Social worker is not a career that can bring fame and richness, it means being overworked, poor hourly payments, and many more. This is a kind of job that needs a test of patience for the job to be accomplished. A salary of social workers depends on a number of issues including job location, experience, and education among others.
Early 1940s to 1970s, the productivity of the social workers in the United States increased which lead to increase of their salary. Soon after 1970, things started to stagnant, as the productivity exploded tremendously by 70%, the hourly wage per social worker sluggishly improved by 4% awakening many questions and debates as to where the extra dollar went. Jim, A. (2010)
From the studies conducted, between 1990 and 2007, just before the great recession hit the United States, majority of Americas got 15% of the total income generated while a few got 55%.This lead to 0.1% earning a third of the total income generated. Jim, A. (2010). Recent, the purchasing power of social workers has improved enabling them to own entertainment gadgets and other luxury facilities, this cannot be a reason to justify that the payments are ideal as some economists say, many social workers in the united states are experiencing great debts while many CEOs are becoming overnight multibillionaires.
The CEOs pay increments have by far outpaced the increase in payment by the social worker enabling those who run companies to get wealthier than average workers in those companies. In 1960s and 1970s, the CEOs of large company used to earn averagely 20-30 times the normal workers as compared to current 270 times. Jim, A. (2010). Some argue that the reason for the great increment in the CEOs salary is one of the ways to compensate them for the work well done. Surely, CEOs does nothing worth 270 times what the social worker makes after working for almost a week. While social workers may not have degrees from those prestigious universities, that doesn’t make them uneducated or of poor quality.
Working conditions have seriously deteriorated in the United States; some have reported having lost their jobs either by going to the toilet during work shifts and other small mistakes. Yet, some argue that United States is a land of equal opportunities and those who work hard go ahead. This may not be the case as social workers work for long hours with meagre pay. This inequality may negatively undermine social cohesion of Americans causing inconsistence political influence and unfair legal bargaining influence. This income gap contributes to lack of confidence by the Americans to their leaders making them feel they are not caring.
Public health researchers have found that counties with higher inequality experience higher rates of mortality than those countries with comparable income. This may explain why the United States doesn’t have longest life span and minimal infant mortality rate although it is one of the richest countries in the world. Thanks to the SAS company which has realized the importance of a social worker on board and is trying its best to improve the living conditions of their workers by introduction of subsidized benefits like the on-site daycare for its employees among others. Jim, A. (2010)
The color test research which was conducted showed that CEOs have different test of colors compared to most people. From the research, it was concluded that CEOs are sensitive than the common man, they are less likely to be emotionally unstable and are considered to be perfectionists and dominant in most of the endeavors, they are tolerant and cooperative than the typical person hence they were suited to the top jobs. This tries to justify that the CEOs are created differently and so they should be treated differently. To me, it should be vice-versa.
Many CEOs salary, luxuries and initiatives have increased rapidly making them multibillionaires while they are running companies they even don’t like. On other, hand social workers work long hours, few benefits and to crown it all poor pay.
References
Jim, A. (2010). The Great American Paycheck Squeeze. Web.