If someone would have told me in the mid-1970s when I graduated from high school that I should get a job as a cop or fireman so I could get $100 an hour RETIRED I would have laughed at them.
Good coin was 10-15 bucks an hour for WORKING.
Biggest mistake I’ve made in life is becoming an upper tier White Collar worker. No overtime for many thousands of overtime hours. Retirement at 67 while I watch many of my pears retire in their 40’s and 50’s living comfortably on my tax dollars.
Yup, makes me wonder about that career choice. One of my neighbors is a retired fire captain - at 55 years old. $155,000 per year for the rest of his life.
All done to hire “the most qualified”. And, having been one, in the South where they don’t make anything, there is some truth to that. Cops, especially, have to make a split second decision, retell the story in the form of a report and in court, where they get picked apart by a defense attorney.
Do you want some kid that barely made it thru high school on the witness stand that has no idea what the $10 words mean? I’ve been subject to it. And when the defense attorney’s realize that you can speak their language, they back off real quick if the case is decent.
But, there’s a lot of competition to hire the “right” people, so departments offer more and more. It’s nothing for 80,000 people to sign up for the Suffolk County, NY police test for 150 positions.
On the flip side, millennials DO NOT WANT TO BECOME COPS, FIREMEN OR EMTs, no matter how much you pay them. Whether it’s due to selfishness, being a p*ssy, or hating the police, they aren’t going into the field and lots of people are retiring.