Want to Be Poor? Work One of These 8 Jobs

Post-recession job creation is coming, the experts say. Unfortunately, many of these jobs will pay less than $10 an hour. Yeah, it's an honest day's work, but if it's not enough to live on, much less raise a family and maintain a home, what's the point?

Using data from the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, MSNBC rounded up the lowest-paying jobs in the nation. What they all have in common is that they're relatively unskilled, accept people without a college (or even high school) diploma and only require a bit of on-the-job training. Without further ado, the professions that almost guarantee you'll live below the poverty line:

1. Food preparers and servers, including fast food workers.

This field, highly valued by consumers, is expected to grow 10 percent by 2020. Too bad it pays an average of $8.71 an hour, or $18,000 a year — not enough to cross the poverty line if you've got kids. What makes it worse is that food service is the fourth most popular profession in the country with 2.7 million employees. We've all got to eat; it's unfortunate that our servers have to apply for food stamps to do so.

2. Dishwashers.

Did you have any idea that there are 500,000 people in America who make their living washing dishes, earning an average of $8.81 per hour? Me neither. Florida has the most and pays the least.

3. Cashiers.

Despite the innovations in self-serve checkout machines, this is the second most popular job in the country with 3.3 million employees, coming in just behind retail work. Cashiers earn about $9.15 an hour, almost always in part-time jobs without benefits.

4. Hosts and hostesses.

A lot of the same duties, but even less money than waiters and waitresses, $9.23 an hour compared to $9.80.

5. Amusement park attendants.

You would want someone operating heavy machinery where your life is literally hanging by a nylon strap to be paid a decent wage, right? Sorry, amusement park workers make less than $10 an hour; just $8.90 in Florida, the home of Disney World. It's a small wages world, after all.

6. Ticket takers.

Movie theater ticket takers will increase by an estimated 12 percent over the next 10 years. Right now the job pays an average of $9.43 an hour. Free movies are a great perk, but they don't pay for school clothes.

7. Farm workers.

Earning $9.51 per hour for a job that's dangerous, uncomfortable and difficult sounds like a raw deal, doesn't it? But that's life for farm workers, about 70 percent of whom are immigrants. The majority of them are in California. But hey, at least children can work, too!

8. Home health aides.

This occupation is expected to grow an astronomical 50 percent in the next decade, thanks to an aging Baby Boomer population that needs caring for. The job can be rewarding, but it can also be a lot of bedpan emptying, all for an average of $9.75 an hour. It doesn't make much sense that current home health aides can't save up enough to pay for their own elder care.

Photo credit: loop_oh