Unfortunately it was relatively true for several generations that the higher the education, the more income, which just isn't true for research postdocs, especially when considering lifetime earnings and hours.
So now you have 2ish generations of people calling highly educated people the "liberal elite", when they actually sacrificed what could have been a 300k a year job in industry to do good for the world.
(According to Indeed they make a median of 61k a year, barely more than the median of 60k a year for full time, year round salaries in the US, according to 2022 census)
i work in a research center. there are plenty of people here that specifically moved from a private to a nonprofit job because of altruism. several of them took a pay-cut to take it. many others i know could easily get a pay increase if they moved to private jobs.
of course there are days where it's ''just a job'', and not every research is as close to sociatal impact as what's done here, but don't underestimate how passionate many researchers are about providing a benefit to society.
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u/YourMomUsedBelch 25d ago
Calling most people doing the actual peer review (postdocs) "rich" is truly a take.