[randomdata]

> The doctor who earns $300-400k went through a four-year university degree, four years of medical school, and a residency or fellowship before he started earning money.

The market doesn't care about what you have done to get to where you are. If you spent the better part of a decade to acquire a Ph.D, you are not entitled to earn more money waiting tables at the local restaurant.

The upper bounds of earning is only limited by the value provided by the work. A good doctor or lawyer can provide a lot of value (health and freedom are, to most people, the most important things in life) and they are usually in short supply, thus they can command the high rates.

If programming jobs top out at $150,000, it means that either there is no shortage of people to do the job, or that it is simply no value in having someone do the work for more. In the latter case, if true, means that programming really isn't that important.

[wes-exp]

Yes, but the market does care about long schooling when it is a requirement to practice the profession. That's why it drives up wages in Medicine and Law.

[noarchy]

It only cares a little bit in some professions, such as humanities professors. They almost certainly went to school for longer than the lawyer did, but make far less. So the market value in this case is closely related to the work that is being done.

[wes-exp]

I agree with what you're saying. I was just trying to point out that strict education requirements (e.g. state regulation of the profession) do influence wages within the profession. Parent made a point about PhD waiters being paid the same as non-PhD waiters. But that is only true because restaurants have no requirement to employ advanced degree holders. By contrast, in Law and Medicine, you are legally required to have that education. The pay difference there is huge: a lawyer with a JD makes much more than lawyer without a JD. Because you can't even be a lawyer without a JD (under most state law).

My point is about the relative pay within a profession, rather than a profession relative to other professions.

[randomdata]

The market still doesn't care. The requirements just create an artificial shortage of workers, hence driving their earnings towards the value ceiling.

It is said there is a real shortage of programmers, so programmer wages will also be moving towards the value ceiling; which appears to be $150,000 (though I think there is room for debate there).