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Social worker
- Median pay: $44,300
- % who say their job is stressful: 93%
Meredith Van Ness' first job after receiving her master's in social work was helping people with severe mental illnesses who were unable to take care of themselves.
Her caseload was heavy and Van Ness felt great pressure to avoid any mistakes that could hurt her client's futures.
Most social workers deal with extremely troubled clients like these, which can tax emotions and even the physical strength of social workers, she said. But many find ways to cope with the stress: Van Ness relies on exercise, like skiing, hiking and biking.
Methodology: Starting from a database of more than 9,000 jobs, PayScale used data from over 120,000 respondents who rated their jobs for quality of life factors. The top 15 were selected based on the national median pay for workers with at least five or seven years' experience and the percent of workers surveyed who said their jobs were "fairly stressful" or "extremely stressful." They were then ranked in order of pay, lowest to highest. Only jobs with median pay less than $50,000 were eligible., and only one job per "job family" was included. PayScale conducted the survey between August 2010 and August 2012.
- Last updated March 07 2013 08:59 AM ET
