It’s Expensive to Be a Good Person. It Shouldn’t Be.
When I joined UT Austin as a freshman in 2017, I remember seeing my fellow classmates starry-eyed, brimming with hope, and full of fresh ideas. They all dreamt of a better tomorrow and were passionate about changing the world. We all were. Some were going to fight climate change. Others aspired to cure cancer and tackle the obesity epidemic. Many wanted to work on eradicating hunger and making education accessible for all.
Within 4 years, everything changed. These same students, now some of my closest friends, had different aspirations. The most common was landing a job in Software/Computer Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, or Business Consulting at a Big (Insert Sector Name Here) corporation. Few, if any, seemed to even consider the meaning or impact of their professional ambitions. What could produce such a drastic change? There are a lot of philosophical answers but I think this chart provides the most simplistic one.
Money. These roles comprise the highest paying jobs attainable upon graduating with a Bachelor’s degree. There is more to the story though. According to the Harvard Business Review, 9 out of 10 Americans are willing to take a paycut to do more meaningful work. What about my newly graduated friends then?
The answer lies in the extent of the paycut. While money can’t buy happiness, earning around $60,000 to $75,000 is needed to achieve a state of emotional well-being. It turns out that the high-meaning, world-changing jobs (based on employee self-evaluation) pay significantly below this threshold.
There are, of course, a few professions (doctors, epidemiologists, etc.) where meaning and pay do go hand in hand. However, almost all of these are gated by arduously long and borderline exploitative educational programs. When taking this into account, it becomes clear that meaning and pay are almost perfectly inversely correlated.
This system forces new graduates to grapple with a harsh reality where they must ask themselves a difficult question: Must they feed themselves at the expense of others or must they starve themselves for the sake of others? The path to a high meaning job is ridden with uncertainty and obstacles ranging from underpay to horror stories of exploitation. On the other hand, a high paying job in the tech or oil sector, while not necessarily the most meaningful, is certain to grant personal well-being through a lucrative salary. As altruistic as we may be, the choice is clear for those that have one. The instinctive need to survive is baked in far too deep.
America currently faces a labor shortage in almost all sectors. However, in an increasingly lonely and anxious world threatened by climate change, pandemics, and a rapidly aging population, the aforementioned high meaning jobs are of higher meaning than ever before. However, for the world’s brightest minds, the opportunity costs of these professions are too high. Put simply, it is expensive to be a good person. It shouldn’t be.
This stark reality is quite disheartening for those with dreams. However, there are concrete governmental actions that we can vote for to tackle the labor market’s tragedy of the commons.
- Make graduate-degree professions more accessible. In the US, it takes between 10–14 years of post-secondary education to become a doctor or practicing scientist. This process can include an undergraduate degree completely unrelated to the field of practice as well as full-time work as a Resident Doctor, PhD, or Post-Doc fellow where individuals are under-paid simply because they are “students” (Interns at ExxonMobil make 2–3x more). The redundant undergraduate requirements must be streamlined/removed and the “student” tax must go.
- Pay high meaning workers competitively and offer better growth trajectories in these sectors. Salary provides an indication of the value and prestige society deems to a profession. Talented teachers, fitness instructors, and social workers are essential to building and strengthening communities but make less than a third of what entry-level Facebook Data Scientists figuring out how make teens addicted to Instagram do. Paying these community builders a competitive salary (>85th percentile) will attract the top talent to these fields and nourish our communities.
- Expand opportunities for public sector jobs. In addition, to being underpaid, high meaning workers are overworked. Studies across the board show that learning outcomes are better when Student: Teacher ratios are lower. Similar outcomes hold true for other high meaning professions. Increasing hiring for high-meaning jobs will prevent these workers from being overworked and improve their effectiveness.
While recognizing these opportunities for improvement, it must be acknowledged that it is possible to make positive contributions to the world through almost any domain. Advancements in technology, made possible by hard-working engineers and computer scientists, have allowed us to live healthier lives and will be instrumental in the coming decades as we work to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Nevertheless, technological innovation is only one of many approaches needed to tackle societal challenges in the 21st century. We must prioritize, not overlook, our future scientists, doctors, and community-building teachers and social workers.
