salaried professionals

(noun)

White-collar employees whose work is largely self-directed and is compensated with an annual salary, rather than an hourly wage.

Related Terms

  • educational attainment

Examples of salaried professionals in the following topics:

  • The Upper Middle Class

    • The upper-middle class refers to people within the middle class that have high educational attainment, high salaries, and high status jobs.
    • According to his definition, the middle class consists of an upper-middle class, made up of professionals distinguished by exceptionally high educational attainment and high economic security; and a lower-middle class, consisting of semi-professionals.
    • There is some debate over what exactly the term "upper-middle class" means, but in academic models, the term generally applies to highly educated, salaried professionals whose work is largely self-directed.
    • The U.S. upper-middle class consists mostly of white-collar professionals who have a high degree of autonomy in their work.
    • Many members of the upper-middle class have graduate degrees, such as law, business, or medical degrees, which are often required for professional occupations.
  • Class Structure in the U.S.

    • A commonly used model for thinking about social classes in the U.S. attributes the following general characteristics to each tier: the upper class has vast accumulated wealth and significant control over corporations and political institutions, and their privilege is usually inherited; the corporate elite consists of high-salaried stockholders, such as corporate CEOs, who did not necessarily inherit privilege but have achieved high status through their careers; the upper-middle class consists of highly educated salaried professionals whose occupations are held in high esteem, such as lawyers, engineers, and professors; the middle class (the most vaguely defined and largest social class) is generally thought to include people in mid-level managerial positions or relatively low status professional positions, such as high school teachers and small business owners; the working class generally refers to those without college degrees who do low level service work, such as working as a sales clerk or housekeeper, and includes most people whose incomes fall below the poverty line.
  • The Importance of Paid and Unpaid Work

    • Workers may be paid in a variety of ways, most commonly hourly wages or salaries.
    • An hourly worker is an employee paid an hourly wage for their services, as opposed to a fixed salary.
    • A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract.
    • An internship is a system of on-the-job training for white-collar and professional careers.
    • Internships for professional careers are similar to apprenticeships for trade and vocational jobs.
  • Occupation

    • Occupations that are frequently held by members of the upper class tend to be well-compensated and require higher education: lawyers frequently make six-figure salaries and must hold JDs, for example.
    • The upper-middle class is sometimes referred to as the "professional class," pointing to the dominance of highly compensated, highly educated professionals in this social tier.
    • Occupations that are frequently held by members of the upper class tend to be well-compensated and require higher education: lawyers frequently make six-figure salaries and must hold JDs, for example.
    • To enter the professions, a person usually must hold a professional degree.
    • Examples of professional degrees include JDs for law, MDs for medicine, and MBAs for business.
  • The Lower Middle Class

    • The lower-middle class are those with some education and comfortable salaries, but with socioeconomic statuses below the upper-middle class.
    • Individuals in the lower-middle class tend to hold low status professional or white collar jobs, such as school teacher, nurse, or paralegal.
    • Lower-middle class occupations usually provide comfortable salaries, but put individuals beneath the top third of incomes.
  • Income

    • Salary alone only measures the income from a person's occupation, while total personal income accounts for investments, inheritance, real estate gains, and other sources of wealth.
    • Many people who have vast accumulated wealth have virtually non-existent salaries, so total personal income is a better indicator of economic status.
    • A monument to the working and supporting classes along Market Street in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District, home to tens-of-thousands of professional upper class and managerial middle class workers.
  • Women in the Workplace

    • A number of occupations became "professionalized" through the 19th and 20th centuries, gaining regulatory bodies and requiring particular higher educational requirements.
    • As women's access to higher education was often limited, this effectively restricted women's participation in these professionalizing occupations.
    • They compare wages with women around them and believe their salaries are fair because they are average.
    • When a woman in this scenario re-enters the workforce, she may be offered a smaller salary or a lower position that she might have merited had she remained in the workforce.
  • Women in the Labor Force

    • Women in the workforce earning wages or a salary are part of a modern phenomenon, one that developed at the same time as the growth of paid employment for men; yet women have been challenged by inequality in the workforce.
    • Economic dependency upon men has had the same impact, particularly as occupations have become professionalized over the 19th and 20th centuries.
    • A number of occupations became "professionalized" through the 19th and 20th centuries, gaining regulatory bodies, and passing laws or regulations requiring particular higher educational requirements.
    • As women's access to higher education was often limited, this effectively restricted women's participation in these professionalizing occupations.
  • Education

    • In many cases, young university professors earn the same salary as young elementary or high school teachers.
    • Among people with professional degrees (such as a law or medical degree), the median household income is $100,000.
    • In this regard, universities can be regarded as the gatekeepers of the professional middle class.
    • In 2005, the majority of people with doctorate and professional degrees were counted among the nation's top 15% of income earners.
  • Paying for Medical Care

    • In contrast, doctors who are salaried have no financial incentive to perform unnecessary tests.
    • The need to ensure competence and qualifications among medical professionals also means that they are inevitably closely controlled by professional associations that can exert monopolistic control over prices.
    • A possible result of this approach is the higher pay in doctors' salaries.
    • Doctors' salaries do tend to be much lower in public systems.
    • For instance, doctors' salaries in the United States are twice those in Canada.
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