It has been well-documented that there is a significant divide between player salaries in Major League Soccer. For a league that’s still getting its legs after only thirteen years in existence, it is easy to see why that is — as the league tries to bolster its image and fanbase with larger signings in the Beckham mold, developmental players are de-emphasized. With time, salaries for lower-tier players should rise as the league finds success. But the thorny issue remains in the present: there are a large amount of professional soccer players in the United States that don’t even come close to making a living wage playing professionally.

Of course, D.C. United is no exception.

That said, I thought that I’d go through the numbers and see exactly how wide the breach is between the haves and the have-nots. In order to lend credence to their (potentially accurate) claim that most MLS players are underpaid, the MLS Players Union has released salaries for each player in the league for the last two years. A complete scan of United’s salaries and compensation in 2008 — and some basic analysis — provide some striking figures about MLS’ disparity of wages.