Have You Considered Being an Air Traffic Controller Today?

“The 13 best-paid non-executive jobs in America have one thing in common: They’re all in health care,” says the Atlantic. The worst-paid jobs, not surprisingly, are mostly in food service or agriculture.

Some interesting facts: midwives (average salary $92,200, or as the chart puts it, 92.2) get paid less than physician assistants (94.3). Don’t feel bad for podiatrists (135). Despite setbacks during the Reagan years, air traffic controllers rake it in. And actors score hilariously well (87.2), to remind us that in certain fields averages are not useful metrics. In a similar vein, “writers and authors” do better than editors. Er, sure. Anyway, perhaps the chart can help inspire some of the late-blooming adolescents living at home throughout their twenties, as profiled in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine:

Kasinecz admits that she fears that her mom’s house in Downers Grove, Ill., half an hour west of the city, has become a crutch. She has been living in that old bedroom for four years and is nowhere closer to figuring out what she’s going to do with her career. “Everyone tells me to just pick something,” she says, “but I don’t know what to pick.”

Nurse anesthesist (157)! There you go. You’re welcome.

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