The heroic acts of a firefighter or police person may not seem comparable to actors, singers and models in Hollywood. However, when I was looking through an entertainment magazine, I was shocked to see that Hiedie Montag of the Hills earns $100,000 per episode. I immediately went to the computer and looked up the average salary of a firefighter. The average hourly wage of a firefighter is a little over 18$ and hour. A fire chief makes between 70 and 80 thousand dollars a year in Chicago (Wiki Answers). Compared to actress Jennifer Aniston, a fire chief makes less than 1% of her 27 million dollars. If you compare their hourly wages, Jennifer would rake in $3,080 an hour if she worked 24 hours a day 7 days a week while the chief would only make $9.13 working the same hours. What these numbers are saying is that we feel running into a fire to save people is a less valuable job than acting in a movie for other people's enjoyment. I don't believe we all feel this way but I wonder why the paying system isn't changed. Why does Tyler Perry make 125 Million dollars in one year while the starting salary for a Chicago police officer is $43,104. (Wikipedia) I think that this difference isn't due to the fact that we value an actress more than a firefighter, I think it comes down to people not realizing how much the police and firefighters do for them. They only praise them when it directly effects their lives, which may not be very often while most people watch television or go see movies a lot. I think people take these people for granted and don't realize what their lives would be like without them.
That's a very interesting post, Katie. Actually, one of my uncles is a fire chief in chicago, and one of my aunts is a movie and tv actress. While I have never asked them how much money they make, it is clear that one makes more than the other. I think that the reason for this is not because of actual value, but monetary value. Let me explain; when you call 911 because you have a fire in your house, the firefighters come to your home, and put out the fire. They don't charge you for it, and therefore don't make any profit. Firefighters are employed by the government, and the government makes money through taxes, so their salaries are comarable to teachers, policemen, and other people who are government employees. On the other hand, production companies invest a very large sum of money into it's actors in the hope that either ratings are very high or the movies make a lot of money in the box office. In short, the government pays firefighters for a service that make no monetary profit, meanwhile production companies pay actors enormous sums for making high profit material. I agree with you that all of our service men and women, police personel, and firefighters should be receiving a lot more credit and appreciation.
ReplyDeleteThis post reminded me a lot of some points that were touched upon in the movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" (I saw only about a half hour of it this weekend, but somehow I've already been able to comment on two different blogs with the information I obtained.) The movie spoke about Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the national hero pilot who landed US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, and who also happens to make less money per year than a manager at McDonalds. The movie interviewed another pilot, who claimed to have been on food stamps. The fact that fast food managers and celebrities in America are getting paid more than the service officers who save our lives is ridiculous, but it really touches on the state of American culture and values today.
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