Best and Worst Jobs

Today, the Wall Street Journal highlights CareerCast's list of the best and worst jobs in the United States. The rankings are based on income, working environment, stress, physical demands and job outlook, using Labor Department and Census Bureau data.

A handful of the jobs that made it into the top 50 are specifically public sector positions, such as parole officer, school principal and tax examiner/collector. Many others could be done by civil servants, including software engineer, accountant, economist, and computer programmer.

But perhaps not surprisingly, a longer list of specifically public sector jobs fell into the bottom 50 category: correction officer, bus driver, highway patrol officer, mail carrier, firefighter, garbage collector and police officer.

At least the lowest-rated job wasn't in government. That would be "roustabout."