“the professions you mentioned are important UT are not in the same category. They don’t require specialized, hard to find skills.”
That is not true at all. Teaching is one of the hardest jobs around and requires many, many varied skills. There may be poor teachers, but most really bad teachers don’t last very long. It is very hard to discipline and have classroom maintenance, and a teacher who can’t do it will not last.
In the Frum world, there is often a lot of competition for teaching jobs, so you have to be good.
And there are certainly many very talented teachers around, and the fact that there are bad teachers doesn’t take away from that. And all teachers work very hard!
In any case, how skilled you have to be has nothing to do with this discussion. My point was that they work hard and contribute a lot to society.
“Making a movie is is actually hard work.”
Playing games can also be hard work, but it’s not referred to as work. I was using the term “work” to refer to the contribution to society.
“whether or not they benefit society is the eye of the beholder.”
From a Torah perspective, there is such a thing as “absolute truth”, and the fact that there may be different opinions on something does not necessarily mean they are all correct.
In any case, even if you want to say that “whether or not they benefit society is in the eyes of the beholder”, then you can certainly say that those who are receiving benefits because their jobs don’t pay enough certainly have the right to say that they are working hard to benefit society and they have a right to take the benefits they are entitled to, and should not be made to feel guilty because their jobs happen not to pay enough. And no one has a right to speak badly of them.