"The top 11 highest-paying jobs in the U.S. are all in health care, according to a new 2020 jobs report from U.S. News & World Report.
Together, they pull in an average salary of more than $200,000 a year, around $150,000 more than the estimated $49,000 median annual income reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The highest-paid job overall is anesthesiologist, with an average salary of $267,020 a year.
The top 11 highest-paying jobs are:
Anesthesiologist (Median salary: $208,000)
Surgeon (Median salary: $208,000)
Oral and maxillofacial surgeons (Median salary: $208,000)" ...
The ranking is a bit questionable. An anesthesiologist has many years of training before starting a career. Here are salaries for a couple of other jobs that I know are higher than those in the rankings above:
From CNBC, “The average pay –which includes base salary and bonus – for a portfolio manager at a large hedge fund with performance near the industry average, earned around $2.4 million in 2014, an 8 percent on-year increase, according to the 2015 Glocap Hedge Fund Compensation Report.”
From caseinterview.com (https://www.caseinterview.com/consulting-salary), for management Consultants: "For project leaders, salaries are about $175,000 on average at top tier firms. They also earn performance bonuses of up to $80,000 and profit-sharing opportunities of $28,000-$30,000. These consultants take home a total amount of $250,000- $300,000.
There are also higher-level salaries for top consultants in these firms. When you get to this level, you essentially become a shareholder/partner in the firm. Base salaries for high-level personnel range between $570,000-$1,000,000, with performance bonuses of up to$300,000 varying by firm"
When you factor in that many of those listed professions have exorbitant outlays and no income until about the age of 30, their incomes are in fact not the top ten. Not even close.
Bad data in equals bad data out.
The title is false. These are not the “highest paying jobs”. These are “the jobs with the highest salaries”. Many of ranking corporate jobs may have lower salaries but they have annual bonuses which can run into the millions.
Furthermore, top executives do not have to pay enormous insurance premiums, have all sorts of expensive perks, have stock options, etc.
The executives of the medical insurance companies take home a LOT more money than the highest paid surgeon, work less, train less, and start making that money a lot earlier in their careers.
One of the links in the article cited in the OP references highest paying professions rather than just jobs. Also notes high cost of entry. Other link though says jobs.
The article is based on the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics survey. This survey is expressed in terms of hourly wages and computes annual wages by multiplying hourly by 2,080. The highest wage option on the survey is $100/hr, so the maximum annual wage is $100*2,080 = $208,000.
A list of the highest hourly wage occupations from the survey is at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/highest-paying.htm . CEO was non-health care and within top 10, yet was not included in the DISRN/USNWR article from the first post. Note that many of the higher wage positions in the link and article also have substantially larger work related expenses than typical.
These are the top paying professions on average. These aren’t in the zip code of highest paying jobs. Even salaries. Total comp there are large categories paying more.
Being a doctor is incredibly rewarding in many ways and high paying. Also pretty much assured of earning these salaries. But highest paying not so much. And I’m not even talking about senior execs and ceos at Fortune 500s.
I looked at the other categories for "best jobs.” In the source for this article, USNWR. #1 under Best Jobs Without a College Degree” was Home Health Care Aide. Seriously? A job you list as having a salary of $24,200 is better than work as a plumber ($53,900) or insurance salesman ($50,600)? I know there will be a lot of need for home health care aides in coming years, but are we seriously recommending HS graduates aim for a job that will put them on food stamps?
I am an independent financial advisor and own / operate a brokerage. I work with a lot of small business owners ranging from blue collar to quite sophisticated. Most of them do way better than the figures reported.
You may or may not realize this, but that branded local P/C shop that sponsors your kid’s little league team makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, especially when they’re established. The ones that own multiple locations are in to 7 figures (at least the ones I know).
I know these aren’t first yr income results but just referencing there are many ways to make a great income in this great country!
@rickle1 Small and medium-sized business owners often make some of the largest incomes with the ability to write off many expenses. Our financial planner told us some of the highest salaries are those with very high paying jobs who left to start their own firm. Being an entrepreneur is in no way easy, but neither is working in a sandwich shop for $10 bucks an hour.
^ I’ve done both ($2 an hour back then or something close to that). Being an entrepreneur is better (definitely not easy but nothing worthwhile and lucrative is).
The top ten are either physicians or one dental specialty. I won’t get into the loaded discission of CRNA’s, as much as I would like to. As above, these are not total income. Plus, there may be a percent in business fields with very high incomes but the average will be offset by the myriads who do not make the high incomes.
btw- hourly wages for physicians are much lower than many fields if you factor in years of schooling, much less the cost. That highest earnings for only a HS diploma is low of course- very little time and expense to qualify relative to wages. Hence the case for post HS education.