There are Job-Jobs and then there are Career-Jobs. If you’re trying to decide on a Career-Job, chances are you’ve looked into typical wages of various occupations. Problem is, “typical” is a pretty meaningless term. Websites will likely steer you to “median” wages , meaning the midpoint of the wage distribution, i.e., half the job holders earn less, half earn more. But if you’re truly looking for a career - by which I mean an occupation you want to hold at least ten years - then you have to look at the whole pay range. If you do, you’ll find some occupations have a whole lot more potential than others. Consider the following:

_2018 Occupational Pay Trajectories.png

I chose the above occupations for the chart because all are in-demand and hard to fill. Yet one leads nowhere and the rest lead to the middle class or higher (especially in dual-income households). For the top three occupations - sales rep, machinery mechanic, and delivery driver - most of the wage growth happens after the median wage has been reached*.

Those who work hard and are patient will be rewarded, provided they’re in the right occupation.

* One of the resources for researching jobs is O*Net Online (affiliated with the Department of Labor). For wage information, enter the occupation of interest in the search box, scroll to the “Wages & Employment Trends”and click on your state in the drop-down menu.