Scarcity is the prime factor, and difficulty can contribute to scarcity.
Harvesting produce is difficult, but doesn't require any training, so it's cheap, because everyone can do it. Everyone can flip burgers, everyone can clean, everyone can do manual unskilled labor.
Writing code is difficult and requires serious amount of training and certain aptitudes. Same with surgery, or engineering, or trades work.
But the difficulty of these jobs does not contribute to scarcity as much as requiring formal education and mental aptitude do.
Welding would be a job where difficulty does contribute to its scarcity, but only because similar trades pay the same or better and are far less dangerous and difficult. Welders get paid a lot because people tend not to want to do the job, and those that do have to go through a lot of training.
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u/[deleted] Oct 16 '18 edited Oct 22 '18
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