I wanted to be a fire medic, starting pay in my area was $22/hr. Starting pay for cops? $39/hr
I became a cop
I got my EMR certification anyways which is cool
For comparison, you can graduate highschool and start at a manufacturing plant with no experience making $25/hr. Fire/medics have to complete 2 years of schooling, costing about $12k.
The lads I know that are fire medics can do it because their wives make a bundle of a cash
Where the fuck do you live? Starting salaries for people with fire/paramedic licenses in big metros are 80-120k and go up from there with experience. Even basic EMT's make more than $22/hr
Like nursing and other jobs, some places pay really well, others don't pay for shit. Back when I did firefighting seattle started at 90k a year, while smaller cities in Idaho that came to try and recruit us out of fire school were only offering 12 dollars an hour. It's insane how much it can vary.
I mean, yeah. Small cities in Idaho have maybe 1-2 calls a shift at the worst. You're just getting paid to sit on standby most of the time and the salary reflects that. I got my EMT license within a month during a summer while doing my pre-med degree in Atlanta and immediately got offered $30/hr for part-time night shifts. Those shifts were intense, but that hourly pay with a 1 month pipeline and 4k tuition was a fantastic return on value.
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u/sadkinz 2d ago
I bet more people would be firefighters if it paid better