10 Surprising minimum wage jobs

MikeD

MikeD

Administrator
Staff member
The U.S. federal minimum wage recently increased 70 cents from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour. Who will be affected by this boost? Cashiers and fast food workers? Yes, but some minimum wage jobs also come with surprisingly hefty responsibilities.

From preschool teachers to hospitals aides, there are many people in critical roles whose salaries don't necessarily reflect the importance of their professional contributions. You may be surprised to find out who's making the bare minimum.


They're missing one big one on their list. Suprising in light of all the attention given to the crew background on 3407. Or is it that regionals are paying well? :sarcasm:


http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-10_surprising_minimum_wage_jobs-969
 
contactground.9 said:
Those really didnt surprise me that much, other than EMT..
Click to expand...
Their information on that is not entirely correct, an EMT-B (Basic) will have a hard time finding a paying job at all. An EMT-I (Intermediate) will probably do a little better than Minimum wage, if they can find a job. EMT-P (Paramedic) pays decent. But all of it is pointless because most fire and EMS outfits want Paramedic and Firefighter qualification.
 
bdhill1979 said:
Their information on that is not entirely correct, an EMT-B (Basic) will have a hard time finding a paying job at all. An EMT-I (Intermediate) will probably do a little better than Minimum wage, if they can find a job. EMT-P (Paramedic) pays decent. But all of it is pointless because most fire and EMS outfits want Paramedic and Firefighter qualification.
Click to expand...

Oddly enough, many EMS-only outfits don't want firefighter qualed people, as they look at it as "you're only wanting to get on the ambo while waiting for a fire dept position. We want career EMS people."

Time was, when I started in the profession way back when, fire was fire.......leave the EMS crap for the ambo people. If you happened to be an EMT in addition to a firefighter, you were somebody! Nowdays, nearly 95% of what a fire dept does is EMS. And that, along with hiring needs, pay, etc varies somewhat widely with what type of dept or operation you get in, as well as what geographic location and/or city you're in, and even whether you're municipal or private. A number of states don't have IEMTs or don't anymore, esp since with how much training it takes to become an IEMT, one may as well take the extra few months and become an EMT-P anyway.
 
I thought that was only in the airline business.

Some of the "third tier" carriers loved guys without degrees and perhaps a smudge or two on their record so they didn't have to worry about their pilots being able to move up and out.
 
MikeD said:
Oddly enough, many EMS-only outfits don't want firefighter qualed people, as they look at it as "you're only wanting to get on the ambo while waiting for a fire dept position. We want career EMS people."

Time was, when I started in the profession way back when, fire was fire.......leave the EMS crap for the ambo people. If you happened to be an EMT in addition to a firefighter, you were somebody! Nowdays, nearly 95% of what a fire dept does is EMS. And that, along with hiring needs, pay, etc varies somewhat widely with what type of dept or operation you get in, as well as what geographic location and/or city you're in, and even whether you're municipal or private. A number of states don't have IEMTs or don't anymore, esp since with how much training it takes to become an IEMT, one may as well take the extra few months and become an EMT-P anyway.
Click to expand...
Well, I suppose it varies from area to area. Here you can't get a job at all without Para and Fire without living out in the sticks; and even then its hard. All the ambulance jockeying I did was as an unpaid volunteer; thinking the experience might help me get a job.....hey sounds like this other industry I read about on the internet.....:D
 
Doug Taylor said:
I thought that was only in the airline business.

Some of the "third tier" carriers loved guys without degrees and perhaps a smudge or two on their record so they didn't have to worry about their pilots being able to move up and out.
Click to expand...

It's in the fire service/EMS too, believe it or not.

Also, most depts that run their own ambulances, (Phoenix FD for example) you have to do two years on the ambulance, typically the first two years.

Many depts (like Scottsdale, Glendale, Chandler, Mesa, etc) don't have their ambulances; they contract them. Scottsdale using PMT and Glendale/Mesa/Tempe using Southwest, so they don't have that problem. The upside of an operation like Phoenix is, that you only take Advanced Life Support calls (ie, serious ones), the Basic Life Support calls....they call in Southwest to handle them in order to be able to keep their own ambulances in service for the ALS calls. Also, if you're on an ambulance, you stay busy doing what you do.....wheras an Engine or Ladder typcially does your job too, just without transport. In PHX FD too, their ambulances are actually called Rescue's, since the guys manning them are also firefighters, and will operate at a large fire as firefighters until needed for the ambo duties.
 
Not that I agree with some of the wages, but it's really supply/demand....most of these jobs require relatively limited, inexpensive training and there are always able and willing people ready to replace them.

Kind of like certain parts of our industry really...
 
MikeD said:
The U.S. federal minimum wage recently increased 70 cents from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour. Who will be affected by this boost? Cashiers and fast food workers? Yes, but some minimum wage jobs also come with surprisingly hefty responsibilities.

From preschool teachers to hospitals aides, there are many people in critical roles whose salaries don't necessarily reflect the importance of their professional contributions. You may be surprised to find out who's making the bare minimum.


They're missing one big one on their list. Suprising in light of all the attention given to the crew background on 3407. Or is it that regionals are paying well? :sarcasm:


http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-10_surprising_minimum_wage_jobs-969
Click to expand...


I'm guessing those were the lowest-of-the-low, etc.

Pilot pay is complicated and confusing, therefore hard to make stick as an 'hourly wage' that the average joe would comprehend.

Most folks read at the 8th grade level, right?
 
Yeah not surprised some of of these at all. Can't speak for a lot of them, but I did work around a bunch of CNAs for a while. I was less than impressed with a lot of them. Some of them deserved minimum wage but a lot of them for sure didn't.
 
poser765 said:
Yeah not surprised some of of these at all. Can't speak for a lot of them, but I did work around a bunch of CNAs for a while. I was less than impressed with a lot of them. Some of them deserved minimum wage but a lot of them for sure didn't.
Click to expand...

A lot of my friends were CNAs in high schools, they were getting paid 14-16 bucks an hour! It doesn't really take much to become one, and most that I knew were people certainly not worth more than minimum wage.
 
Yeah I think most of the ones we had went to like a 8 week class at vo-tech. Real scuzzy. would steel from the residents all the time and throw parties in the kitchen at night.
 
Mechanic? right. My friend makes $1,000 a week when it's busy, he's 20 with a year of college before dropping out.

contactground.9 said:
A lot of my friends were CNAs in high schools, they were getting paid 14-16 bucks an hour! It doesn't really take much to become one, and most that I knew were people certainly not worth more than minimum wage.
Click to expand...

Yea same here.
 
MikeD said:
Suprising in light of all the attention given to the crew background on 3407. Or is it that regionals are paying well? :sarcasm:
Click to expand...
I think they probably saw $17/hour and didn't even bother to investigate how many of those hours the $17 actually qualifies for.
 
poser765 said:
Must be referring to the people who change your oil at walmart
Click to expand...

Perhaps. Although I was getting paid $7/hr to change oil, tires, batteries, etc., at Pep Boys in 1996.

At the dealership I worked at in sales, the worst paid mechanic there was making probably $15-16/hr if I remember right. However, they were paid by shop hours, which was the biggest gripe I heard from some of them. If you take that into account, they were probably being paid the equivalent of $11-13/hr for an 8 hour work day. Still not horrible, but when you consider what some of these guys had invested in tools, student loans for tech school, etc., it could be a tough 6-8 months until they got enough manufacturer certs to get a raise.
 
The friend I was referring to loves shop hours. He says he works 40-50 hours a week but gets paid for 70-80.
 
As a mechanic, flat-rate sucks, especially at times like this. There are plenty of guys that make A LOT of money, but its very difficult to do on flat-rate. Salary guys can make plenty of money, you just have to find the niche-market.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

MikeD
Evergreen Air Center at KMZJ sold
Replies
8
Views
5K
RDoug
RDoug
derg
The "John Ley" Update
Replies
4
Views
4K
Cruise
Cruise
Back
Top