselves in heated arguments. But there are also matters that some folks avoid speaking about, and money is certainly at the top of the list.
From salaries and personal savings to spending habits, our finances carry a certain stigma which makes it hard to talk about. Yet, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t. A few days ago, user Necessary-Bun raised a question on Ask Reddit and invited fellow members to open up about professions they think are way overpaid.
The thread quickly went viral and received a deluge of comments where people called out some relatively cushy jobs with paychecks that just don’t make sense. Bored Panda has collected some of the best answers from this post, so keep scrolling and let us know if you agree with them in the comments!
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Preachers. No one dedicated to God should own a jet, mansion, or expensive car.
Are preachers rich? Because my dad was a minister when I was a little kid and we lived in legit poverty.
If you own a mansion and a jet, then ‘preacher’ is the wrong word. I think the word you’re looking for is ‘conman’
This post represents televangelist preachers predominantly such as Joel Osteen who has his own private jet, mega mansion and mega church and who took a government financial handout meant for small businesses to pay their employees while he's flush with millions of dollars. There's a bunch of these fake preachers in the US.
He had to be shamed into opening up his church as a haven for Hurricane Harvey victims.
Load More Replies...Depends on the church. My dad is my pastor and along with being a full time pastor he also had a full time job. First the Navy then civil service after Navy retirement. He's 85 now and his income comes from his work retirement. The church has always given him a small token, but nothing near what you can live on. My denomination does not support preachers financial. They have to work.
I don't think we need extravagant pay, but a loving wage would be nice. I have to earn a master's and go through years of intense reviews (including a full psychological workup and a 100 page thesis I will spend a weekend defending). Most of us take our jobs pretty seriously. We're with people in their most vulnerable moments, and that's a precious gift.
Consider those items as red flags as to the integrity of anyone calling themselves a preacher
while i agree that certain preachers have fleeced their flocks to benefit themselves to the tune of millions of dollars, the majority of pastors tend to congregations of 100 people or less. they and their congregations struggle to get by, yet still manage to serve their communities well - just as jesus said they should.
That's not a job. In a job you have to pay taxes. These people are conmen and need to be sent to jail and have their assets seized and given to worthy charities like helping the poor.
I don't agree that all preachers have money, mansions, and luxury cars (and planes). It's the mega-church egocentric charlatan preachers, who are guilty of swindling, cheating, and bulls*it about how people should give to God, when they take the lion's share.
SOME preachers, very few, in fact. Not all. My dad was a preacher and every summer when we’d go “home” to E. TN family on his sumner break, he’d preach at a different country church to help pay for it. And I’m talking $50 MAYBE.
The vast majority of preachers are not rich. The fortunate ones, in wealthy urban or suburban congregations, earn slightly less than their upper-middle-class/professional congregants. In smaller congregations, they earn a lot less than that or work full-time. And ministers take on student loan debt like lawyers. The preachers with jets, mansions, or expensive cars either run entertainment businesses disguised as churches, or they are grifters.
Well, the way I see it: You have preachers who work in a church. And you have artists, who are putting up a show with a religious theme. And with artists it is, just like going to see a concert, they decide on the price of the ticket. And artists are able to make a lot of money. Just like big famous rock bands. If you see those TV preachers, consider them like artists and you understand why they make that ridiculous amount of money.
my dads a priest and he doesnt really earn that much (i dont know if its the same thing but still)
Make that some preachers and if the church pulls in a a few hundred thou after expenses then take them.
Okay, as a pastor's kid, this kinda upsets me. The MAJORITY of preachers live in the middle class or lower class. Some congregations can't even afford to pay their pastor and his family a living wage. All the same, most pastors go into the ministry KNOWING that they will get less pay and do so willingly. Many pastors I know left fields where they got paid well to become pastors, knowing the financial consequences of doing so. Being a pastor is a hard, hard job. You have to deal with death, sickness, divorce, abuse, trauma. You hear and bear the weight of the personal lives of church members. You hear a lot of stuff you have to keep to yourself and bear alone. You are the target of complaints, criticism, and more, because church members sometimes take out their personal grievances on you. Pastors are on call 24/7. Stress, depression, burnout are all things that pastors are familiar with. And then, you have these fake preachers that live entitled lives of luxury
and rip off thousands of people and extort money from them. And then they become the face of all pastors in North America because people only hear about them because they are so awful. They probably don't have to deal with half of what a true pastor has to deal with in a day. As a teenage pastor's kid who's seen a lot in the last few years, it makes me mad.
Load More Replies...I know a few rich preachers. obviously, not all of them are. I don't see a problem in a preacher being rich what I see as the problem is if the preacher got rich off of the church donations.
Yes the TV hucksters who have no real interest in Christianity, and would probably condemn Jesus for being poor and a person of color, and for the content of the beatitudes. All they are interested in is the money they can con people out of.
the real world is that only a few rock star preachers reach the wealthy level you describe... Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, etc. The big money comes in through selling books and cd's. So there is a fair exchange since the people sending in money get a book or cd to learn from in return for their donation money. Most pastors struggle to get along & raise a family on the small income that comes from small congregations. It may take 20 years of building a church membership up to arrive at the lower middle class level. This is about what supervisors at convenience stores or fast food joints make. You grossly over-generalized with your criticism. Most preachers can't afford health insurance or other things middle class people take for granted. So get real. The rich preachers will someday give account for every dime they get. I don't think a lot of them are going to get to stay in heaven. One of the scariest things Jesus will ever say at the judgment that comes after life is over is "Depart from me, you workers of iniquity." Iniquity is cheating, a worker of iniquity is a big cheater. Don't get all judgmental, friend. You will someday be judged before the same throne also.
People like Copeland, and du Plantis , etc. are nothing more than legal thieves.
With their tax-free status, churches sometimes attract people looking to take money
This one is wrong. My dad was a preacher and we lived poor, owned a fairly small house, and worried about being able to buy groceries.
I absolutely hate the tag line. "No one dedicated to God" is a horrible way to say it. Anyone that earns it deserves it. Should their be judgment for those who misuse Religion. Absolutely. That's a much better way to say it.
If you're talking about a televangelist, you're probably speaking of someone you have never met. Lots of people like to complain about wealthy preachers whose churches are huge. If you've never been to his church, how do you know if he's honest? Jesse Duplantis and Kenneth Copeland are the guys who need private jets. If you listen to them and you're so disdainful, stop. Find a good church. If you don't listen to them or attend their services, why are you concerned about what they do? It's not your preacher. It's not your money. Let God sort it out as HE sees fit.
Paul lived in poverty. He had no dependants. It is illogical to think all preachers must live poor. Some do. Many don't. If you a a member of a congregation and you have wealth, you should not mind having a pastor who earns a decent income. If you live in poverty, perhaps you would greatly benefit from a pastor with a good income. The pastor and church should be willing to help the poor as is necessary. OTOH, expecting the church to pay your property taxes each year is unreasonable. I've seen that before. Most churches give to the poor. Most will buy coats, clothing and shoes for the poor. That doesn't mean the preacher can't have nice things.
Politicians. I'd understand if they made things better, but they generally f**k over the working class which is the majority of the country yet give themselves huge bonuses and expenses as though they have done a brilliant job.
Out here when politicians are asked why their pay/allowances and conditions are so extraordinarily generous compared to other actual jobs, they invariably reply "you need to have remunerations and incentives at those levels to encourage the best and brightest to apply". Funny how it only applies to those parasites in politics because as soon as you talk about needing decent, thriving wages and working conditions for frontline/essential workers suddenly "oh no The Economy cannot afford it" "we need to reign in excess spending on wages". Except of course for politicians and CEOs and the like. Surely you want the best and brightest attracted to professions like teaching, nursing and policing and others that perform vital functions so the dodgy weirdos can be weeded out? Surely that is most important to a community? Perhaps if politicians and CEOs had their pay, bonuses and conditions kept at no more than 3-4 times the welfare or minimum wage we might see less inequality
Socialites. Why do we have people who have never worked a day in their life getting millions on investments they didn’t make when others need 3-4 jobs just to keep a roof over their head?
To the exception of criminals, these are probably the worst society has produced. They're the obnoxious embodiment of laziness, superficiality and uselessness.
Hospital CEO’s… and actually almost all hospital upper management. There are so many layers of management that many of them barely step foot into a healthcare facility EVER, let alone EVER speak to a patient, yet all of them make 6, 7, 8 figure salaries plus mega bonuses. My hospital network CEO makes $11 million salary not including bonuses, which bothers me, but bothers me, even more, are all the board members and s**t directly under him making nearly as much. It’s hundreds of millions of wasted money paid to the people trying to screw staff out of good pay and screwing patients into paying big bills.
Kardashians. Definitely the Kardashians.
Honestly, most celeb positions. Pro athletes, singers, actors, etc...
Before you respond, I understand the literal mechanics of a capitalist market. I understand that they command those wages through their craft, by being the best in a very competitive and limited market. I get the "supply and demand" of it all.
I'm just saying, Mahomes getting like $40m per year just to throw a ball around in a game... When a top surgeon saving actual lives makes like $500k? Yeah, that's a silly overpay.
And I'm a HUGE football fan, don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day, it's just a game, just entertainment. Not that serious.
Thanks to Republicans in Congress for giving the tax breaks to the rich, while cutting services to the poor and letting our country fall apart
CEO of various charities that make mid to upper 6 figure income.
Check charitynavigator.org for statistics on charities. A charity that can pay a CEO that kind of money would have to be taking in billions to get a 4 star rating. This site will show you what that CEO makes. It's public record.
Celebrities and “influencers”
Influencers are the least talented people on the planet, especially those on tiktok. They get millions of views on tasteless trend videos, which translates to lots of money. Pointless.
Since we’re talking athletes, I’d say the sports teams owners are way overcompensated. Just as one example, owners often blackmail cities into paying for new stadiums with tax dollars rather than making those renovations themselves.
Just stop going to the games, which are already beyond the budget of most families
College administration. Don’t come begging me for money for your “alumni fund” (or, even worse, for feeding and clothing poor and hungry students - yep, they send me those emails) when I can’t pay off my student loans, and the Deputy Vice Provost of Student-Media Relations is bringing home hundreds of thousands of dollars a year - and there are dozens of them at every campus. Most instructors earn less than s**t, student housing is falling apart but God forbid some upper-level useless word salad of a title not get paid out the a**.
Professors and teachers, so important in passing on knowledge, are paid so little, nobody can afford to persue it as a career.
Hospital administrators. They don't bring s**t to the table in terms of medical knowledge or patient care, dictate to medical professionals with years of education and experience how to do their jobs, and get paid the most to do it.
Was at my old job for 16 years, at a primary office for big hospital corp., the big hospital administrators would always come up with these plans and wants us to follow , without asking if it’ll really work, they got paid so much money for unrealistic ideas, I could’ve told them in every level it’s not gonna work, but I’m just a peasant
University football coaches. They are often the top paid education employees in their entire state, sometimes by a wide margin. And 99.9% of their students will never be paid to use the skills they teach in any capacity-- on the contrary, they're basically doing slave labor for the school. Meanwhile, professors doing actual academic work toil for years and make peanuts. Yeah, that'll probably be an unpopular opinion but IDGAF.
In 48 states out of 50 the highest paid state employee is an athletics coach.
Board members.
Some get $70k to do a “part-time” job on the board with a work commitment of maybe 1 meeting per quarter. And many board members are on multiple boards because boards want people who are on other boards. These people then vote to raise their own and c-suite salaries. Source: worked at an executive search firm in admin on the board recruitment team. It’s disgusting the money/job incest that goes around.
I'm on the Board of Directors for our condominium. It's a lot of work and we don't get paid. Not even donuts at our monthly meeting!
Any sort of celebrity work, especially in the movie biz. Why is $4 million considered low?????
Private military contractors. They get paid significantly more than actual troops and are far less accountable.
Right now, travel nurses. I’m a travel nurse and I ain’t complaining at all, but we’re definitely overpaid. I’m taking home about $4000 a week at the moment for 36 hours. I do not do $4000 worth of work in those 36 hours. We’re overpaid because hospital greed finally bit them in the a** and I’m here for it baby. Underpay all your staff, everyone’s gonna quit and you’ll have to pay travelers insane rates. Treat people better or just live with this as a reality. I’ll take these rates as long as they’re there.
University administrations. They're constantly making up new positions with 6 figure salaries while raising tuition.
The cost to students for higher education has gotten completely out of control
I was recently a juror in a civil case where someone was trying to get money out of someone else from an accident. In my state, you have to have sustained a "permanent injury" in order to be awarded anything so both sides hired medical experts to provide testimony about the injury.
(Edit: I've gotten some comments about this part. This is after the "fault" case which is completely different. We were instructed that fault had already been determined and was not in the scope of the case. This was only about the "permanent injury" part of the case. Nothing criminal or at fault was a factor here. All of the initial medical bills and whatnot had been settled. This was about ongoing permanent damage.)
As part of the video testimony, they ask the doctors various questions like how many times they've done surgeries for injuries like this in order to prove they are experts, where they were trained, etc etc. All is well and fine.
THEN they ask them how much they are being paid for the testimony. BOTH doctors said $1000 an hour with a minimum of 5 hours. BOTH doctors said they record these kinds of testimonies several times a month. BOTH doctors said they only practice or do surgeries 50% of their time because they spend the rest making these videos.
Of course, the doctors then proceeded to provide completely opposite opinions based on who hired them.
These guys get paid hundreds of thousands a year, maybe millions, just to say they agree with whichever side hired them so as a juror it's up to us to decide who to believe on our own with zero medical training.
TL;DR: "Medical experts" providing testimony in personal injury cases charging $1000 an hour with a minimum of 5 hours... for EACH side of the case.
100% influencers. I understand the argument that they provide companies a ton of value and so that is why their pay is so high. However, the actual value they provide society, in general, is... negligible to none. I mean, you could argue they provide entertainment, but most influencers are making the majority of their money from sponsorships and brand deals, not views. Some still do rely mainly on adsense, and they're still making decent money, but not the bank that the ones who get sponsors on every video or post do.
School administration boards. Teachers do the heavy lifting, yet a lot of these bodies routinely deduct their pay for “resources” for the school.
Why is it that these academic politicians make more money than the people teaching our future? There would be no school without teachers, but there can be a school without administration bodies
Teachers just can't even make the median wage in this country. So sad
Lottery commissioner makes 500k a yr. Overpaid is understating.
What do they actually do?? Sometimes certain jobs seems self sufficient
Most upper management in an office setting. I have had jobs where I have multiple bosses and only one really understands what the people that work for them actually do.
I worked in a company where all the managers would go offsite for one week each year for a management retreat. Our productivity and profitability always skyrocketed during that week, according to all the reports -- because we didn't have these incompetent loons interfering with the operation for a whole week. The fact was clear that we could have those people still collecting their salaries and just refraining from dragging us down with their constant stupidity, and the whole business would improve dramatically.
Paparazzi. Some get paid thousands to harass people trying to go about their everyday life.
I have never seen a hardworking competent HR department, but they get paid the same or more like folks who do 10x the work.
I work in HR so I might be biased but I'm severely underpaid and always have to deal with the sh*t show after the executive mess up.
Real estate agents, especially for buyers. Literally every piece of information a buyer's agent can give you is readily available on Redfin.
Their only real responsibility is to unlock the front door and provide a checklist of things that need to be done before closing (which is exactly the same for 95% of purchases). For this, they get paid 2-3% of the purchase price, meaning it's in their best interest for you to buy the most expensive house possible.
Not necessarily true. In a seller's market, the realtor's ranking and reputation can heavily influence whether your bid gets accepted or not. And in a buyer's market, a great realtor spends tons of time helping get the house ready for sale. But I can see this bring true for crappy realtors who just got into it for the money.
I am a handyman that charges $50/hr with a 3hr minimum, a couple of months ago I got a call for service that consisted of changing 9 smoke detector batteries, 2 light bulbs, and re-hanging a picture. I felt bad taking the money but the guy couldn’t have been happier to have that stuff finally done. He asked for my card and is now a very good client
So I lifeguard in an upper-class neighborhood. I charge 50$/hr and usually stay around 3 hr. All the kids can swim, and if they can’t they are with their parents. It’s awesome
Selling online sleep training courses. Write up an e-document on “how to get baby to sleep,”-sell said document for 10-20$- pray on sleep-deprived desperate parents, rack in the cash.
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I can't believe nobody said CEO. The most overpriced employee in any business
Just an example of disparity in the work places. In most of these jobs, for everyone that is overpaid there is several who are working for less than they are worth. For every preacher, hospital worker, HR worker, lifeguard, even influencers that are driving a new sports car there are 5 or 10 that are driving a clunker and trying to raise a family on a paupers wage.
Why are there no bankers on top of this lists? CEOs that make six digit salaries plus bonuses. And when they f*ck somethign up, the get a six digit figure as a parting payment. insane.
For better or worse, it's the inherent nature of capitalism to charge whatever the market will bear.
TICKETMASTER! Charging me a handling fee for an already overpriced ticket! They used to have an office to actually hand you a ticket, now on the internet they don't even do that . . . AND THEY GET PAID A LOT! Knock it off!
Upper management in general is way overpaid and generally unnecessary.
i see a lot of people being annoyed at people who make more money than them
Curious: Which one of these jobs do you have?
Load More Replies...All these comments seem to forget that all these, except politicians, make money because they have clients. There is no supply if there is no demand.
I can't believe nobody said CEO. The most overpriced employee in any business
Just an example of disparity in the work places. In most of these jobs, for everyone that is overpaid there is several who are working for less than they are worth. For every preacher, hospital worker, HR worker, lifeguard, even influencers that are driving a new sports car there are 5 or 10 that are driving a clunker and trying to raise a family on a paupers wage.
Why are there no bankers on top of this lists? CEOs that make six digit salaries plus bonuses. And when they f*ck somethign up, the get a six digit figure as a parting payment. insane.
For better or worse, it's the inherent nature of capitalism to charge whatever the market will bear.
TICKETMASTER! Charging me a handling fee for an already overpriced ticket! They used to have an office to actually hand you a ticket, now on the internet they don't even do that . . . AND THEY GET PAID A LOT! Knock it off!
Upper management in general is way overpaid and generally unnecessary.
i see a lot of people being annoyed at people who make more money than them
Curious: Which one of these jobs do you have?
Load More Replies...All these comments seem to forget that all these, except politicians, make money because they have clients. There is no supply if there is no demand.