[Crowe]

Suppose there is a car accident with serious injuries, these guys have to know how to stabilize someone long enough to get to the ER, and that decision means life/death, literally. 15/hr is a low wage job compared to the sort of responsibility that goes along with that job. If you make a mistake, someone dies. Not only that but you are going to frequently see people die, even if you make all the right decisions. And watching people die isn't any fun.

I can make 15/hr or better being a welder/fabricator. I don't view my skill as anywhere near as important as an EMT, and they're in a similar wage category as welder?

Sorry to keep beating a dead horse here, but I'm still in a state of disbelief that such an important job gets paid so little.


Personal care providers making less than $10/hour on average? Those are the people who go to old people's houses as care for them and bathe them and etc? Sounds like a really, really, shitty job, and I honestly wouldn't do it even for $50/hr, because I hate being around old sick people. It confuses me how anyone would do such a job for such a low wage. Its another job I feel like the ones doing it should be paid a bit more money for.

Just to use some examples of "wages" for jobs I've done in the past, and these were all blue collar jobs.

In 1996 (age 14) I made 8/hr cash money for housing tobacco. I also cut tobacco in the fields for 10 cents a stick. A good day I could make about $70-80. A local company also hired youth to pick seeds in the tobacco fields, and they paid 6.75/hr, which I also did. That is a lot of spending money for a teenager. By the time I was 16 I saved up enough to buy a nice old truck.

Given inflation, I actually made more doing the above jobs than personal care providers make today, and that is viewed as a "career?". And on a good day of cutting tobacco, I'm taking home more money than an EMT (considering inflation as well). This is why I think these wages paid for these jobs are ridiculous.