Do Pretty People Earn More?

You know the
woman -- the one who could wear a paper bag to a board meeting and
still manage to look both beautiful and perfectly professional. As if
it weren't annoying enough that she maintains her obnoxiously flat abs
by lifting doughnuts to her mouth, it turns out your gorgeous co-worker
may also be out-earning her less genetically-blessed colleagues.

Good
looks can have a real impact on workers' bank accounts, according to
research by Daniel Hamermesh and Jeff Biddle published in the Journal
of Labor Economics. Attractive people earn about 5 percent more in
hourly pay than their average-looking colleagues, who in turn earn 9
percent more per hour than the plainest-looking workers.

This
means if an average-looking person earned $40,000, their prettiest
co-workers would make $42,000 while their least attractive colleagues
brought home just $36,400.

Plain-looking workers may also receive fewer promotions than those awarded to their more striking contemporaries.

Steven D. Spitz, D.M.D. and owner of cosmetic dentistry firm Smile