How Much Are You Worth Compared to an NBA Player?

The video below by BuzzFeed shows how many people in different regular careers it would take to equal the salary of one NBA player.

The video says the average NBA player pulls in $5 million a year. Meanwhile, it’s not uncommon for All-Stars to make ten times that amount. So how do those salaries compare to other jobs in America?

Retail Workers

The average retail worker makes $21,110 a year. At that rate of pay, it would take 244 of them to earn the salary of a single average NBA player.

All-Star Carmelo Anthony makes $30,400,000 annually. To amass that amount of money in a year, 1,440 retail employees earning the average pay would have to pool their salaries.

Nurses

The average nurse makes $67,390 a year. The annual salaries of 76 nurses would have to be combined to match the pay of one NBA player.

All-Star Kobe Bryant made $64,453,805 in one year. To equal his pay, you’d need 959 nurses working all year long.

As an interesting side tip, Kobe Bryant’s annual salary is roughly 90% as large as Los Angeles County’s entire 2012-2013 nursing budget.

Read: 8 Easy Ways to Save Your Way to $1.7 Million

Firefighters

The average firefighter pulls in about $48,270 a year. 106 firefighters would have to work all year fighting burning buildings to earn as much as a single NBA player.

Kevin Durant meanwhile earned $31,800,000 in a single year. To make that much, 658 firefighters would have to get together and combine their annual pay. That’s a lot of fires put out and a lot of kittens rescued from trees.

Fast Food Employees

An average fast food employee makes just $18,000 a year. To pull in as much money as a single NBA player, it’d take 273 fast food workers.

Derrick Rose made $38,600,000 in one year. That’s the same as 2,045 fast food employees. Imagine the sheer number of times they’d all say, “You want fries with that?” Rose scored 904 points in the 2014-2015 season. Assuming a fast food employee says, “You want fries with that” every five minutes in an eight hour shift, that means the famous phrase was uttered 54,300 times by one of our 2,045 workers for every point Rose scored.

Read: The Women’s Tax: Women Charged More for Same Products!

Teachers

chris paul nba player worthThe Average teacher makes $56,320 a year. To match up to one NBA player’s yearly pay, you’d need the pay of 91 teachers.

All-Star Chris Paul raked in $22,700,000 in a single year. That’s the same as the yearly salaries of 405 teachers.

Pediatricians

What about pediatricians? The average pediatrician makes $181,000 a year. 28 of them would have to work all year to equal the pay of one NBA player.

All-Star Dwayne Wade made $30,700,000 one year. That’s as much as 170 pediatricians. Good thing he didn’t listen to his mom and study hard in school and get a good job.

U.S. Presidents

lebron james nba player worthPresident Barack Obama gets paid $400,000 a year. It would take 13 of him to equal the pay of a single NBA player.

Lebron James made $61,067,500 one year between his salary and endorsements. It would take 153 U.S. presidents to match Lebron James’ pay. Think about that. It means Americans as a society value the job Lebron James does 153 times more than we value the job our president does. Nevermind foreign policy and the economy. Can the man sink a three pointer or not?

Read: Living in San Francisco vs the Rest of the World

In fact, in one year, James made more money than every U.S. president in history, combined. Think of all the achievements of all those presidents. The space race. Winning World War II. Setting up public schooling. Guiding the U.S. through the Cold War. Through the Civil War. The emancipation proclamation. Financially speaking, none of it measures up to the 1,743 points scored by the Cleveland Cavaliers’ forward in the 2014-2015 season.