With Americans facing rising inflation, unaffordable housing, and soaring prices at the grocery store and gas pump, many might be looking for new ways to make money.
That’s where Hannah Williams might be able to help. She’s a Washington, D.C., social media personality who interviews people on the street about their jobs and salaries.
She also advocates for pay transparency, the idea that employers should be open about what they pay. The pay transparency movement has grown more popular in recent years, particularly as advocates call attention to gender and racial wage gaps in the U.S.
The 29-year-old has interviewed well over 1,000 people in more than 20 states — from dog walkers to those selling bottled water and candy scientists — for her series Salary Transparent Street, which has earned millions of followers across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms since it first launched in 2022. Williams was inspired to start the series after finding out she was underpaid while working as a data analyst. Salary Transparent Street quickly went viral, and earlier this year, it was acquired by media company NowThis. Williams, today, makes $150,000 a year as the supervising producer and host.
“It’s very enlightening to break out of this corporate mindset of this nine-to-five, and you need a degree, and you have to follow this path,” she said. “Truly, you can make money doing anything. You just have to be creative, have a mission, have a plan, and it’s possible. I’ve seen it in real life.”
Williams spoke to The Independent, breaking down some of the most surprising salaries and fascinating jobs she’s encountered over the years.
The surprise high-earners
Some might think a six-figure salary requires climbing the corporate ladder or earning an advanced degree. But Williams’ interviews reveal there are all sorts of high-earning career paths out there.
One example of people making “surprisingly good pay” are vendors selling bottles of water near the White House, Williams said. Each year, tens of millions of people visit Washington, D.C., where summer tends to bring scorching temperatures and high humidity.
One water vendor she interviewed said he makes $3,000 to $4,000 a week, putting his annual earnings in the six figures.
“I’ve been doing this for about 15, 16 years. … A lot of tourists come down here every day, and they’re unprepared. Most times, they get overcharged at a vending stand, so I come at a fair marketable price at a dollar,” the vendor told Williams.
Williams has also spoken to dog walkers who said they’re making $100,000 a year. The pet-sitting business has been booming in recent years, particularly in large metropolitan areas such as New York City. Many find work through Rover, a platform that connects pet owners with local sitters and dog walkers who sign up through the app and set their own schedules and prices.
Williams has even encountered jobs she didn’t know existed such as a “candy scientist” she interviewed on the streets of Portland, Oregon, who said his annual salary was over $70,000. By posting interviews with people working unique jobs, Williams hopes her audience can learn about new career paths they otherwise wouldn’t have considered.
“You could be a candy connoisseur and really into science, so the perfect job for you is a candy scientist, but if we don’t talk about these jobs and showcase them on channels like ours, a lot of people don’t know that they exist,” she said.
‘Underpaid and undervalued’
Since launching the show four years ago, Williams said there’s one industry with salaries that have “shocked me since day one”: social services.
Social workers, teachers and janitors are all “so underpaid and undervalued,” she explained. Williams noted that she’s never interviewed a janitor making more than $30,000 (that’s below the federal poverty line for a family of four).
Williams also pointed to medical students and doctors starting residencies, a period of hands-on training that physicians complete after graduating from medical school. Residents stay in their roles for years and typically make less than $100,000 annually while often working long hours, she said. Most are also facing student loan payments, with the average medical student owing more than $200,000, according to the Education Data Initiative.
“It’s conversations with those workers that I really wish I had more time with, that I could ask them: ‘How do you make this work? How do you make it happen?’” Williams said.
Speak up, pay up
Williams hopes her work will empower other workers to advocate for themselves.
“I felt really motivated to go out there and create content that would empower workers just by using our voice and exercising our legal rights,” she said.
Her influence has gone far beyond social media, too. Williams has been asked to testify before lawmakers in support of pay transparency bills in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., all of which have since passed, she said. These types of laws typically require employers to disclose compensation information, among other things.
“Pay transparency laws, I think, are going to be the next thing that’s going to be a nationwide federal law, at least that’s what I’m hoping,” Williams said.
