As for the struggling part, if you control for cost of living the picture is going to look a lot different.
Fishing? 3.0 Bituminous coal underground mining? 3.0
Framing contractors? 4.5 Soft drink manufacturing? 4.8
Leather and hide tanning and finishing? 7.1
Computer systems design and related services? 0.1
Fatal injury rates fall along the same lines [1], and programmers commit suicide at less than 1/2 the rate of high risk occupations [2].
There's a difference between going home mentally exhausted, and being unable to go into work because your body is that injured.
Or to put it another way: if you were offered your equivalent salary, would you go fish Alaskan king crab or join a logging crew tomorrow?
[0] https://www.bls.gov/web/osh/summ1_00.htm (Table 1) https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/case/cd_r4_2019.htm (Table R4)
[1] https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cftb0332.htm (Table A-5, Fatal incident counts by occupation) https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-inju... (Occupations with the highest rates)
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/pdfs/mm6903a1-H.pdf (Suicide Rates by Industry and Occupation, 2016)
Having said that, would you settle for "diligent"?
Which isn't to say that we aren't putting in work, or doing our best, or burning the candle, or creating amazing things.
You can do all of those things, and still not have as difficult a job as someone else. Because all work isn't the same.
And so I take a chunk of umbrage at whinging about the unfairness that we make so little while doing so much. "... struggle through and at best maybe make a decent living..." is a pretty damned entitled way to see the world.