Frank Benford pointed me to this news article listing Statistician as the third best job in America. The article came out in January, so I assume this has already been spread and debunked many times by now.
What really interested me, though, was seeing Lumberjack in the last position. I remember thinking about lumberjacks when reading the work of Peter Dorman, who discussed the fact that, contrary to the usual theory of the "risk premium," risky jobs typically pay less than safe jobs. Lumberjack is about the riskiest job there is, and it doesn't pay well. (I discuss the topic a bit in our recent book, A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences.)
- Log in to post comments
More like this
I debated a while about whether I should take this particular post on. It's not because there isn't a lot of fodder there deserving of that special form of not-so-Respectful Insolence that only Orac, in his usual inimitable fashion, can provide. There most definitely is. The problem, as is…
George Lakoff has published two new political books, Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea, and Thinking Points: Communicating Our American Values and Vision, as follow ups to his Moral Politics and Don't Think of an Elephant. I haven't read either of the new books (my New…
Being a surgeon and physician, I've always been puzzled at how my fellow physicians and surgeons can become ensnared by pseudoscience and quackery to the point where they become proponents of various forms of irrational thinking. Examining "docs gone bad" has been an intermittent recurring theme of…
When I wrote about a systematic review of the medical literature regarding measles and pertussis outbreaks that demonstrated quite convincingly that, for these two diseases at least, the nonmedical exemptions and vaccine refusal endanger everyone, not just the unvaccinated, I was rather…
Cowboy pays bad, too.
Sort of related. This was on CNN's website a little while ago: "Top-paying jobs". (It's a top 10 list.)
(Mine is even on the list.)
One thing that makes lumberjack a low paid job is that it's seasonal to some extent. Fortunately, the job and the equipment used is a lot safer than it was 50+ years ago when I was growing up in a sawmill/logging camp.
The one that surprised me was parole officer at #14.