Oh, I completely agree we should pay our taxes– but this swings the other way too, for stocks/equities, which themselves under long-term capital gains can be taxed at much less than income (which a certain segment of US population would consider a form of legal tax evasion) or at a certain point borrowed against ad-infinitum without paying taxes, and the fact that tradespeople will often pay much more in sales tax than office workers. What is legal and what is not in terms of paying taxes _is itself_ a high level policy decision meant to incentivize a certain way of work/living– just look at the tax policies around W4 employees versus 1099 contractors, or NSOs vs ISOs, filing jointly vs married, child and education tax credits, or really anything the IRS makes a decision on ever.

My point is it's just not at all a 1-1 comparison when determining "total compensation" across sectors like this, and that median income is a bad metric to use on its own to determine whether someone would be better off going to college or learning a trade.