Billionaire Sam Zell: "The 1% work harder."

[joeglow3]

91. "hard" is a poor choice of words

A big part of it comes down to basic supply and demand. Personally, I am a CPA and make pretty good money. However, to get here, I had to get good grades (about a 3.85 GPA) and a masters degree. Then, I had to study for and pass one of the more difficult exams out there (16 hour exam with a pass rate below 50%). All of this just to get a job. All this for a profession with a shit ton of jobs. Understandably, the pool of applicants is relatively small compared to the number of jobs (big reason why accounting always comes up as one of the most in demand professions). Frankly, I have 14 years of solid reviews and am pretty darn good at my job. That allows me to move up and get even more money.

Now, a good friend of mine made the decision to end his education at high school and has never approached a job as a career, bouncing from job to job. 17 years later and he works for the trash service making decent, but not great money. As cruel as it sounds, there are tens of thousands of people qualified for his job. Thus, he is not going to make as much as an accountant.

Now, there will always be anecdotal examples of the incompetent supervisor, but that is the exception. If we could get more people to make the sacrifices today for the benefits of the future, we would see the supply/demand gap closing at different professions and wages becoming more aligned. Until that day, the law of supply and demand will rule.