Asklemmy

I would certainly recommend picking a field of study and work for more reasons than just the money. As a counter point to your plot, I have seen small career moves result in huge pay increases.

Its funny, I'm.the one that makes the least amout of money in my team. They hired 2 new people and both make 30% more than me. Besides the fact that I'm a woman I'm the one that puts the least effort into things and I don't want to be promoted or to have "more responsibility" so I'm fine with it and so is the company. I do the bare minimun and go home happy. no extra learning, certifications, politics...nothing.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb talks about this when he explains his own career. He realized the amount of effort he had in him was never going to change, so he wanted a field where earnings weren't limited by his own effort - the dream of passive income. He became an expert on risk and a well known writer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb

The green curve would be higher that the red one everywhere.

Become self-employed, don't charge by time but delivered projects/products.

You don't promote good workers, the job description changes with promotion so the previously good worker might not be (as) good anymore.

Good workers with lots of expertise and know-how get more work.

[off topic]

There's at least one store I know of in New York City that's been making money off of doing VCR repairs for decades. A lot of companies invested in big video displays back in the day and it would cost far more to replace everything than it does to keep the antique tech going.

Some people are still learning Cobol.

https://www.cio.com/article/240709/why-its-time-to-learn-cobol.html

If you can find a niche tech like that it would make sense.

I think there are many good replies already, but I feel one consideration is missing: time.

If you have the time for only one job, why wouldn't you take one paying more, even if it requires a bit more skills to achieve? You are going to do that for a long while, so living more comfortably has a value.

Amateur. You need to get a PhD to be some tenured fogie's personal whipping boy. /s

If you're looking at actual good paying jobs and not weird passion-fueled ones, or at the other end bullshit nepobaby ones, maybe this is accurate, IDK.