It's no secret that teachers don't make a lot of money. You meet people in their twenties who make at least $65K for pointless laptop jobs that don't contribute anything to society, yet the educators of our young can make as little as $45K years into their careers! Just because teachers don't make a lot, doesn't mean that other essential and difficult professions have the same problems. Trades, for instance, are similarly exhausting and demanding, yet they tend to make way with better money than your average teacher would. That's because they typically have better unions and an earlier retirement age. A 40-year-old teacher did the math, and it turns out his 18-year-old son, who just started working in solar panel installation, makes more money than him. While they make the same amount of money per hour if he's working at a residence ($25 an hour), they make double and even triple that for commercial jobs.