How New Yorkers Make It There

June 16, 2013 7:50 AM

New York magazine, via Reddit, compares how much people in New York City get paid to do thier jobs.
posted by The Whelk (86 comments total)

Considering how expensive NYC is, I'm shocked at how little some professionals are getting paid in some areas.
posted by xingcat at 7:53 AM on June 16, 2013 [8 favorites]

There's a reason why so many of my married friends still live with roommates.
posted by Narrative Priorities at 7:58 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Many of the incomes reported for certain fields are ridiculously low compared to what I know friends in those fields make.
posted by slkinsey at 7:58 AM on June 16, 2013

It also tells us how much Reddit's demo skews toward Tech and sitting at a desk all day jobs.
posted by The Whelk at 7:58 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Some of those people could easily double their salary while moving to a place with a lower cost of living.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:59 AM on June 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

Some of those people could easily double their salary while moving to a place with a lower cost of living.

This is *precisely* my own experience. Back in 1995, I got a 75% salary bump, and a simultaneous 50% cut in cost of living, by moving from NY to Atlanta.
posted by deadmessenger at 8:04 AM on June 16, 2013

It also tells us how much Reddit's demo skews toward Tech and sitting at a desk all day jobs.

Not to mention that the cohort of people who hang out and post on Reddit seem to be low earners for their fields. Maybe this reflects age, or something else. Just as an example, I must know a dozen NYC people in various admin/secretarial type jobs (a common day job for educated arts types), and they are all earning north of $65k.
posted by slkinsey at 8:06 AM on June 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

Interesting, especially since I learned a new word: "permalance." Heh heh heh.
posted by flyingsquirrel at 8:08 AM on June 16, 2013

Obviously these are people with jobs that allow them time for redditing- I look on there too, so no judgement there. My occupation is also listed and I make more than the salary given. So let's not be too quick to judge given income versus "that's how much all x make in NYC for this given job".

Also this is obviously a skewed sample, and let's also state the obvious- people live in NYC often because they WANT to live in NYC. Even if you are broke, don't have a dishwasher and have five flights of stairs to contend with every time you want to leave your apartment. (ahem).

Sorry for saying obvious so many times, obviously!
posted by bquarters at 8:15 AM on June 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

It's all cover charge for living in the greatest city in the world, people.
posted by gertzedek at 8:24 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

let's also state the obvious- people live in NYC often because they WANT to live in NYC. Even if you are broke, don't have a dishwasher and have five flights of stairs to contend with every time you want to leave your apartment. (ahem).

thank you for saying this - you have no idea how hard I was biting my tongue after this comment.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:43 AM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

I asked google how much a garbage collector and how much a plumber makes in New York.

It claimed 80K & 85K.

There was a piece on This American Life a few years ago that when a position opens for a sanitation worker in New York they have a hundred people apply for the job.
posted by bukvich at 8:44 AM on June 16, 2013

Also a lot of jobs exist here that don't exist elsewhere.
posted by The Whelk at 8:44 AM on June 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

My wife would have to take a $60k hit if we moved home. My businesses would probably go from profit to nothing. Every kind of labor market is so saturated that it's hard to get real money unless you're a finance person or one of the hereditary rich. But I'd still go back in a second if I could, because it really is a fantastic place. Exile in the provinces sucks.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:44 AM on June 16, 2013

It would be interesting to see these self-reported numbers (but impossible, obviously) side by side with the actual numbers.

Not that I'm calling these folks liars, just that I would like to examine how self-reporting in a public (sort-of-anonymous) forum skews things.

My gut tells me that some of the salaries listed are lower than average for their field out of a perhaps-unconscious desire not to appear too 1-percent-y. But that's just a wild-ass guess, thus my impossible-to-fulfill desire to see hard data next to the soft.
posted by dersins at 8:48 AM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

Which if true belies a misundering of the 1 percent concept its not people who make $200,000 a year its people who make $200,000 a day.

Although honestly I think reddit skews younger and more poor than Conde Nast would like to admit
posted by The Whelk at 8:51 AM on June 16, 2013

Also a lot of jobs exist here that don't exist elsewhere.

I checked Idealist for nonprofit jobs in other cities- in NYC there are a dozen or more posts a day for work in my field. In Chicago, a couple a week. In my home state, one or two a month.

Lower cost of living don't mean much if your income is zero...
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:52 AM on June 16, 2013 [9 favorites]

As interesting as impromptu surveys like this are, I think it perhaps doesn't properly account for the high number of people who simply lie on reddit for fun. Perhaps a bit cynical, but reddit has earned the reputation, I'm afraid, for users inventing things out of whole cloth. I've learned to read most of what I see on reddit as maybe true. I'm not sure how that skews the survey, or is taken into account, but it's the first thing that comes into mind when people self-report to be CEOs or owning multiple businesses. It would be interesting to see this compared to others sources of information.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:52 AM on June 16, 2013

permalance

Call your doctor.
posted by The Tensor at 9:04 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I assume like 95% of reddit are college students or younger, so no, I don't believe much of this at all or anything on that site. For instance this misogynist-baiting garbage is on the front page right now and it's like, uh, no NONE of that happened you are 15 years old.

There's good stuff on reddit every once and a while but it is in my eyes, for the most part, a kids website. Maybe a few of those salaries are true, but especially on the higher end, no effing way. Kids daydreaming and trying to look interesting on the internet.
posted by windbox at 9:06 AM on June 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

I'm in my 30s, and I participate occasionally on reddit. And I know there are others in that age range. My main thing, though, is that there's a large gap between stuff that is reported and whether you actually know it's true at the end of the day, based on a high number of instances of people caught lying, even over dumb things. You can say that happens at some point everywhere, but there are some internet cultures that are so open that it encourages more of that kind of thing.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:17 AM on June 16, 2013

it is in my eyes, for the most part, a kids website.

a) reddit is an incredibly heterogenous website. There are many kiddy and rac/misog-sex-ist subreddits, but there are also some GEMS:

See here,here, and here as an example, these are just off the top of my head....

b) Maybe a few of those salaries are true, but especially on the higher end, no effing way

You wouldn't know what the high end in NYC was if it smacked you in the head. Seriously. Most are all BELOW the figures I've heard reported, and I live here.
posted by lalochezia at 9:18 AM on June 16, 2013 [5 favorites]

I assume like 95% of reddit are college students or younger, so no, I don't believe much of this at all or anything on that site.

Do you have any statistics or citations whatsoever to back that up? Dismissing a wildly popular content aggregator as "a kids website" indicates you're probably pretty out of touch. The entire tech industry is on reddit, for one thing, and no, they're not all college students.

Sure, people lie on reddit, but it's not because "NONE of that happened [they] are 15 years old".

I hate to break it to you but there's a lot of crap on reddit because humanity is pretty crap, not because redditors are universally too young to know better.

When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.
posted by spitefulcrow at 9:20 AM on June 16, 2013 [7 favorites]

The median household income in New York City, meaning half earn more and half earn less, is $49,000. For Manhattan alone it is $64,000. Household means combined income for all earners so that the median individual wage is significantly less.
posted by JackFlash at 9:26 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I live in NYC, and me and most of my friends make @ the median manhattan income.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 9:28 AM on June 16, 2013

As interesting as impromptu surveys like this are, I think it perhaps doesn't properly account for the high number of people who simply lie on reddit for fun.
---
I assume like 95% of reddit are college students or younger, so no, I don't believe much of this at all or anything on that site.

My initial reaction was pretty much the same. It should be noted, though, that non-default subreddits have a different mix of users, and small, non-controversial subreddits are less appealing targets for lulz- and attention-seekers. So as unreliable as self-reported figures from /r/nyc are, they're not remotely as suspicious as the answers from Reddit at large to similar questions in the default AskReddit subreddit.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 9:32 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Jourmamalism is taking Reddit as a representative sample instead of using, I don't know, an actual survey.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 9:34 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Never read the comments is excellent advice. But here is the first comment:

AMIABLEAMY
I remember when NY Mag actually used to go out and ask people their salaries and what they did for a living.
posted by munchingzombie at 9:39 AM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

$42,000: "Quant Trading Desk(finance)"

There's no way somebody on a quant trading desk at a bank/HF is making only 42K, unless they're an admin and their job has nothing to do with quant trading. Or it's their own quant trading box run from their desktop at home. Even banking interns make more than that on a pro-rated basis.

in NYC there are a dozen or more posts a day for work in my field. In Chicago, a couple a week. In my home state, one or two a month.

It's true there is a higher absolute number of jobs in NYC compared to other US cities, but the number of people looking for work here is far higher as well. I imagine the job seeker/job opening ratio is pretty high in NYC compared to other cities.

Maybe a few of those salaries are true, but especially on the higher end, no effing way

I think some of the numbers on the higher end sound about correct if they're including bonus - 200k for a mortgage bond trader, 185k for risk analyst, 160k+bonus for lawyer. I have worked as an equity derivatives trader and a risk analyst in the past and although I made a bit less than that, those numbers (or higher) are realistic if you have a good amount of experience and/or serve during a profitable year and/or specialize in some complicated product. As a datapoint, one of my friends who is an equity derivatives trader at a bank with about 4 years experience makes ~100K base + ~100K bonus.

No idea about the 250k claimed by the blog/SEO guy, but would you take anything coming from an SEO's mouth at face value anyway?
posted by pravit at 9:40 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

And as for the lower numbers...why would you lie? If anything they might be biased slightly high.
posted by pravit at 9:41 AM on June 16, 2013

buivich: "There was a piece on This American Life a few years ago that when a position opens for a sanitation worker in New York they have a hundred people apply for the job."

This makes a lot of sense, when you think about it. Sanitation workers are in one of the few public-sector jobs with very strong unions; and when they go on strike, there is visceral and palpable pressure for those in power to accede to their demands.
posted by koeselitz at 9:52 AM on June 16, 2013

permalance

Call your doctor.


Ahahahahaha Doctor? What is this "doctor" of which you speak?
posted by nathancaswell at 9:56 AM on June 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

The entire tech industry is on reddit, for one thing, and no, they're not all college students.

This isn't true. I've tried to chat about Reddit gossip with groups of engineers at a very large search company; I've mostly struck out.

It's somewhere between "all 15-year-old boys" and "all the tech industry." The most successful engineers I know do not have time for Reddit. Anecdote, of course. But doesn't speak promisingly of the rigorous methodology of this salary survey.
posted by purpleclover at 10:22 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

There was a piece on This American Life a few years ago that when a position opens for a sanitation worker in New York they have a hundred people apply for the job.

Only a hundred? In a city the size of NYC, I'd expect a thousand or more. Sanitation work is a pretty solid job with good benefits. Though, really, saying a hundred people apply for a single position is kind of meaningless without some comparison. How many people apply for, say, a teaching job that opens? Or for a position at UPS or FedEx?
posted by Thorzdad at 10:22 AM on June 16, 2013

Cronut maker, 2 million a month
posted by shockingbluamp at 10:23 AM on June 16, 2013 [14 favorites]

Aside from housing, aren't there WAY more expensive cities to live in than NYC? Food- including both groceries and eating out- is absolutely pricier here in remote, booming Calgary. And even for housing, NYC is a bargain compared to Vancouver. Transit and travel (as in airfare but also, by North American standards, the best access to rail on the continent) in NYC is cheaper than here too. Unbelievably cheaper, other side of the fucking universe cheaper.
posted by ethnomethodologist at 10:24 AM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

The interesting thing to me is that people are talking about how much they make. For so long in US culture, it's been so taboo to actually talk about salaries and wages... Might this be the beginning of a reversal of that taboo? I hope so.
posted by jiawen at 10:25 AM on June 16, 2013

Aside from housing, aren't there WAY more expensive cities to live in than NYC?

Well, sure, fresh produce costs more in Honolulu than NYC. But saying "aside from housing" is like saying, "aside from that giant horn on your forehead, you're actually an attractive person."

We also must consider the type of housing. In Calgary, a detached house with an actual backyard where kids can play on a swing set is not virtually out of the question, as it is in Manhattan. There's more to value than price.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:46 AM on June 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

Over the last year or so, I've met several people who make it work in NYC by having an ace up their sleeve: rent-subsidized or rent-controlled housing. All obtained by having family who's been living here forever. If these figures are correct, there's not an insignificant number of people living in such arrangements.

I also know a few people who live in employer-given or -sponsored housing, from either the religious or academic institution they work for. One of them gave the sermon at the church I attended this morning, a (great) sermon titled, You Can't Always Get What You Want. She made reference at one point to looking through the NYTimes Real Estate section and lusting after $10 million dollar apartments, which got a big eye-roll from me. I've been to her employer-sponsored apartment, and I'm no broker, but I would think market-rate on the place's she's living could be* several million, just based on size alone (it's the size of a house!)

*If it were a market-rate building, which it's not- she lives in the institution where she works.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:51 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

The entire tech industry is on reddit, for one thing

Not in my experience, fortunately. Even if that’s true among you and the people you know, I’ll have to ask you not to slander an entire industry with that shit-colored brush. And if you’re trapped in an office teeming with redditors, I’d encourage you not to give up hope—there do exist better work environments with more pleasant, knowledgeable, and intelligent people, I promise you, even in tech.
posted by lurkfirst at 11:04 AM on June 16, 2013 [8 favorites]

showbiz_liz: "I checked Idealist for nonprofit jobs in other cities"

Nonprofit isn't a job, it's an industry category.
posted by pwnguin at 11:05 AM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Nonprofit isn't a job, it's an industry category.

I do know that, being employed in that industry category. I was looking for jobs that are like my job, which is nonprofit development.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:08 AM on June 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

Might this be the beginning of a reversal of that taboo? I hope so.



Those with money usually think they deserve it. But most people who make the world run—who care for kids, who grow food, who would rebuild after natural disasters and societal collapse—will never be rich, no matter how hard or well they work, because society is constructed with only so much room on top.
posted by The Whelk at 11:22 AM on June 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

If those salaries are accurate, some of those people are seriously being underpaid. Or they should move out of New York.
posted by empath at 11:25 AM on June 16, 2013

DID SOMEO NE SAY C R O N U T S????????
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:40 AM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

People seem to be comfortable, or even eager, to discuss their salary and food budget here, but only if it's at or below average.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 11:46 AM on June 16, 2013 [7 favorites]

And even for housing, NYC is a bargain compared to Vancouver.

Worth repeating a hundred puzzled, WTF times. I remember the day I realized that if I lived in Brooklyn, I could afford to buy an apartment (and, you know, in a not unfashionable area). I'll never own here in Vancouver, which I'm okay with-- I have an excellent and secure situation already, for which I'm very grateful-- but for others who are just scraping by, like my son, it's not good. Many of his friends have just packed up and headed back East, where you can rent a decent one bedroom apartment for less than a thousand dollars per month.
posted by jokeefe at 11:49 AM on June 16, 2013

People seem to be comfortable, or even eager, to discuss their salary and food budget here, but only if it's at or below average.

Some very interesting statistics could be generated here. Understandably, many (most) people would be reluctant to post where salary would be attached to their user name, but perhaps a survey could be made of MeFite's income and country? Broken down by region, of course. Unemployed or retired would round things out well. We'd need a total number of respondents of course, as compared to the total MeFites registered. Anyone else nosy curious?

WE CAN HAZ PONY?
posted by BlueHorse at 12:03 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I've worked in IT sales since 1996, in Atlanta and DC. 96 was the last time I made as little as the IT sales people in that survey. In NYC the base salary should be higher than what they claim they earn.
posted by COD at 12:03 PM on June 16, 2013

Which if true belies a misundering of the 1 percent concept its not people who make $200,000 a year its people who make $200,000 a day.

Perhaps you meant "misunderstanding of the 1 percent concept" as something like "we should be concerned with the 0.01 percent instead of the 1 percent", but if you meant "the 1% is people who make $200,000 a day, not $200,000 a year", I think you're very far from correct.

According to Wikipedia, at least, as of 2005, the top 1% of households were $350,000 a year and up. $200,000 a year would have been pretty close - maybe top 2% (I'm extrapolating - 5% = $167,000, 1.5% = $250,000).

$200,000 a day, on the other hand, would be like fifty million dollars a year, which is of course wildly far from $350,000 a year.
posted by Flunkie at 12:04 PM on June 16, 2013 [3 favorites]

Vancouver still has swaths of bungalows south of false creek, which is ridiculous. Historically significant neighborhoods aside, it needs to be rezoned.

There are basement suites and those silly laneway houses, but what is really needed is densification to 4 storeys or more. The city is on a grid, and has fantastic transit. It is ready.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 12:14 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I like that "scientist" is listed as a job. I bet that's just how he has it on his business card, too. "Bill Smith, scientist". Or maybe "scientist at large". I wonder if any important happenings have happened in the field of science recently.

I would like to be an honorary scientist please.
posted by windykites at 12:17 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Done!
posted by TwelveTwo at 12:25 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yes! Now I just have to move to new york and wait for the profits! Sweet science profits.
posted by windykites at 12:32 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I hire engineers in Manhattan and market salary for most young but decent developers is 100-125k, usually with 1-2 years of experience. Solid coders can clear 200k in contracting once they've made a name for themselves.

I've also met friends-of-friends in bars who say they're in IT and ask me what programming languages I know. These people (likely redditors themselves) think they're in IT and 38k is probably about right for spending all day jiggling ethernet cables, installing anti-virus software, and posting juvenile and misogynistic crap all day long on reddit.

I've long attributed the salary inflation in the tech sector here to be an offset for having to be surrounded by New Yorkers.
posted by allen.spaulding at 12:38 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

I work and live in Manhattan, and this seems pretty right to me, from my experience, knowing the salaries of my husband, myself and our friends.

Also, New York is nowhere near as expensive as most people seem to think. It's all about knowing how to get the most out of your money and making smart decisions.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:41 PM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

The entire tech industry is on reddit, for one thing

I got a taste of disconnect from a coworker today when I mentioned that I'm going to take off a few days in August to go to Defcon and got a blank look.

Should have known after making a Bitcoin joke that got that same look.

That impressed upon to me that there are people who just use computers for SQL and Python and nothing more.
posted by wcfields at 12:44 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Seems like the rich and middle live the same public life, but not the same private life. Used to be rich rode in different cars, shopped at different stores, and played on desperate courts. Now it seems both rich and the rest enjoy the same coffee shop and surf reddit. I'm not sure if that is easier to swallow or harder. Harder probably.
posted by Halogenhat at 12:44 PM on June 16, 2013

That impressed upon to me that there are people who just use computers for SQL and Python and nothing more.

I have heard people brag about their "extensive experience and knowledge in the IT field" in one breath and then follow it up with a comment nonironically equating accidentally leaving your logged-in facebook account open on a public computer with "being hacked".
posted by elizardbits at 12:51 PM on June 16, 2013

These people (likely redditors themselves) think they're in IT and 38k is probably about right for spending all day jiggling ethernet cables, installing anti-virus software, and posting juvenile and misogynistic crap all day long on Metafilter reddit.

Yep, that was me last year.
posted by FJT at 1:24 PM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

That impressed upon to me that there are people who just use computers for SQL and Python and nothing more.

Isn't most website programming just finding new and interesting ways to glue strings together? =)
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:58 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

Over the last year or so, I've met several people who make it work in NYC by having an ace up their sleeve: rent-subsidized or rent-controlled housing.

that's how a couple I know makes it work - he is a reporter, and she does graphic design/engineering/a general bunch of cool stuff.

The problem is, they each have their own separate rent-controlled apartment, which they'd each gotten themselves dug into over the course of the past several years. They recently married - but each maintains their own residence still, because they realized that after having lived in their two separate rent-controlled apartments, they would never be able to jointly find an affordable apartment big enough for the both of them. (Well, they could if they moved outside Manhattan, but they're both pretty stubborn about that.)

fortunately they're also both pretty independent types, so married-but-living-in-two-different-apartments suits them anyway. But it's still kind of weird.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:41 PM on June 16, 2013

Well, that and cashing your $115k/year paychecks, apparently.
posted by indubitable at 2:42 PM on June 16, 2013

That is almost exactly the situation my Mom is in, it's just easier for her to live separate from her fiancée/longtime boyfriend then for them to get a place together.
posted by The Whelk at 2:43 PM on June 16, 2013

BlueHorse: "Understandably, many (most) people would be reluctant to post where salary would be attached to their user name..."

And I think that's the problem. Until we can start having frank, open conversations about wealth, it's going to be really hard to address wealth disparities.
posted by jiawen at 2:49 PM on June 16, 2013

Sanitation workers, it turns out, have twice the fatality rates of police officers, and nearly seven times the fatality rates of firefighters.

The Secret World of Garbagmen
posted by sebastienbailard at 2:51 PM on June 16, 2013

This seems like a good place for a pointer to the helpful mefi guide to making Reddit awesome.
posted by mendel at 3:09 PM on June 16, 2013

$48k for a Genius at the Apple store? That's gotta be bullshit.

Right?
posted by ShutterBun at 3:11 PM on June 16, 2013

The problem is, they each have their own separate rent-controlled apartment ... they would never be able to jointly find an affordable apartment big enough for the both of them.

Why can't they sub-let both places at a profit and move into a third place?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:11 PM on June 16, 2013

If you get caught doing that, they'll boot you. As you can imagine, some landlords are anxious to shed stabilized/controlled tenants so they can rent out the apartments at market rate, so they keep an eye out for infractions.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:23 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

lurkfirst: The entire tech industry is on reddit, for one thing

Not in my experience, fortunately. Even if that’s true among you and the people you know, I’ll have to ask you not to slander an entire industry with that shit-colored brush. And if you’re trapped in an office teeming with redditors, I’d encourage you not to give up hope—there do exist better work environments with more pleasant, knowledgeable, and intelligent people, I promise you, even in tech.

So, saying techies are redditors is "slandering an entire industry with a shit-colored brush", but you have no problem characterizing all redditors as unpleasant, ignorant, and unintelligent.

Yay for hypocritical bigotry.
posted by IAmBroom at 4:12 PM on June 16, 2013 [4 favorites]

$42,000: "Quant Trading Desk(finance)"

There's no way somebody on a quant trading desk at a bank/HF is making only 42K, unless they're an admin and their job has nothing to do with quant trading. Or it's their own quant trading box run from their desktop at home. Even banking interns make more than that on a pro-rated basis.

I wonder if that 42k figure only counts salary, not bonus. I once met a guy* who did currency trading at a bank in a flyover city (pre-2008). He claimed his regular salary was 60k but his bonus was 300k that year. His total compensation claims were corroborated by his living situation.

* Quite unexpectedly, he, his girlfriend, and his roomate were all douches.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 5:21 PM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

I am making over twice what I was there, paying less in rent for an entire house than for a rundown place waay out in Brooklyn, and will not have to wait for someone to die to get promoted. But, it had its moments, and hell, I will admit to enjoying it when people are impressed that I lived there. It's just not big enough to provide a good living for everyone who wants to live there. At some point you realize that we live in a huge goddamn country and that it's fine not to want to live crammed together on a few overpriced islands working an underpaid job if it doesn't make you happy. And it's ok to put up with all that if it does.
posted by emjaybee at 5:49 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

sebastienbailard Sanitation workers, it turns out. . .[have] nearly seven times the fatality rates of firefighters.

Not in New York City.

FDNY Line-of-Duty-Deaths 1996-2012: 32

DSNY Line-of-Duty-Deaths 1996-2012: 15

FDNY line-of-duty deaths on 9/11 excluded from this sample.
posted by mlis at 6:53 PM on June 16, 2013

I gotta support my $1000 a week cronut habit somehow.
posted by Ad hominem at 7:27 PM on June 16, 2013 [1 favorite]

FDNY Line-of-Duty-Deaths 1996-2012: 32

DSNY Line-of-Duty-Deaths 1996-2012: 15


Number of FDNY employees: 15,900
Number of DSNY employees: 7,200

FDNY fatalities: 2.0 per 1000
DSNY fatalities: 2.1 per 1000

DSNY is has a slightly higher fatality rate for line-of-duty deaths (using your fatality numbers).
posted by JackFlash at 8:06 PM on June 16, 2013 [2 favorites]

JackFlash, that 15,900 number includes EMT's, Paramedics, Dispatchers, Mechanics, et cetera.

Here are the official numbers:

FDNY: 10,725 Uniformed Firefighters and Fire Officers

DSNY: 7,197 Uniformed Sanitation Workers and Supervisors
posted by mlis at 8:30 PM on June 16, 2013

It's a really shitty thing that anything that I write in this thread (this comment included) could get me fired if my employers saw it. I'm not allowed to talk about my compensation. Full stop.

I'm sure many others are in the same boat (even though that would technically be illegal in most places).
posted by schmod at 8:46 PM on June 16, 2013

What industries do that?
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:00 PM on June 16, 2013

What industries do that?

I would imagine every American corporation that's big enough to have an HR department takes a very dim view of salaried employees discussing compensation among themselves, since those kinds of discussions allow people to realize they're being underpaid or being treated unequally. I don't know if the same goes for hourly employees*.

* All the places where I was paid by the hour were too small to have dedicated HR, and everyone was very open about what they made.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 9:32 PM on June 16, 2013

schmod: "I'm not allowed to talk about my compensation. Full stop."

Jesus Effing Christ. Unionize.
posted by brokkr at 5:13 AM on June 17, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's a really shitty thing that anything that I write in this thread (this comment included) could get me fired if my employers saw it.

Unless your employment contract explicitly forbids it, not writing anything can probably get you fired as well. What with at-will employment and termination-without-cause and all.
posted by dersins at 8:41 AM on June 17, 2013

Priced out of Paris: Our great, global cities are turning into vast gated citadels where the elite reproduces itself
posted by homunculus at 6:52 PM on June 17, 2013 [4 favorites]

JackFlash DSNY has a slightly higher fatality rate for line-of-duty deaths (using your fatality numbers).

Using my fatality numbers, and the correct employee numbers, FDNY has a higher fatality rate.

FDNY Line-of-Duty-Deaths 1996-2012: 32
DSNY Line-of-Duty-Deaths 1996-2012: 15

Number of FDNY employees: 10,725
Number of DSNY employees: 7,197

FDNY fatalities: 2.98 per 1000
DSNY fatalities: 2.08 per 1000

FDNY line-of-duty-deaths on 9/11 excluded. 1996 selected as the starting year because it is the first year that a DSNY line-of-duty-death was reported in news outlets searchable using free online resources.

I am confident a full reporting of DSNY line-of-duty-deaths would show they have a lower (perhaps significantly) rate than the FDNY.
posted by mlis at 8:20 PM on June 17, 2013

Priced out of Paris: Our great, global cities are turning into vast gated citadels where the elite reproduces itself

Without having read this yet, holy crap does it seem to hit the nail on the head.
posted by nowhere man at 4:43 AM on June 18, 2013

schmod: “It's a really shitty thing that anything that I write in this thread (this comment included) could get me fired if my employers saw it. I'm not allowed to talk about my compensation. Full stop.”

So I guess you work for the federal or a municipal government, or a religious school maybe? Because, if not, you should know that, if your employer is forbidding you from talking about your salary, they are directly violating Federal law. The National Labor Relations Act (specifically in sections 7 and 8) makes it illegal for employers to prevent employees from talking about their compensation. Many federal and municipal employees and some religious school employees are exempted from this, but not all. (It sounds like you probably know this, but it's always worth noting, since many people don't.)
posted by koeselitz at 8:43 AM on June 18, 2013 [2 favorites]