Anonymous wrote:Their salary isn’t 240k. It’s much lower. If you’re very senior and work a ton of overtime it might add up to a higher number.

Much easier, better pay, ans hours in a white collar job.

This isn’t particularly accurate anymore. And private companies have no loyalty to employees

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a firefighter or law enforcement, but my young nephew is an EMT and wants to work his way up to paramedic. So far so good and he’s happy, except he’s not happy with low EMT salary. Paramedics earn more and have a larger scope of responsibility.

Good for him, I applaud his willingness to help people in need. Once he earns his paramedic certification he should definitely consider firefighting. They desperately need paramedics because a majority of their call outs are medical in nature.

Thank you. He’s interested in firefighting also; he’s a NYC EMT and EMT has a partnership to get into the fire department, but it’s still a long wait and not a sure bet. But he’s already learning so much.

I’m glad this thread was posted and has had so many responses.

Anonymous wrote:My dad was a police captain. He was making $150k a year and that was 20 years ago. At that point he was mostly doing white collar management work at a desk. He retired in his early 50s on a $100k/year pension and started his own business. There are drawbacks as in any job but there are also rewards.

These days not many jobs provide a guaranteed stream of income for life. That’s an amazing asset when you’re doing your long term financial planning. When you supplement it with a Roth over 25-30 years an officer could easily build another $1M nest egg, nevermind the potential retirement savings of their spouse. Then you tack on SS if it still exists.

My dad was a police captain. He was making $150k a year and that was 20 years ago. At that point he was mostly doing white collar management work at a desk. He retired in his early 50s on a $100k/year pension and started his own business. There are drawbacks as in any job but there are also rewards.

Anonymous wrote:Not a firefighter or law enforcement, but my young nephew is an EMT and wants to work his way up to paramedic. So far so good and he’s happy, except he’s not happy with low EMT salary. Paramedics earn more and have a larger scope of responsibility.

Good for him, I applaud his willingness to help people in need. Once he earns his paramedic certification he should definitely consider firefighting. They desperately need paramedics because a majority of their call outs are medical in nature.

Not a firefighter or law enforcement, but my young nephew is an EMT and wants to work his way up to paramedic. So far so good and he’s happy, except he’s not happy with low EMT salary. Paramedics earn more and have a larger scope of responsibility.

Anonymous wrote:If everyone starts pursuing these jobs, salaries will be compressed.

Also, unions are part of why they have pensions and overtime — those will be likely be weakened or abolished.

Our relative in VA has no union but does have a pension. Aren’t these retirement benefits provided by city, county or state governments.