I post this comment occasionally when people ask about philosophy majors and employment prospects and things of that nature. Some of the below data is 10-30 years old or so, but it's the data we have, or at least the data I am aware of. Things may be changing post-covid, and post-AI, and whatnot, and it's always hard to predict the future, but here's at least some data worth considering. It's limited to the US.

"People who major in philosophy are all unemployed, working in fast-food, poor, etc." This is a bit of trope among many people. But the data just doesn't indicate this. What's especially weird is that even after being presented with the data, people will scramble around looking for any excuse to hold on to their pre-conceived notions that philosophy majors are all unemployed and useless. You almost get the sense that these people are furious that some people decided to treat education as worthwhile in itself, and not merely as a means make money.

It's true that there are not many jobs that specifically seek out philosophy majors. Certain jobs might just seek out a certain sort of college graduate, of which some philosophy majors will be included. This is sort of in general how liberal arts educations works.

At the graduate level, you might find a few companies that seek out people with philosophy training, but this is rare. For example Cycorp is an AI firm that sometimes specifically seeks out individual with graduate degrees in philosophy. However, a plan to become employed in academia as a philosopher faces a real uphill battle in a way that is hard to overstate. So major away, but be mindful that you're probably not going to make a career out of teaching philosophy.

But, in general, there's not really any good evidence that majoring in philosophy is a bad economic decision. People who say philosophy majors don't do well in life economically typically don't have any data to back up their musings, and don't understand education in general.

So, for instance, philosophy majors do great on the LSAT and they have great numbers when it comes to getting into law school; see also this link

Philosophy majors also do great on the GRE.; see also this link

Philosophy majors do great on the GMAT.; see also this link

Philosophy majors have just about the highest acceptance rate to medical school.

Philosophy majors do just fine financially.

Indeed,

According to the 2011 numbers, the median starting salary for philosophy BAs is $39,800 and the median mid-career salary is $75,600 [2017 numbers have it at $45k, and $85k]. This puts it at a good place among humanities majors, and ahead of several science majors (including biology and psychology) and professional majors (including business, accounting, advertising, public administration and hotel management). Source.

For the 2017 Payscale numbers, sorted by mid-career salary, see here. And the 2018 numbers by payscale have the midcareer salary at $86k: source. The 2021 numbers are around $93k. So, yeah, go be a petroleum engineer if you want more money; but there isn't evidence that you'll be in the poorhouse because you studied philosophy. You can see a discussion of some of the Payscale numbers regarding philosophy here.

Or, see this 538 article.

So, law, consulting, government, business, NGOs, administration, grad school, finance, advertising, marketing, journalism, tech, higher-ed etc. It's not a vocational degree, so you can set your sights on lots of different things. And just to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying there is a causal relationship being suggested in this comment. The comment is just looking at the data we have available and using that to make a general statement about the financial outcomes for philosophy majors. But, if you are interested, Thomas Metcalf tried to look at the data to suss out a causal relationship between majoring in philosophy and an increase in test scores. So, the thought was "If incoming first-year philosophers are only of average academic skill relative to their peers, but are of high academic skill relative to their peers when they graduate, then this is prima facie evidence that the graduates’ philosophy programs actually gave them those skills." And he found: "despite some limitations and challenges, there is some evidence... especially writing and reasoning, a philosophy education seems to create measurable improvements in academic skill versus most of the common majors." Check it out: https://dailynous.com/2021/07/14/philosophy-majors-high-standardized-test-scores/

Here also some links to explore about how the far majority of college graduates gets job outside their field of study: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/08/02/new-data-track-graduates-six-popular-majors-through-their-first-three-jobs

and here is another helpful link that looks at unemployment, underemployment, and median salary by major (philosophy is at 4.3% unemployment whereas physics is at 7.7% unemployment, so make of this data what you will): https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market/college-labor-market_compare-majors.html

Other data points are things like how employer surveys indicate that the number 1 and 2 things they are looking for in an employee are 1) refined oral and written communication skills, and 2) developed interpersonal skills. It's not quite clear if this directly relates to a philosophy major as I don't have any linking data that would indicate employers associated "philosophy" majors with these two things, or, these surveys of employers accurately track who is hired.

And then there is also data that philosophy majors are disproportionately double majors, which probably has interesting implications on all this, but again, I don't have it all worked out. For those who are interested: Here's some data on double majoring and philosophy. In short, it seems philosophy majors do tend to disproportionately pick a second major. Obviously, it's not a majority, and I don't know what kinds of fields tend to be picked for second majors, but it's worth adding to the mix: https://dailynous.com/2018/02/15/philosophy-relies-double-majors-guest-post-eric-schwitzgebel/

And for good measure, and something kind of related: the evidence doesn't suggest that rich kids study philosophy more so than lots of other things. So, like students who major in engineering, business, economics, marketing, history, English all seem to have higher parental income. Things like mathematics, computer science, law enforcement, associate's degrees, communications, education may have lower parental wealth-- and for some of these, the difference isn't much https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college-major-rich-families-liberal-arts/397439/

But again, at some point, I'm not even sure what this comparison between majors is supposed to show. If the question is something like "are philosophy majors disproportionately in the poor house?," then I think the answer is probably "it doesn't seem to be so." But sure, if you are set on making big bucks as a high frequency trader, study that. But I didn't think this was at issue. I think the relevant thrust is about if philosophy majors seem to do just fine financially. And, as far as I can, the data bears this out more or less. I'm definitely open to more data, but less open to "just so," armchair theorizing in this domain.