As several people have seen on different social media platforms, the rage over under and overpaid jobs is taking over. On Twitter, @StoriesOfPeople shared a picture of two surgeons lying on the ground with the caption “2 surgeons after successfully removing a set of brain tumors during a 32 hour surgery.” A few days later, comments appeared stating how professional athletes have higher salaries than surgeons and doctors and how that is unfair.

The average professional basketball player is paid $6.3 million a year, when, on average, surgeons are only paid $500,000 a year. This leaves many people pondering about how overpaid and/or underpaid certain jobs are.

“Jobs are overrated in the sense that they’re overpaid, like professional athletes. Professional athletes are solely for entertainment for people and doctors save lives, yet athletes are paid more, which should definitely be reconsidered,” sophomore Kayleigh Calahan said.

Many believe that there are certain jobs that are ridiculously overpaid, with one of those jobs being professional athletes. Many believe that it is simply absurd that so many people get paid millions of dollars just to throw a ball around, as it has no benefits on the world around and it’s only purpose is to entertain people. Being a professional athlete has no impact on anyone other than the professional athletes themselves.

Meanwhile, doctors and surgeons are risking severe illness just to make their patients healthy again. They spend their days saving lives. Firefighters and police officers put their lives on the line every single day once they button up their uniforms, lace up their shoes, and step outside their doors. They arrest criminals, save people from burning buildings, find missing children/adults, etc., while only being paid $43,000-54,000 a year, on average.

“The amount in which you’re paid should correlate to what you do for people and how helpful your job proves to be in society,” Calahan said.

Teachers are also very underpaid. They spend their lives helping students obtain knowledge that will ultimately benefit them in the future. They do not only teach students math, science, and English skills, they teach students how to properly interact with the people around them. They teach them a wide variety of life skills that they will be able to carry on with them after they graduate from high school. Teachers raise the future of the world, but are disappointingly paid only $38,000 a year, on average.

“Teachers have been incredibly monumental in the shaping of my future, I could not be more grateful for the teachers I have encountered. It is incredibly disappointing when I think of how they are paid so little when they do so much,” sophomore Skyler Price said.

As previously stated, one’s pay should be based off of the benefits they have on people. Doctors and teachers leave an immense amount of impacts on today’s society, but are often overlooked and underpaid, while entertainers and “ball-throwers” are receiving an outrageous amount of money that they simply do not deserve. As the media continues to open the minds of today’s world and make society aware of these issues, many will choose to agree with the overall stance of the media and several will stand against it. This leaves everyone asking, should salaries be based off of one’s true impact or off of one’s ability to entertain others?