Woah very cool. Excuse my ignorance but is "mutual aid" a term for helping out your neighbor? Which is something people have always done but it often sounds like when people use the term "mutual aid" it is a bit more organized. Does that ring true for you?
I would certainly recommend picking a field of study and work for more reasons than just the money. As a counter point to your plot, I have seen small career moves result in huge pay increases.
Added to the tally. I'm not sure if the tally is larger or smaller than I expected.