As union workers are forced to make big sacrifices, a tough job that used to promise security and the American dream becomes a lot less appealing.

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Show me the money! See jobs that pay $75/hour and more. Search dozens of jobs based on rate of pay. Many don't require a degree, and the range of job industries is diverse. Whether you're interested in health care, nursing, education, finance or hospitality, there are plenty of jobs to choose from.

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By Tiffany Miller

There's more to life than money -- that's for sure. Even so, it doesn't hurt to launch your career with a ground-floor salary that can pay the rent and student loans with a little spending money to spare. Not to mention that a higher starting salary can mean a better compensation throughout your career. The PayScale.com Salary Survey has identified these ten exciting jobs that offer total compensation packages close to or above an impressive $50,000 per year right from the start.

Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder.com writer

If you work a salaried position, the numbers you're most familiar with are probably the ones that show up in your bank account. When you're used to getting paid a certain amount of money every year, it's unlikely that you've boiled your compensation down to what you're earning per hour.

The national mean average salary is $42,504, according to the National Compensation Survey. That boils down to $3,269.54 per month and $817.38 per week. Divide that by the standard 40-hour workweek and you're making $20.43 per hour. Not too shabby, eh?

Selena Dehne, JIST Publishing

Recent college graduates sometimes have unrealistic expectations about how much money they will begin making in their entry-level jobs. Now, with job cuts soaring and employers increasingly cutting budgets and implementing hiring freezes, many young people have discovered that the salary they initially envisioned is even more difficult to come by during an economic downturn.

Despite these obstacles, current college students and recent graduates can still put themselves on the right track to a high-paying career, according to Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., and Michael Farr, co-authors of "200 Best Jobs for College Graduates, Fourth Edition."