The 25 worst jobs in America

- 'Job misery' index: 82.7
- Median pay: $28,100
- 'High meaning' score: 40%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 50%

Team assemblers are part of a team responsible for a product or a component of a product. Assemblers in this classification usually learn how to perform all the tasks of the team and rotate through stations. Along with low wages, there is a need to learn multiple tasks—which can be taxing.

- 'Job misery' index: 82.9
- Median pay: $35,400
- 'High meaning' score: 27%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 55%

Printing workers are at the last stage of the publishing process: they arrange pages, operate printing and binding equipment, and do other tasks required to produce printed books and other materials. This work can be tedious and unsatisfying, and job opportunities are in decline as more publishing takes place online. Plus, PayScale estimates that more than two-fifths of workers in this industry don't receive benefits.

- 'Job misery' index: 83.5
- Median pay: $40,600
- 'High meaning' score: 26%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 52%

Purchasing agents and buyers, farm products buy agricultural products either for resale or as components in manufactured products. The jobs require negotiating with farmers, who may not be best positioned to absorb low market prices. As such, there is little appreciation by the farmers for buyers.

- 'Job misery' index: 83.8
- Median pay: $19,200
- 'High meaning' score: 33%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 56%

A host or hostess welcomes customers and seats them at tables. The average hourly wage is $9.23 per hour, though people rarely make it a lifelong career. A whopping 82% of hosts and hostesses last less than five years.

- 'Job misery' index: 84.1
- Median pay: $19,800
- 'High meaning' score: 33%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 55%

This position ranks low, but employment is expected to grow. Heartland states such as South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have some of the highest concentrations of these workers, according to government data. In addition, the West Coast has some of the highest wages for workers in restaurants and coffee shops.

- 'Job misery' index: 84.1
- Median pay: $27,000
- 'High meaning' score: 37%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 49%

These laborers move materials with their hands. While there's typically on-the-job training, there's no formal education required. The employment rate for this industry is estimated to rise 4% between 2018 and 2028, which the government estimates is as fast as the average for other occupations.

- 'Job misery' index: 84.3
- Median pay: $40,800
- 'High meaning' score: 29%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 48%

Working as a motorboat mechanic doesn't seem to offer much in the way of satisfaction. But the employment market has improved a notch recently, as boat sales have been healthy in recent years.

- 'Job misery' index: 84.3
- Median pay: $29,100
- 'High meaning' score: 29%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 53%

Moving materials around a warehouse or a factory might pay decently at more than $17 an hour, but it doesn't provide much job satisfaction; ranking on the index at a total score of 84.8. The top-paying industry for this occupation is electric power generation, transmission, and distribution at $ 62,720.

- 'Job misery' index: 84.3
- Median pay: $20,500
- 'High meaning' score: 30%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 56%

While waiters and waitresses don't make much salary, they typically make up for it in tips. Still, it's an industry with high turnover. Only 5% of waiters and waitresses have spent 20 years or more on the job. Government data shows that tips are usually higher in major cities, such as Boston and San Francisco.

Some parts of the U.S. are moving away from the subminimum wage wait staff, bartenders, and other workers who rely on tips receive. In October 2023, Chicago became the largest city in the U.S. to pass an ordinance that will require tipped workers to make the full minimum wage—though there is some debate on whether this will help or hurt tipped workers' earnings. In 2024, five states have ballots to determine if they too will eliminate the practice of paying tipped workers subminimum wage: Michigan, Arizona, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

- 'Job misery' index: 84.3
- Median pay: $22,800
- 'High meaning' score: 33%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 53%

It seems helping people with their bags doesn't offer much happiness, especially when the average wage is $10 an hour. Most porters and bellhops count on tips to supplement their incomes. The position is also physically demanding, especially for those working long hours.

- 'Job misery' index: 84.5
- Median pay: $24,300
- 'High meaning' score: 42%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 46%

This position has terrible growth prospects as the field of digital photography continues to expand. Those who can't bear to leave the industry entirely are likely to find more promising prospects by instead becoming photographers.

- 'Job misery' index: 84.6
- Median pay: $38,300
- 'High meaning' score: 25%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 51%

Widespread computer use in desktop publishing for tasks such as page layout has stunted job growth prospects for prepress technicians and workers. Industry workers might have better luck becoming engravers or designers.

- 'Job misery' index: 85.2
- Median pay: $22,500
- 'High meaning' score: 33%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 51%

More than half of the restaurant cooks surveyed reported satisfaction working in the kitchen, although it seems cooks struggle as much as bartenders to find meaning in their work. In January 2024, esteemed chef Gordon Ramsay made an appearance on the YouTube series "Last Meal" and said U.S. culinary schools "sandbag" students with debt before sending them into a low-wage industry. When you look at the numbers, it's hard to argue with that—as The Conversation notes, an academic year at the Culinary Institute of America in New York will cost just over $52,000 and the median salary for a chef or head cook is $56,520, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

- 'Job misery' index: 85.3
- Median pay: $22,900
- 'High meaning' score: 34%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 50%

There has been a shrinking need for human packers and packagers as companies like Amazon increasingly automate tasks. Most hand packagers also move on to find other employment once they accumulate more than a decade of experience.

- 'Job misery' index: 87.1
- Median pay: $20,600
- 'High meaning' score: 36%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 45%

A short-order cook is considered an undesirable job by many. That's due in part to the gig's long nights, lackluster growth prospects, and mediocre pay. Mix in little opportunity for advancement and it's no wonder being a short-order cook ranks as one of the worst jobs in the United States.

- 'Job misery' index: 87.5
- Median pay: $18,400
- 'High meaning' score: 33%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 47%

The monotony of standing all shift can certainly take a toll on workers. But cashiers actually face far worse problems on the job: Compared with other workers, they're often victims of robbery and homicide.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, working as a cashier at a grocery store or pharmacy became frontline work, but that didn't mean more pay—a 2020 report on the topic published in the journal "Toxicology and Industrial Health" found that the average hourly wage for a cashier was $11.17 an hour, below the American livable wage of $16.54 per hour. A review from Stacker found that it was one of the 10 lowest-paying jobs in America.

- 'Job misery' index: 87.8
- Median pay: $19,000
- 'High meaning' score: 33%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 46%

While the median wage is low for this industry, those who work in food preparation for rail transportation stand to make more than twice what workers in other areas of this category make. California, Florida, New York, Texas, and Ohio have the highest employment levels for food preparation and serving workers in the country. As of April 2024, a new law in California raised the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 per hour, making them the highest-paid fast-food workers nationwide.

- 'Job misery' index: 88.6
- Median pay: $17,800
- 'High meaning' score: 28%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 48%

There are plenty of reasons not to want to work in the fast food industry, least of all the way you smell at the end of a shift—like the food you have been cooking. Most fast-food places also don't give their employees, including cooks, time off for the holidays, nor do they receive benefits.

- 'Job misery' index: 88.8
- Median pay: $36,000
- 'High meaning' score: 26%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 41%

This position ranks low for meaning, satisfaction, and growth prospects. There's also not much opportunity to find U.S. jobs in this sector. Even in populous states like California and Texas, employment figures are at or below 3,000 workers..

- 'Job misery' index: 89.6
- Median pay: $26,500
- 'High meaning' score: 26%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 43%

Job numbers for counter and rental clerks are expected to rise in the next decade. Still, most people working these jobs move on to other positions after a decade in the field. In some case that may be because of fatigue from dealing so often with angry, demanding customers.

- 'Job misery' index: 89.9
- Median pay: $34,000
- 'High meaning' score: 32%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 35%

Job prospects for this manufacturing job are expected to decline in coming years as more companies outsource manufacturing jobs overseas. Robots also have replaced the human touch in many positions in this sector.

- 'Job misery' index: 90.2
- Median pay: $18,700
- 'High meaning' score: 35%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 39%

Working in laundry and dry cleaning comes with its own set of hazards. Studies suggest a strong correlation between exposure to dry cleaning chemicals and cancer. The data, backed up by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, doesn't bode well for those working in the jobs. A chemical called perc is still widely used despite an EPA warning about it.

- 'Job misery' index: 90.6
- Median pay: $19,400
- 'High meaning' score: 33%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 39%

Dining room workers are essential to the hospitality industry. These folks clean tables, remove dirty dishes, and serve water, coffee, or other items. Workers who find these jobs in the grant making and giving services sector stand to make more than the median; one annual salary estimate is nearly $38,000.

- 'Job misery' index: 91.4
- Median pay: $18,300
- 'High meaning' score: 29%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 40%

Dishwashers are essential to any smooth-running restaurant. Yet these workers also are among the most underappreciated and underpaid employees in a food establishment. They work long hours, don't receive tips, and work with little to no recognition.

- 'Job misery' index: 97.2
- Median pay: $19,700
- 'High meaning' score: 5%
- 'High satisfaction' score: 41%

Although parking lot attendants are still in demand and will be for the foreseeable future, this position ranks highest on the list of the worst jobs. The job can take a toll on the bodies of workers who are stuck outside in terrible weather. Parking attendants also must deal with a lot of boredom, and a scant sense of meaning. In response to the Payscale study's findings on meaningful jobs, one former parking attendant wrote an essay about his experience in the industry, saying that it "helped [him] become a better person" and "made it easy for [him] to find meaning elsewhere."

Additional writing by Frederick Reese and Cu Fleshman.