‘Worth Being Broke’: The Brutal Reason Librarians Keep Accepting Poverty Wages

On Reddit's r/GirlDinnerDiaries, a woman spoke of turning down her dream job as a children's librarian because it paid $13 an hour. She posted a photo of "ice cream with magic shell," and tagged it "sad girl dinner."

With more than 5,600 upvotes, the post describes how the original poster interviewed for a children's librarian position at a small rural public library. She wrote that the interview went exceptionally well. "The directors seemed excited to meet me and impressed [by] my knowledge," she wrote. "I was excited and fell in love with the position."

Then she got to know that the pay was $13 an hour with city-paid insurance, a retirement plan, a longevity bonus and a Christmas stipend. But while that would cover her bills and care for her pets, it would have left nothing for loans, savings or even subscriptions.

Sadly, it pays less than her current job as a department manager at Walmart, where she earns $20 an hour. The woman wants to leave because of a chronic pain condition that gets worse when she is on her feet for hours every day. "I'm depressed (...), and I want to leave so badly, but I don't want to just barely survive," she wrote.

$13-an-hour is low compared to what most librarians earn. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual wage for librarians and library media specialists was about $30.92 an hour in May 2024. Entry-level positions start lower, sure, but the BLS says the bottom 10% of earners still made at least $38,920 annually.

However, the poster's role was not a credentialed librarian position in the traditional sense. She is pursuing a state certification at a small, single-librarian facility. Thus, a commenter who said they were a U.S. library paraprofessional wrote: "[We] earn around $22 starting pay, but that's with that master's degree, and it really varies a LOT."

Several commenters pointed to a concept called "vocational awe." The term was coined by librarian and researcher Fobazi Ettarh in 2018 and is defined it as "the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique." The poster saw this, too, as the outgoing library director told her it was "worth being broke to have such a wonderful job."

"Librarian here," wrote another commenter. "Find something that pays the bills. It's insulting how badly this field pays (...) Employers know they're getting people who have a love for the job, and they exploit that. Just look up 'vocational awe' and libraries."

The original poster also noted that her mother teaches and earns less than she (the daughter) does at Walmart! So, for now, the poster plans to push for a counteroffer if she gets a second interview with the city manager, though even then, the math may not work.

"$13/hour simply isn't enough," she concluded.