A Few Thoughts on Compensation

After checking a few direct resources I have determined that the average teenage babysitter, lacking a high school graduation, earns about $8.00/hour. If they worked 40/week and 50 weeks/year their annual income, before taxes, would be $16,000.

Keeping that in the background I would posit this thought: my wife, talented, highly educated, elegant, lovely, personable, mature and dedicated taught art to elementary age children in a private school. She also arranged all the bulletin boards every month and arranged her classes to coincide with the current curriculum each class level was experiencing – an ever-changing challenge. For this she earned – at the peak of her career – about $25,000.

She had about 15 students per class and taught 24 classes per week. If she had been paid the equivalent of a teenage babysitter the numbers would look something like this: 15 students x 24 classes x 40 weeks x $8.00/hour = $115,200.

Conclusion – your babysitters are being over-compensated.