Unfortunately that is not the approach most people take. Oddly enough I have two friends, one an EMT and the other an RNA, both of which are paid terribly (well below $21hr), but love to share the ever popular memes that make fun of fast food workers asking for higher minimum wage.
It's crazy to me that they feel taken advantage of, but decide the best option is to try and push down those who are even or below their pay grade, instead of focusing their sights higher at those at the top.
Inflation is primarily a terrible thing for creditors, since it erodes the value of the loans they made, but when it keeps pace with general economic expansion, it's fine for workers as long as their wages keep pace with it - i.e shared prosperity.
Inflation is amazing for debtors as it eats away at their debt over time, which is what happened for baby-boomers who were given the opportunity purchase property on credit during the long post-war US economic boom.
Most residents are ridiculously underpaid given the circumstances. Salaries are pretty solidly in the $50k range, but the number of hours (up to 80/week) equates to abysmal hourly pay.
Surgical residents are being apprenticed for their expected $400k-$1m job later in life. They are far from being impoverished, and if they need more than $50k/year, any bank will gladly lend to them at a low rate.
This is a good point, but it does put them in a temporarily highly exploitable position. In some sense they are being paid later in their career for the work they are doing now, and so have lots of incentive to put up with bad behavior. I see this as similar to "lottery ticket" fields like entertainment.
The mean, inclusive of subspecialty surgeons, is somewhere around 375k. The minimum is not 400.
But if it will make you feel any better, the same argument holds for pediatrics residents, who will go on to make an average of about 135 after their decade-plus of training and loans.
They get paid 50-60k a year to work absolutely ridiculous hours. I had a surgical resident for a roommate. He'd get home and if he went from the door to the bed without showering or relaxing he might be able to catch 5 hours of sleep before he had to get up and be off for another shift. We'd buy protein bars so he could eat something on the run otherwise he'd never have anything to eat on a full 24 hour shift. That goes on for 5+ years after already having been in school for 8 years. And it's not like they're just sitting around all day watching real doctors work or something. And the average pay for a general surgeon as of 2017 is 350k (before malpractice insurance).
I got paid even less (around negative $40k) to spend every waking hour 4th year of college to complete coursework, do varsity athletics, search for a job, and do an honors thesis. But these were investments in human capital.
I'm not sure I understand your point. They have already gone through 8 years of school which they definitely didn't get for free. Surgical residents then work for 5 more years working 100+ hours a week.
I think the argument is that one set of roles is highly skilled and requires a lot of education & investment in money & time to get to a $40-50k "apprenticeship" -- the other set of roles is not.
Getting paid equally for both of those positions, regardless of future expectations, indicates that something might be off.
