Spiritually speaking: Is someone with a physics phD making 20$/hour underpaid?

They work for a government research lab, and have no hopes for raises/promotions in the next 15-20 years of work. They did 10 years of schooling after high-school (4 years undergrad, 2 years masters, 4 years phD) and they are in a ton of debt. Would you say that this person is underpaid? What other career opportunities do they have? The embarrassing thing is, his brother who is a Mcdonalds manager and only with a high-school diploma, earns more than he does as a physicist.Spiritually speaking: Is someone with a physics phD making 20$/hour underpaid?
Yes, I'd say so.



As I recall from my days living around DC, a Ph.D. should be able to qualify for at least a GS-12 Federal job. As you can see here, that means the base pay from day one is $60K, and due to various adjustments it's actually well above that.



http://www.fedjobs.com/pay/pay.html



Now admittedly, GS-12's don't open up that often. But I think you qualify for a GS-9 with just a Masters, and there are lots of those.



Now I suspect when you say "government" you don't mean the US federal government. I'm just throwing that out for comparison.Spiritually speaking: Is someone with a physics phD making 20$/hour underpaid?
Cooking eggs in bacon grease makes them less healthy, but more tasty.



Bacon does that - makes things tasty.



As to the whole "underpaid" thing, if there is enough money for a person to procure tasty potato soup, then they aren't doing too badly.Spiritually speaking: Is someone with a physics phD making 20$/hour underpaid?
I think a more important question would be what it says about our society and what most people tend to value. But to answer your question... yes... VERY underpaid. And btw, I'm not buying the story that a PhD Physicist makes only 20$/hr and has no prospects for improvement. It sounds very much like you're trying to talk yourself out of an education. So forgive me but I'm calling BS on your post.

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