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Retirement

This Surprising Career Is One of the Top 5 for Minting Millionaires

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Money; illustration AI-generated using Claude

Key Takeaways

High-paying jobs aren't required to build wealth.
A Ramsey Solutions survey found that teachers rank among the top vocations for millionaires due to their disciplined saving habits and tendency to live within their means.
Half of elementary school teachers make $62,340 or less per year. But long-term financial security relies heavily on consistent habits, like taking advantage of employer-sponsored retirement plans and allowing small, recurring investments to compound over several decades.

It's easy to assume that you need a high-paying career to achieve financial success. Many Americans are raised to believe that being a CEO, doctor or professional athlete is an automatic meal ticket.

However, while those roles often result in high net worths, data actually suggests that the jobs responsible for minting the most millionaires are common, practical and, in one instance, notoriously low-paying.

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A few years ago, Ramsey Solutions surveyed 10,000 millionaires from across the U.S. about their backgrounds. The result? Engineers, accountants, managers, attorneys and teachers were the vocations responsible for producing the highest number of net-worth millionaires.

While much of this list makes sense at first glance, teachers' inclusion may come as a shock. Federal data shows that the average pay for elementary school educators is $72,650, with 50% making $62,340 or less. That's only slightly above the median salary of all full-time workers in the country.

So how have so many educators achieved millionaire status? Money spoke with financial experts to find out.

Behavior, not income, determines financial security

Teachers have a reputation for living within (or even below) their means, avoiding lifestyle creep and being long-term planners. But what Ramsey Solutions found is that intentional saving goes a long way: 8 out of 10 millionaires invested in their companies' 401(k)s, while 3 out of 4 millionaires said that regular, consistent investing over a long period of time was the reason for their success.

That is the type of financial behavior required for long-term wealth-building, according to Greg Welborn, principal at First Financial Consulting.

"There are two key distinguishers between who can become a millionaire and who isn't going to become a millionaire," Welborn says. "Discipline is one. Perception is the other... and perception can prevent you from adopting good behavior because you just think the game is rigged and you're never going to get there. So why try?"

Of course, becoming a millionaire is not only about having a can-do attitude. In the U.S, teachers also enjoy a benefit that few in private sector roles do: state-sponsored defined benefit plans, or pensions, that the vast majority of educators are auto-enrolled in.

Broadly, automatic plan enrollment has increased participation while compelling workers to save for retirement. As a whole, local and state government workers — a group in which public school teachers belong — now have plan participation rates of 89%.

Most of those plans offer employer matches up to a certain limit, and teachers benefit immediately because they are enrolled in them from Day One.

"It's found money, and people underestimate how powerful it is," Welborn says. "You compound that over a lot of years, and that's a lot of money."

Where People Are Earning With High-Yield Savings Accounts

Discipline, perception and auto-enrollment factor in across all five of the careers listed in the Ramsey Solutions study. Meanwhile, Welborn says he has seen high-income earners in other professions who are entirely unprepared for retirement at the mid-point of their careers.

One client whose annual income was in the mid-six figures exhibited such poor financial decision-making — like falling victim to lifestyle creep and excessive spending — that he was ill-equipped to retire by his intended target date.

"It had nothing to do with what he was earning," Welborn says. "It had to do with what he was not saving."

Rather than focusing on higher pay, he says that low- to moderate-income earners should understand the ability of small sums to compound over time. For instance, a person at 25 who starts investing $325 each month into a broad equity fund held in a tax-advantaged account will, over the course of a 40-year career, end up with $1 million saved for retirement.

How student loans and relationship status affect wealth-building

Many higher-income professions require advanced degrees, and student loan debt can indefinitely delay savings. Identifying a specific break-even point at which the burden of those loans outweighs the return on investment of the higher-paying career is difficult, but it is possible.

Wilborn encourages students picking their career paths to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of what they are likely to pay for a degree relative to the value that it provides them through career earnings.

"There is absolutely a point at which you should not spend more money for a college or even a graduate degree," he says.

Currently, 40% of teachers have outstanding student loans on which they pay an average of $342 per month. By comparison, 70% of 2025 medical school graduates have student loan debt. Their average obligation — including both undergraduate and medical school debt — is nearly $247,000.

Another factor is marriage. Combining finances and sharing fixed expenses can mitigate risk, provide tax advantages and foster an environment in which partners hold each other accountable for their financial habits.

That's something teachers are doing in droves. According to the Pew Research Center, 51% of U.S. adults are married, and 66% of Americans holding bachelor's degrees are married. But Phillip Bronsdon, managing member of Bronsdon Family Investments, notes that more than 73% of teachers have successfully tied the knot.

"Divorce kills net worth," he says. "I strongly believe the marriage rate [for teachers] is the X factor."

What millionaires who have dedicated their careers to education can teach us is that time, discipline and intentional savings are the most important factors in determining long-term wealth.

Behavior, not outright income, is the key. Rather than being discouraged by working in a lower-income profession, embrace proactive savings habits.

"One of the worst things you can do is give up before you've even started," Welborn says.