The ten top-paying jobs for Blacks: professionals can almost write their own tickets to great salaries

Ebony, Dec, 1989 by Dalton Narine

THE TEN TOP-PAYING JOBS FOR BLACKS

ASIDE from the megabuck salaries of superstar athletes and entertainers, more and more skilled professionals are raking in lucrative incomes in job markets where success is increasingly gauged by money and talent.

On the threshold of a new decade the better-educated, highly specialized Black worker is earning $30,000-$40,000 a year early in his or her career, while some top-level executives receive incomes in the six-figure range. The Midas theme for the 1990s is intertwined with job enrichment opportunities in the 10 top-paying professions: law, investment banking, medicine, dentistry, architecture, engineering, airline pilot, pharmacy, television newscasting and computer sciences.

"The major law firms have been slow in opening their doors to minority lawyers, so an increasing number of Blacks are creating their own law firms," says Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree, who worked as a public defender for eight years. "The sky's the limit in terms of earnings potential, especially in corporate law. The newly graduated can command a start-up salary of $70,000 a year, more than the combined incomes of his or her parents."

Another area of special interest (especially to women) is medicine, where sub-specialists such as cardiovascular surgeons and neurosurgeons can exceed $300,000 in annual income, depending on the location of their practice. Despite the trappings of a respected and time-honored profession, there has been a distinct decline in Black males entering medicine.

"Since 1980, medical schools have seen a 33 percent decrease in Black male applicants, although there has been a 5 percent increase in their female counterparts," says Dr. Vivian Pinn-Wiggins, president of the National Medical Association, and professor and chairperson of the Dept. of Pathology at the Howard University School of Medicine.

"Obviously, we need more Black and minority physicians to help overcome a lingering disparity in health care for Blacks."

Similarly, there is no anticipated labor shortfall in the field of investment banking. "Considering the proliferation of Black elected officials around the country, we can now adopt an old-boy network on the public side of investment banking," says Arthur F. Powell, a principal in the Black-owned, San Francisco-based investment firm of Grigsby, Brandford and Powell.

A hot job-growth area, investment banking (raising funds or capital), attracts bright MBAs with a salary range of $65,000-$800,000, contingent on the economy, changes in the tax laws, and type and location of the investment firm.

In today's high-tech, high-stress job market, Blacks who have prepared themselves for specialized fields can almost write their own tickets to great salaries and the good life.

ON-SCREEN TV

PERSONALITIES

Income range: $40,000-$1 million

Many are called but few are chosen. That is the situation at TV stations around the country, where the on-screen personality is as important as the news or the weather he or she reads on air.

Depending on location and ambition, the climb to the top of the profession may be swift or long in coming. Usually, the career path leads as reporter from field duties to anchoring cut-ins on network shows, to weekend anchor, to the prestigious anchor spot on the evening news. "Don't expect the big bucks early," says Carmen Harlan, who anchors the evening news on WDIV in Detroit. Indeed, beginning anchors in some smaller markets could take home $25,000-$30,000 a year. After years of experience anchors in big cities can command an income of $100,000 or more by negotiating terms through an agent. "This business has always been competitive," Ms. Harlan says, "and I don't think it's about to change."

Ms. Harlan started out in 1975 as a news director in radio after graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in radio, TV and film. She made the transition to television a couple of years later as a general assignment reporter. Today, she anchors the nightly newscasts.

Other TV personnel who command top salaries include weather people and national correspondents. Some on-scree personalities such as Ed Bradley and Bryant Gumbel are among the highest-paid individuals in America, but only a handful of Black TV professionals receive top-level salary.

A degree in mass media, communications skills and on-air presence will help you get a foot in the door of this industry.

INVESTMENT BANKING

Income range: $65,000-$800,000

MORE than any other profession on the Top-10 list, investment banking is controlled by an old-boy network. Relatively few Blacks are at the partnership level on WALL Street, where the lucrative corporate side of the industry is involved in leveraged buyouts, megers, acquisitions and other multimillion-dollar financing deals.

"You need lots of capital on the corporate side of this business," says Arthur F. Powell of the Newark office of Grigsby, Brandford and Powell. "Blacks don't have access to that kind of capital." Powell's is one of the 50 or so minority investment banking firms across the U.S. that specialize in public financing--rising tax-exempt funds for improvement of infractructure such as water and sewer systems, school construction and renovations, repairing roads, building bridges and extending turnpikes. "In order to borrow money [through bonds] from the public," Powell says, "cities and towns enlist the services of an investment banking firm to provide financial advice and access to the capital markets. And since more and more Blanks are being elected to public office, we see no reason why we can't use a similar old-boy network to be competitive in the business."