Why do celebrities make millions of dollars, but teacher, police officers, etc. don't?

Question

this eats me alive!!! i don't understand why these celebs...'movie and tv', bring in massive amts. of money, but our teachers, police officers, fire fighters, etc. bring a piss more amt. of maybe 30 to 40 thousand a year! How is this fair? and why when a disater happens, they come to us to donate money....couldn't they just take a million or 2 from each celeb. and be on our way to a great start? i know that a lot of celebs help out a great deal, but they have a lot more $ to work with than the average american! Does anyone else think of things like this, or is it just me?

If it wasn't for our teachers, police officers, fire fighters, and social workers...just to name a few.... then where would our celebs be right now???!!! I don't care who you can make laugh or cry with your acting or singing abilities, you don't deserve a 20 million dollar reward!!!!

Answer 1

i think you have asked a great question. You are right the free enterprise system we have here in the America is not fair to public employees. These hard working people do this thankless job for you and me to survive in this world. AS others have said they are paid from the tax dollars we give to the local, state and federal governments. We are so lucky we have these hero's of life looking out for us. I salute them all.

Why do celebrities make more money.... they do because you and many other people pay large amounts of money to have them entertain us. When was the last time you went to a movies, rock concert, sporting event or some special event that a celebrity was there? If you go and you enjoy you are part of the problem to your own question. I know that your $20 dollars of $200 dollar entrance fee will not pay for the dedicated public employees salary but it does pay part of the celebrities big income.

If you want to be part of the solution instead of the problem.. next time you want to go to the movies... or rock concert.. don't and donate that money to the Volunteer Fire house in your town. they you will have a clear conscience and the right to think this stinks.. that Celebs get more money than Public employees.

Answer 2

It's called supply and demand. Celebrities that can pack stadiums, fill movie houses and get people to listen to radio or watch TV are in high demand from media companies, but relatively low in supply.

Teachers, firefighters, police officers, etc. are also in high demand, but have high supply. Even at the relatively lower pay rates, these jobs have no trouble being filled. Not to say that the work they do isn't valuable, it's just that there's so many people willing and able to do that work. If the supply side of the equation were to ever decrease, then you'd see pay rise in those professions.

Take Brad Pitt, for instance. Not many other people can do what he does. Brad Pitt is in low supply and high demand.

A firefighter does great and valuable work, but much of what he does are skills that can be learned by many people, so the supply of people willing and able to do it is higher. If Brad Pitt was the only guy that could peform firefighting tasks, then he'd still make a lot of money. Fortunately, for all of our safety, many capable people are willing and able to fight fires. Unfortunately, for fire fighters, we'd all be broke if we paid them millions.

However, perhaps we (or our life insurance companies) can tip fire fighters and police officers for saving our lives. Maybe we should encourage cash rewards to the teachers that truly made a difference in our lives.

Answer 3

because massive numbers of people don't pay to see a firefighter doing his job, nor do advertisers pay millions to promote their products during an arrest and since individual cities, and therefore the taxpayers and residents pay for these things there just aren't the resources available to do better. if they raised the school and property taxes where you lived to give these people raises do you think it would be okay with your friends and neighbors? nope absolutely not.

yes its misplaced and screwed up but its all about the money. disasters, because each person giving $2 adds up to billions and doesn't require giving until it hurts for any individual.

its probably why there are so many bad teachers and not so motivated police officers too. the rich singers and actors are rich because they are excellent at what they do, a teacher gets paid to show up whether they do a good job or a bad one, the cop that turns his head because he doesn't feel like chasing that criminal gets his pay just like the guy that runs in to the dark alley after the bad guy, so sure people who do an exceptional job at what they do should make more, but they ususally do, they get promoted. bad actress and singers make much less money than bad cops or teachers. its that way with everything, a car salesman that makes one sale to his mother isn't making money either, the guy that is selling 30 cars is.

Answer 4

Celebrities make more money because they provide a high level of distraction that is seen as more important than grass roots responsibilities conducted by actual everyday heroes at ground level. Teachers, police officers and fire fighters are indeed more valuable than celebrities and deserve much more attention and money than celebrities. Why? Because the quality and uses of celebrity have long since become obsolete.

However, social certain social forces refuse to accept the fact that celebrity has no material value at all. For example, Bono IS NOT a hero in his celebrity capacities. Stephen Hawking, teaching under dire circumstances at Cambridge IS a hero.

Only life itself will one day prove that these unseen misguided social forces are wrong in their assessment that celebrity has social value. Something has to give. A celebrity has no value nor intrigue. An artist, a good actor/performer, musician etc. may have value, in that they contribute to the arts. This strengthens society and culture. You will find that a real artist can never be mistaken for a celebrity.

An artist is NOT a celebrity and you will find that artists are often not paid at all. They suffer intolerance, lack of support and often die in despair and poverty. Celebrity is a phenomenon lazy TV audiences and Newpaper readers have supported instead of real and useful people in society. You must make a distinction between a celebrity and poets, writers and actors that often work for free to be taught by teachers that you appear to support. I say, why be against artists that have a lower status even than teachers and policemen and not make the disctinction between artist, who is often poor and ignored and celebrity who is bank rolled by (unseen social forces) and has no use at all anywhere.

Answer 5

Celebrities are only getting a portion of the revenue they bring in. Actually the producers and others behind the scenes are the ones making all the jing.

Personally, I think cops should get a portion of all the illegal drug money the seize and teachers a portion of thier students revenue. Even if it's only 3% of thier students revenue, that will shortly add up to a ton of cash as the years go by. There's the answer to your problem but it will never happen.

Answer 6

I agree with some others, if you think that teachers and police officers are underpaid, feel free to subsidize them.

Until people start paying to watch firefighters do their thing, and watch people teach, thats just how its going to have to be.

Nobody said life was fair.

Rich people have their share of problems. A talk show host recently made Brittney Spears cry by asking her about how much she dislikes the tabloid photogaphers that follow her around non stop every single day.

Impressario Raiddinn the Beatdropper

Answer 7

Police officiers don't entertain us. They get their money from the govt. while celebs revenue is based on their movie sales etc. Most workers are paid on a scale that doesn't fluctuate while celebs are paid either by a big money contract or on comission. Not all celebs are doing so great. Look at the actor who played screetch on saved by the bell, he is going bankrupt but instead of getting a real job, he is trying to raise money for himself through pity. What a LOSER!!!!

Answer 8

It's not fair, you're right, but life rarely is.

First of all, how many teachers are there in the US? How many celebrities? While we don't like to think of it this way, celebrities are of "greater value" to society because there are so few of them. How many people can have the "perfect" body and face and also be able to pull off acting talent or whatever makes them a celebrity? Obviously very few because there just simply aren't many of them. Teachers, on the other hand, are a dime a dozen. GOOD teachers are very rare, but our system doesn't allow for a distinction between good and bad teachers, so long as they can stay in the system long enough to earn tenure. There are huge floods of people who want to be teachers - for high school, there are way too many people who want to be history and social studies teachers and not enough positions available. For lower grades, the surplus is even greater. Now imagine that all of these teachers were paid the same as a celebrity - it would be impossible! Do teachers deserve it? Yes, absolutely. But is it really obtainable?

I believe there could be some definite changes made to the system to reward good teachers better with higher salaries:

Number one: the tenure system needs to change drastically. While job security is great, it also encourages teachers who have tenure to stop innovating. I understand there are good aspects of tenure as well, especially in that it allows freedom to disagree with the administration without fear of losing one's job. However, if you want to see salaries go up, the tenure system has to change. It's a trade-off - is it worth it? There's no easy answer.

Number two - performance measures. Right now, teachers get salary increases based on the length of time they have been with a school. But is a teacher really worth more to the school system just because they've been around longer? I would argue that, in fact, a teacher often becomes less valuable because of frustration and a lack of excitement over innovative new methods, instead falling into a rut of teaching in the same way continuously, thus becoming boring (I wouldn't argue that EVERY teacher does this, but ask any high schooler and you're sure to find that many do.) So how valuable is a teacher to a school? Let's look at their job - educating students, right? Equipping them for life beyond high school - jobs, college, etc. So we need a better way of measuring student's success. Tests as per Bush's NCLB system aren't good because, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink. So teachers shouldn't be punished for a lack of success, but instead should be rewarded for promotion of it. Teachers should get some sort of bonus for raising a successful student. However, this isn't really fair for teachers who get stuck teaching lower-level students, since these students lack drive. So we're stuck in a quandry.

I believe, ultimately, if you want to see teachers better rewarded, the best system would be one of privatization. We all want all of our students to be educated, though, regardless of income, so how can we achieve the benefits of a private school while still making sure each student has access to education? There's no easy answer. I don't believe any one individual has the capacity to implement the perfect solution. The best solution, then, would seem to be a market-like voucher system where parents and students have the choice of where a student will attend school and allow each school to run autonomously. There would need to be some sort of feedback for separating the good teachers from the bad and separating the outstanding ones even further and rewarding them accordingly - the best way, most likely, is to measure demand for a given teacher/class they are teaching.

Easy, no. This is a very difficult area. However, if we want to see drastic changes, it starts by making drastic changes.

Answer 9

I heard it explained this way: we are confusing value with rarity.

Teachers, police, dentists and other important people are, of course, indispensable to us. But, there are many of them.

On the other hand, there is only one Christina Aguilera, or Elton John.

As to donations from celebrities, most all of them donate generously to all manner of causes; we just don't hear about it because, after all, that's personal information.

I would never demand that celebrities be compelled to give additional funds for the simple reason that I believe in Capitalism, not Communism: people, even celebrities, must be encouraged and rewarded for their efforts.

Answer 10

celebrities make movies and music that brings in millions of dollars. police officers don't do anything to make money. the police department probably spends more money than it makes (gas, training, guns, ammo). Jobs in the public sector are all sponsored, one way or another, by the government. If we paid the common folk more money, we would be paying a lot more back in taxes.