What makes the job of a biochemist different than the job of the chemist?

Biochemists tend to work with living things.

 

Hence 'bio'.

Biochemisty is a subsect of chemistry. Typically, a "chemist" deals with primarily inorganic molecules (i.e. non-carbon based). Biochemists work with the chemical processes inside living things, like MrL said. They work closely along side organic chemists, and the line is probably somewhat blurred between biochemists and organic chemists.

The most obvious overlap is in protein interactions

Of course the line is somewhat blurred between biochemists and inorganic chemists too (ie. studying metals in biological systems). Really, there is quite a bit of overlap between all the chemical disaplines.

The complexity of biochemical systems (i.e. macromolecules) would make most organic chemists (who work more with small molecules) quiver. Organic and inorganic chemists have all kinds of fantastic physical chemical techniques that work on small molecules, but all bets are off with proteins because they fold and have all kinds of non-covalent interactions and such - but the base principles are the same and there is a lot of overlap.

 

Cookie

The average salary of a biochemist is 26,000$ with a B.S and 52,000$ with a Ph.D. For a chemist it's 40,000$ with a B.S and 90,000$ with a Ph.D. Why are biochemists so poorly paid?

Probably because industrial chemists make so much money for the company.

I`m with Cookie 100% on this, She`s just described me perfectly! Inorganics all day long for me, I`ll touch on organics if I must, as for Bio-chem, forget it! LOL