No Surprise, the Most Dangerous Jobs Are Also Underpaid

Earlier this year, the Daily Beast compiled a list, complete with photos, of the 20 most dangerous jobs. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics put out its 2010 report (pdf) this week, no surprise, the results were rather similar. It looks as if most of the country's most difficult, hazardous jobs come with salaries that don't exactly justify the risk.

Loggers and fishery workers top the BLS list this year. Usual suspects include police officers, firefighters and coal miners, while other jobs may be less obvious: structural construction workers, sanitation workers, roofers, taxi drivers and millers (people who work in grain mills). It may seem obvious that falling from scaffolding or a roof would constitute risky employment, but though we consume these products every day, few of us consider how easily one can be buried alive and crushed under tons of wheat or sugar. Yikes.

One thing these jobs all have in common? Not exactly the most lucrative jobs one could have. You don't tend to line your pockets working on a fishing boat or whizzing around town as a bike messenger (which isn't recognized by the BLS but is considered by many to be one of the most dangerous urban jobs one can have, particularly when compared with the salary earned for the risk involved). Airline pilots are some of the better paid on the list, while jobs like working in a slaughterhouse tend to have low fatality rates but extremely high rates of injury and trauma. That job is gruesome for all involved, and despite our troubling dependence on meat, slaughterhouse work remains one of the lowest-paid positions in the nation.

Keeping children safe from high-risk jobs tends to be a given around here, but what about adults? Parents need to see their children into adulthood, and in my opinion, no one should have to risk death for a salary near the poverty line. While farming is the only job from this low-paying employment list to cross over into the list of eight lowest paid jobs, I'm not sure we can count that as a victory. If anything, we need to brainstorm ways to raise salaries for these vital jobs that are often dismissed as too dirty, too laborious or too risky for most people. Yet, without farmers, millers, loggers and refuse collectors, we'd be hungry, unhoused and living in filth. Why are we so reluctant to show some respect in the form of cold hard cash?

Photo credit: billjacobus1