Ms. Kahn’s class is discussing LeBron James’s base salary of about $48 million in 2024.

“Pro basketball is a multi-billion dollar industry,” says Rachel. “A big star like LeBron James guarantees fans will spend money. It’s logical to pay him a big salary.”

“It may be true that team owners have a good reason to pay stars like LeBron James large salaries,” says Shefali, “but it is difficult to judge how much money someone deserves for their work.”

“Do you think we can create a system to logically figure out how much a certain profession deserves to be paid?” asks Ms. Kahn. “Then we could contrast the sums.”

“Well,” suggests Patrick, “the amount of education someone has often determines the kind of job he or she can get. I wonder if there is a parallel between how many years of school are required for a job and how much that job pays? Or maybe if the job is really rare it affects how much the job pays?”

Patrick found this topic very interesting and decided to investigate this question. He looked online to find out how much people in five different professions made per hour, how many years they needed to attend school past high school, and how many people were in each profession.

Patrick wants to find out: Does the amount of education required for a job affect how much the job pays? Does the number of people who have a profession affect how much the job pays?

Procedure:

1. Find out the hourly wages of different professions.

2. Find out how much schooling past high school is needed for each of those professions.

3. Find out the number of people that have that profession.

For construction laborers, teachers, accountants, and pediatricians, what is the relationship between the hourly wage earned and the number of people who have that profession? What about between the hourly wage earned and the amount of schooling required?

Discussion Question:

We often associate more years of schooling with jobs that get better pay, but there are exceptions, or outliers, like elite athletes. Can you think of any other professions where the amount the job pays doesn’t necessarily match the amount of schooling required?