Salary is an issue that many people have strong opinions about, and the pay gap between top entertainers and sports stars on the one hand, and professionals in vital service sectors such as medicine and education on the other, has been quite controversial for some time now. However, I personally think that, except in certain cases, the latter group do not necessarily deserve higher pays than the former.
One reason is that the cash flow of service sectors is significantly lower than that of sports and entertainment industries. People willingly spend trillions of dollars every year buying tickets to sports matches, concerts and movies, while the revenue in service sectors like education or medicine originates mainly from households in need of their services. And even then, those services have to be provided at a discount to guarantee proper access for all citizens regardless of their financial status. This means that the funds available to service providers like doctors or teachers is a fraction of what is available to sports stars, actors and singers.
Additionally, unlike in sports and entertainment where people with certain talents are chosen or may accidentally be discovered and hurled into stardom, people in service professions tend to make informed choices regarding their careers. In other words, one usually chooses to become a teacher or doctor, knowing how much one can hope to earn and what the chances of living a life of luxury are for someone in their business.
That being said, there are certain professionals that truly deserve to receive salaries higher than, or at least as high as, those paid to celebrity players or entertainers. This includes doctors who make breakthrough medical discoveries, invent novel methods to cure diseases or make other substantial contributions to medical sciences. Likewise, contributions such as developing more effective teaching approaches should warrant celebrity-level wages for educators who make them.
In conclusion, I do not believe that doctors or educators should receive higher wages than celebrity singers, sports players or actors unless they have made significant contributions to their fields.