Given the current job market, and their lack of any kind of transferrable skill, or work experience, or education, they are very much overpaid.

They're LUCKY they're not unemployed, given the professional acumen most screeners I've seen have, the arrogant attitudes, the lack of education, etc. If you graduated top of your class at Harvard Law School and interned at 3 different law firms where your research helped win a dozen different class action cases, no, you can be a complete ......... and firms will STILL be banging down your door giving you job offers. But this isn't the case. The TSA screeners, as far as I can tell, aren't very smart, do they think critically all that much. And as far as I can tell, no TSA screener graduated top of his/her class ANYWHERE.

They're LUCKY they're not subject to the free market. If I ran a law firm/company/bank/consultancy, I wouldn't hire these people to be the doorman. Not even the janitor. I'm afraid they'd assault my clients because they're "underpaid" and hate their jobs. If you hate your job so much, go to college and get a BA in something marketable like the rest of us.

Of course this doesn't apply to ALL screeners, there are professional, courteous screeners out there, I have yet to see one.