Sorry Starbucks Workers: A Barista Is Among the 5 Lowest-Paying Jobs in America

The labor market still seems to be fairly strong, but what positions should you avoid? Here are the five jobs in America that pay the least.

Author:: Eric Reed
Publish date:: Sep 1, 2017 6:32 AM EDT

The U.S. economy is currently enjoying one of its longest uninterrupted growth streaks since before the Great Depression, with employers continuing to add jobs and the unemployment rate falling at roughly the same rate it has since 2009.

It isn't necessarily good for everyone, however. The economy, of course, behaves erratically. Even while employers create a tight labor market by adding jobs, they seemingly refuse to compete for ostensibly-scarce workers, keeping wage gains low and generally focused on a few industries.

Here, thanks to data from Glassdoor.com, are five jobs where gains continue to lag.

No. 5 Lowest Pay: Bank Teller

Median Base Pay: $28,636

Growth Since 2016: 4.9%

It's heartening that all of the lowest-paying jobs on this list have seen stronger-than-average wage growth over the past year. Bank tellers, for example, currently enjoy some of the best gains in America as a percentage of income.

Still, that's not a lot when you consider that they start off earning less than $30,000 per year.

With the fifth-lowest earning job in America, the people who handle your money don't get a whole lot of their own.

No. 4 Lowest Pay: Restaurant Cook

Median Base Pay: $28,628

Growth Since 2016: 4.7%

The age of the celebrity chef has made cooking seem like a sexy, dangerous profession. Anyone who reads Kitchen Confidential's stories about hard-drinking men who pick up blistering skillets with their bare hands can easily walk away thinking, "Why on Earth am I dragging myself into an office every morning?"

And that's fair enough if you can muster the talent and credentials to work the line at a trendy New York bistro.

However the overwhelming majority of kitchen staff will find themselves slinging hash for the likes of a Chili's Too, and sadly, life in restaurants like that isn't quite so glamorous. Workers there often get little help, far too many orders and far too little money in exchange for it. So little, in fact, that they find themselves our fourth-lowest paid job in America.

No. 3 Lowest Pay: Certified Nursing Assistant

Median Base Pay: $28,389

Growth Since 2016: 3.1%

This one is, frankly, a surprise.

Medical fields almost always dominate the high-paying and high-wage-growth industries. While it's true that the CNA performs a support role, this is still a medical profession that requires skill and training.

So it's a mystery that these workers receive so little money for the work they do, and unfortunately, that's where we have to leave it. This is an unusually poorly paid job in an industry where supply and demand should dictate that CNAs get paid about double.

No. 2 Lowest Pay: Cashier

Median Base Pay: $27,701

Growth Since 2016: 3.7%

This entry should surprise few.

Retail and service are, together, two of the industries in America with the lowest pay and the highest turnover. That cashiers earn so little is fairly common knowledge and is largely based on the fungible skills involved with the position. It takes little training to teach new employees how to operate a point-of-service system, and as a result, employers have relatively little incentive to bid much for individual employees.

This is not to say that turnover isn't a concern within the retail industry, nor to argue that individual talent doesn't matter, but those two factors play little enough of a role that cashiers hold the second slot on our list.

No. 1 Lowest Pay: Barista

Median Base Pay: $24,194

Growth Since 2016: 5.7%

Total compensation for a Starbucks barista is typically just $19,904, according to Glassdoor. Yet at the same time, baristas are one of the jobs with the fastest pay growth in America. Tied with truckers and insurance agents, coffee-shop workers have enjoyed year-over-year pay growth substantially in excessive of any other field.

It's an interesting quirk of the labor market, but one that hasn't worked out very well so far for the people who get up at 4 in the morning so we can all have our lattes.

Slowest Growing Professions

At the same time as we look at the lowest paid jobs in America, it's also valuable to look at the slowest growing ones.

One of the things that gets lost, often, in reviewing economic data is the importance of trend lines. Here are the five jobs with the slowest wage growth in America right now. Importantly, these jobs aren't just failing to keep up -- their incomes are actually falling.