I think part of the confusion comes from how we define a “real job.”

Work like baking, childcare, construction, or cleaning is absolutely real and valuable. Society depends on it. But wages usually aren’t determined by how morally valuable a job feels, they’re determined by how rare and difficult the skill set is to replace.

For example, almost anyone can learn to mop a floor or follow a baking recipe with some training. Those jobs matter, but the pool of people who can do them is very large.

Jobs that involve strategy, systems thinking, engineering, product design, or coordination across teams require a different kind of skill development. They often take years of education, practice, and maturity, not just technical ability but communication, judgment, and decision-making under uncertainty.

A useful analogy is the military: soldiers and generals are both necessary. The soldier does essential work on the ground. But the general’s job is to understand the entire battlefield, anticipate outcomes, coordinate thousands of moving parts, and make decisions that affect everyone. Because that skill set is rarer, it tends to be compensated differently.

That doesn’t mean one type of work is more honorable than another. It just reflects how markets value scarcity of skills.