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These are my personal observations: When I first moved to the SF Bay area, I was surprised by the amount of visible homelessness and by the number of service e

These are my personal observations: When I first moved to the SF Bay area, I was surprised by the amount of visible homelessness and by the number of service economy workers who drove nearly two hours to and from work. I also had my first experiences with the "campuses" of major technology companies, where money was made hand-over-fist. I think the recent widening income gap is a natural consequence of the technology we have invented. A relatively small number of people are able to generate a relatively large amount of profit; this is the nature of the software industry. But that relatively small number is still enough to dominate the economy of a major metropolitan area, and so it has, and the demand for labor routinely outstrips the supply of housing for those laborers (artificially constricted, but also geographically constrained), and so those who work in software and electrical engineering and cetera can afford to live in the area. Those who do not, can not. I look at the cities where this is an issue and I see similar threads: industries where money from everywhere flows to a relative few. Technology skims off the top in San Francisco. Finance skims off the top in New York. Government skims off the top in Washington, DC. So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result. Cities are economic systems, and it is easy and myopic to cater only to the demands of the prime mover. But the prime mover has auxiliaries it needs to function, without which the system will collapse. And my experience with collapses is that they are not gradual, but rather, they are sudden. Last night, a fire raged through abandoned vehicles parked under Interstate 280. Black smoke poured out from under the freeway and choked Portrero Hill. I watched fire crews advance on the flames and extinguish them. What will happen when the people we rely on to extinguish our flames cannot afford to live in our cities?

angarg12 8y ago
> So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result. But this happens in the US disproportionally more than, say, many countries in Europe.
- paganel 8y ago
  Because the social safety net in the US is almost totally absent. As an European that is one of the main things that keeps me away from ever wanting to work in the States, down there it looks like you're either a successful person, meaning you have a house on which you can afford to pay mortgage, which in turn means that you have a successful job which allows you to navigate the inevitable recessions, or you're always one-step away from being homeless, there's no in-between state where you can live an ok-ish life on a not-so-great job without having nightmares about your economic prospects each and every night.
  - stagger87 8y ago
    I'm not sure what you're on about. The US does have social safety nets, and most people in America work okay'ish jobs and live okay'ish lives without constant nightmares.
    - paganel 8y ago
      Half of the homeless people in that Seattle video someone linked above should have had a roof over their heads provided by the State, either some mental-health institution or an elderly care house. I've heard of way too many US ok-ish jobs that don't provide adequate health-insurance (just to give an example). Maybe I'm a little paranoid but I'd have constant nightmares thinking that a couple of days of hospitalization for a benign medical intervention could set me tens of thousands of dollars in debt (or worse).
    - oneplane 8y ago
      I think what he is on about is the fact that even if the US has the safety nets you describe, it apparently isn't working.
      - stagger87 8y ago
        He/She should have said that then.
  - cokelee 8y ago
    Not sure why that would keep you away. By your definition a huge percentage of the population is successful.
    - oneplane 8y ago
      As far as I know, most people are not successful by his definition. Almost everyone who is not rich is living paycheck-to-paycheck. There is no baseline system where working 40 to 60 hours a week guarantees a normal home/living/health situation.
- timwaagh 8y ago
  doubt it. there are just a few areas in the us that are really bad, but the rest of it is fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...
koolba 8y ago
> What will happen when the people we rely on to extinguish our flames cannot afford to live in our cities? We’ll pay them more. Ditto for teachers, janitors, waiters and gas station attendants.
- baq 8y ago
  Or we don’t and the rich suddenly notice that dollar notes can’t provide nourishment and don’t do laundry.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    The rich got by for thousands of years without cooking, doing laundry, or running affordable housing programs. The service sector lived on its customers’ estates, often as part of their households. I expect this is where we’re headed. Several people I know who work on poverty wages in the arts industry here pay their room and board in elder- or child-care for a homeowner. We often hear that terms like “feudalism” and “landed gentry” applied to Bay Area housing policy are over dramatic. I think they’re dead on.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - robocat 8y ago
      > Several people I know who work on poverty wages in the arts industry I don't have much sympathy for anyone who chooses to work in the arts... One must see the risks taken, and that the rewards are unpredictable. > elder- or child-care for a homeowner Are you talking about the very wealthy here? The upper income? The middle or even low income earners that made good financial choices? Looking after children and elderly is honest work. Are these art workers tied to the Bay Area by anything apart from their choices?
      - kakarot 8y ago
        > I don't have much sympathy for anyone who chooses to work in the arts... One must see the risks taken, and that the rewards are unpredictable. You have different goals in life than other people. Please try to be aware that the path you've chosen is not the only right one. Some people have different goals. Some people even have the cognitive ability to regard the goal of fulfillment in life and creativity as more important than the run-of-the-mill goal of survival that most people are seemingly satisfied with reaching towards.
FartyMcFarter 8y ago
> A relatively small number of people are able to generate a relatively large amount of profit; this is the nature of the software industry. This makes sense, but does it explain the issues? You mentioned yourself that people working in software are a "relatively small number of people". Can they have such a big impact on everyone else?
- i_am_proteus 8y ago
  When they geographically cluster in sufficient numbers to out-compete everyone else for a limited housing supply, they certainly can. And it looks like they have.
- yonran 8y ago
  It’s not the inequality of capital ownership that is the problem. It’s the inequality of land ownership (specifically zoned housing capacity). A few thousand hundred-millionaires hardly hurt people any more than a few thousand millionaires. But a few million middle-class homeowners hurts when they are not allowed to share their land with the landless. So the most worrysome inequality is the numbers of landed vs. landless, not millionaires vs. ten millionaires or hundred millionaires.
  - sqrt17 8y ago
    > when they are not allowed to share their land with the landless. this seems to be aggravated by zoning laws and NIMBYism in the US where localities will not tolerate high-density housing that is an eyesore but provides little homes to people who'd otherwise not have one (or have to pay higher prices than they otherwise would)
closeparen 8y ago
Information, professional, and business services collectively account for less than 25% of Bay Area workers. At least 75% of the people currently affording lives here are not in tech. There’s a big difference in what happens in the housing units that are up for grabs vs. the city as a whole. http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/jobs-industry http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/jobs-industry
- i_am_proteus 8y ago
  From your link: the fastest growing industries are information, professional, and business services. And it is the growing industries that drive the market rate for housing. Someone who bought in to the market via purchase or rent-regulated lease five or ten years ago has a significantly lower cost of living than someone entering the market today. Exempli gratia: (in California) If you're living in a $2 million house that you bought for $400 thousand, you might not be able to afford to sell and buy something else at a similar price due to the tax code. Exempli gratia: If you're living in a rent-regulated apartment that's now leased 40% under market value, if you lose your lease for any reason, you may not be able to afford the market rate. And your landlord has greater incentive to get you out of the unit. Thus the well-tenured school teacher making $100 thousand per annum[0] can afford to live comfortably, but when this teacher retires, a qualified replacement offered a salary of $66 thousand[1] may choose to live and work elsewhere. [0]http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20and%20salary%20schedules/18-19%20salary%20schedule%20K-12%20teachers.pdf http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20and%20... [1]ibid
  - closeparen 8y ago
    What happens on the margins is not the same as what happens. You do not need a tech job to live here. Instead you need to have established or inherited a claim on land, sometime in the past. If this is to become the norm, it's a monumental shift in the fabric of American society. Meritocracy/justice/feudalism arguments notwithstanding, the implications are huge. Parenting strategy changes. Not even the very best wages are going to cover your child's cost of living near a decent job at market rate. Setting her up to be a valuable worker is a poor investment. Instead of researching school districts, research cities and economic trends. Instead of saving for college, buy property in the cities you think will be employment centers in 18 years (and keep it empty to avoid a potential tenant-rights battle). Instead of living in the best school district, live in a rent-controlled apartment in another favored city, maybe the one where you can least afford ownership today. If your family can't afford this alone, go in with another family or two. Choose wisely. Your kids will be roommates for life. If one of your bets is correct, then your kid gets a decent life. It doesn't matter that she's less educated; a worker's most important qualification is to be there. Whatever the growth industry is will be elated to find any young adult. And she'll have 100x better living arrangements, at 1% of the cost, compared to any sucker whose parents didn't set this up for them like you did.
ams6110 8y ago
Firefighters live in the station when they are on duty. So they'll commute in from wherever they can afford to live. If there aren't enough who will do that, we'll pay them more.
trimbo 8y ago
> But that relatively small number is still enough to dominate the economy of a major metropolitan area... So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result I'd imagine the expected result is that prices increase to support higher wages for service workers... which they actually have. Just one example: a take-out salad for lunch now costs $15 in San Francisco. The place I'm thinking of has huge line at lunch, so business seems extremely good. Regional economic prosperity being a _cause_ of homelessness makes no sense to me, unless that economic prosperity for the few took away every business opportunity for everyone around them (e.g.: robot manufacturer replaces all jobs in all industries). The people making money are going to have to spend money. So I wonder if it has more to do with other societal/economic changes going on that have changed how money is spent: * Could it have something to do with Amazon/Home Depot/big box stores impacting local retailers? * Could it have something to do with local manufacturing jobs going overseas? * Could it have something to do with the 1099 gig economy work making it infeasible for companies to employ people full time (in that type of gig work), and driving down income for those jobs? * Could it have something to do with the massive increase in drug use[1]? Or all of the above? Or more reasons? Also, the fact that it's happening in a period of very low unemployment does not bode well. ps - Firefighters get down-payment assistance in San Francisco. I personally know a couple who live near me, thanks to this. https://sfmohcd.org/resources-first-responders https://sfmohcd.org/resources-first-responders [1] - https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Number-of-people-shooting-up-drugs-in-SF-rises-50-13333141.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Number-of-people-shoo...
- i_am_proteus 8y ago
  My main thought is that it's the intersection of economic prosperity that rewards individuals in certain sectors extremely well combined with natural and artificial restrictions on the housing supply. If housing is short, the people who make the most-- and can pay the most-- have a strong influence on the market rate. And if they're making a whole lot more than the other folks, the other folks get priced out of the market. BT I am very glad to hear that there's down-payment assistance for first responders in San Francisco.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  One major factor is simply that housing is too expensive. Yes, an employee at the $15 salad place is probably making more than minimum wage, but it's still not enough to comfortably afford the high rents in the city. SF has, and has had for awhile, some of the most restrictive construction and zoning laws in the country, and as a result demand has far outstripped supply. A decent number of people in SF become homeless for the most obvious reason that they just can't afford housing.
mynameishere 8y ago
the people we rely on to extinguish our flames cannot afford What a strange example for you to use. First, firefighters in most urban areas make muchos, muchos dollars. Second, firefighter jobs are extremely desirable, for that reason and many others ("heroism", firefighter groupies, extreme lengths of downtime, early pensions, etc) Third, in poorer areas, volunteers are all-too happy to be firefighters. As I said, strange example. Maybe you could fret about garbage collectors instead...?
- jdavis703 8y ago
  Cops also make money similar to firefighters. Yet in Atherton (close to Palo Alto), the cops turned part of their station in to sleeping quarters. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be on the wrong side of a gun from a cop who is sleep deprived and probably overworked.
- mcguire 8y ago
  California (https://www.businessinsider.com/firefighter-salary-every-us-state-2018-5#california-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/firefighter-salary-every-us-...): Firefighters Median annual salary: $35,440 10th percentile salary: $20,520 90th percentile salary: $57,060 First-Line Supervisors of Fire Fighting and Prevention Workers Median annual salary: $53,180 10th percentile salary: $28,270 90th percentile salary: $78,740 (Firefighters in Alabama make more than in California?!?!)
  - simonsarris 8y ago
    He said in urban areas. Here's a job posting for SF: https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=CCT&R2=H002&R3=900310 https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=CCT&R2=... Entry Level (H-2) Firefighter $78,676.00 - $121,420.00/year Entry level and before any overtime. If you look at individual salaries you see things like one fire fighter making 220K in overtime alone(!). Other make less, but lots and lots are making 300-400K: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco&y=&q=fire https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-fra...
z3t4 8y ago
I don't think a society can work if there are large inequalities. The winners have to pay for the losers. At least enough to get them off the streets.
pyrrhotech 8y ago
I agree with the post, but firefighters in the Bay Area are probably not the best example. There are many millionaire, early retired FF in California. Some in my old neighborhood that I knew personally even that were much wealthier than I am as a SE (I have since relocated to the southeast). Compensation is quite high, especially when considering total pay, often 250k+ and as high as 500k+ is possible. Source: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=fire&y= https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=fire&y=
- i_am_proteus 8y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. I don't know any FFs personally; I do know plenty of teachers, social workers, and people in service jobs who are either making long commutes, living in shared arrangements more cramped than intended, or have left for places where compensation for those jobs compared to cost of living equals a better quality of life.

angarg12 8y ago

> So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result. But this happens in the US disproportionally more than, say, many countries in Europe.

paganel 8y ago
Because the social safety net in the US is almost totally absent. As an European that is one of the main things that keeps me away from ever wanting to work in the States, down there it looks like you're either a successful person, meaning you have a house on which you can afford to pay mortgage, which in turn means that you have a successful job which allows you to navigate the inevitable recessions, or you're always one-step away from being homeless, there's no in-between state where you can live an ok-ish life on a not-so-great job without having nightmares about your economic prospects each and every night.
- stagger87 8y ago
  I'm not sure what you're on about. The US does have social safety nets, and most people in America work okay'ish jobs and live okay'ish lives without constant nightmares.
  - paganel 8y ago
    Half of the homeless people in that Seattle video someone linked above should have had a roof over their heads provided by the State, either some mental-health institution or an elderly care house. I've heard of way too many US ok-ish jobs that don't provide adequate health-insurance (just to give an example). Maybe I'm a little paranoid but I'd have constant nightmares thinking that a couple of days of hospitalization for a benign medical intervention could set me tens of thousands of dollars in debt (or worse).
  - oneplane 8y ago
    I think what he is on about is the fact that even if the US has the safety nets you describe, it apparently isn't working.
    - stagger87 8y ago
      He/She should have said that then.
- cokelee 8y ago
  Not sure why that would keep you away. By your definition a huge percentage of the population is successful.
  - oneplane 8y ago
    As far as I know, most people are not successful by his definition. Almost everyone who is not rich is living paycheck-to-paycheck. There is no baseline system where working 40 to 60 hours a week guarantees a normal home/living/health situation.
timwaagh 8y ago
doubt it. there are just a few areas in the us that are really bad, but the rest of it is fine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...

koolba 8y ago

> What will happen when the people we rely on to extinguish our flames cannot afford to live in our cities? We’ll pay them more. Ditto for teachers, janitors, waiters and gas station attendants.

baq 8y ago
Or we don’t and the rich suddenly notice that dollar notes can’t provide nourishment and don’t do laundry.
- closeparen 8y ago
  The rich got by for thousands of years without cooking, doing laundry, or running affordable housing programs. The service sector lived on its customers’ estates, often as part of their households. I expect this is where we’re headed. Several people I know who work on poverty wages in the arts industry here pay their room and board in elder- or child-care for a homeowner. We often hear that terms like “feudalism” and “landed gentry” applied to Bay Area housing policy are over dramatic. I think they’re dead on.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - robocat 8y ago
    > Several people I know who work on poverty wages in the arts industry I don't have much sympathy for anyone who chooses to work in the arts... One must see the risks taken, and that the rewards are unpredictable. > elder- or child-care for a homeowner Are you talking about the very wealthy here? The upper income? The middle or even low income earners that made good financial choices? Looking after children and elderly is honest work. Are these art workers tied to the Bay Area by anything apart from their choices?
    - kakarot 8y ago
      > I don't have much sympathy for anyone who chooses to work in the arts... One must see the risks taken, and that the rewards are unpredictable. You have different goals in life than other people. Please try to be aware that the path you've chosen is not the only right one. Some people have different goals. Some people even have the cognitive ability to regard the goal of fulfillment in life and creativity as more important than the run-of-the-mill goal of survival that most people are seemingly satisfied with reaching towards.

FartyMcFarter 8y ago

> A relatively small number of people are able to generate a relatively large amount of profit; this is the nature of the software industry. This makes sense, but does it explain the issues? You mentioned yourself that people working in software are a "relatively small number of people". Can they have such a big impact on everyone else?

i_am_proteus 8y ago
When they geographically cluster in sufficient numbers to out-compete everyone else for a limited housing supply, they certainly can. And it looks like they have.
yonran 8y ago
It’s not the inequality of capital ownership that is the problem. It’s the inequality of land ownership (specifically zoned housing capacity). A few thousand hundred-millionaires hardly hurt people any more than a few thousand millionaires. But a few million middle-class homeowners hurts when they are not allowed to share their land with the landless. So the most worrysome inequality is the numbers of landed vs. landless, not millionaires vs. ten millionaires or hundred millionaires.
- sqrt17 8y ago
  > when they are not allowed to share their land with the landless. this seems to be aggravated by zoning laws and NIMBYism in the US where localities will not tolerate high-density housing that is an eyesore but provides little homes to people who'd otherwise not have one (or have to pay higher prices than they otherwise would)

closeparen 8y ago

Information, professional, and business services collectively account for less than 25% of Bay Area workers. At least 75% of the people currently affording lives here are not in tech. There’s a big difference in what happens in the housing units that are up for grabs vs. the city as a whole. http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/jobs-industry http://www.vitalsigns.mtc.ca.gov/jobs-industry

i_am_proteus 8y ago
From your link: the fastest growing industries are information, professional, and business services. And it is the growing industries that drive the market rate for housing. Someone who bought in to the market via purchase or rent-regulated lease five or ten years ago has a significantly lower cost of living than someone entering the market today. Exempli gratia: (in California) If you're living in a $2 million house that you bought for $400 thousand, you might not be able to afford to sell and buy something else at a similar price due to the tax code. Exempli gratia: If you're living in a rent-regulated apartment that's now leased 40% under market value, if you lose your lease for any reason, you may not be able to afford the market rate. And your landlord has greater incentive to get you out of the unit. Thus the well-tenured school teacher making $100 thousand per annum[0] can afford to live comfortably, but when this teacher retires, a qualified replacement offered a salary of $66 thousand[1] may choose to live and work elsewhere. [0]http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20and%20salary%20schedules/18-19%20salary%20schedule%20K-12%20teachers.pdf http://www.sfusd.edu/en/assets/sfusd-staff/contract%20and%20... [1]ibid
- closeparen 8y ago
  What happens on the margins is not the same as what happens. You do not need a tech job to live here. Instead you need to have established or inherited a claim on land, sometime in the past. If this is to become the norm, it's a monumental shift in the fabric of American society. Meritocracy/justice/feudalism arguments notwithstanding, the implications are huge. Parenting strategy changes. Not even the very best wages are going to cover your child's cost of living near a decent job at market rate. Setting her up to be a valuable worker is a poor investment. Instead of researching school districts, research cities and economic trends. Instead of saving for college, buy property in the cities you think will be employment centers in 18 years (and keep it empty to avoid a potential tenant-rights battle). Instead of living in the best school district, live in a rent-controlled apartment in another favored city, maybe the one where you can least afford ownership today. If your family can't afford this alone, go in with another family or two. Choose wisely. Your kids will be roommates for life. If one of your bets is correct, then your kid gets a decent life. It doesn't matter that she's less educated; a worker's most important qualification is to be there. Whatever the growth industry is will be elated to find any young adult. And she'll have 100x better living arrangements, at 1% of the cost, compared to any sucker whose parents didn't set this up for them like you did.

ams6110 8y ago

Firefighters live in the station when they are on duty. So they'll commute in from wherever they can afford to live. If there aren't enough who will do that, we'll pay them more.

trimbo 8y ago

> But that relatively small number is still enough to dominate the economy of a major metropolitan area... So the rise in visible homelessness is perhaps the expected result I'd imagine the expected result is that prices increase to support higher wages for service workers... which they actually have. Just one example: a take-out salad for lunch now costs $15 in San Francisco. The place I'm thinking of has huge line at lunch, so business seems extremely good. Regional economic prosperity being a _cause_ of homelessness makes no sense to me, unless that economic prosperity for the few took away every business opportunity for everyone around them (e.g.: robot manufacturer replaces all jobs in all industries). The people making money are going to have to spend money. So I wonder if it has more to do with other societal/economic changes going on that have changed how money is spent: * Could it have something to do with Amazon/Home Depot/big box stores impacting local retailers? * Could it have something to do with local manufacturing jobs going overseas? * Could it have something to do with the 1099 gig economy work making it infeasible for companies to employ people full time (in that type of gig work), and driving down income for those jobs? * Could it have something to do with the massive increase in drug use[1]? Or all of the above? Or more reasons? Also, the fact that it's happening in a period of very low unemployment does not bode well. ps - Firefighters get down-payment assistance in San Francisco. I personally know a couple who live near me, thanks to this. https://sfmohcd.org/resources-first-responders https://sfmohcd.org/resources-first-responders [1] - https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Number-of-people-shooting-up-drugs-in-SF-rises-50-13333141.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Number-of-people-shoo...

i_am_proteus 8y ago
My main thought is that it's the intersection of economic prosperity that rewards individuals in certain sectors extremely well combined with natural and artificial restrictions on the housing supply. If housing is short, the people who make the most-- and can pay the most-- have a strong influence on the market rate. And if they're making a whole lot more than the other folks, the other folks get priced out of the market. BT I am very glad to hear that there's down-payment assistance for first responders in San Francisco.
CydeWeys 8y ago
One major factor is simply that housing is too expensive. Yes, an employee at the $15 salad place is probably making more than minimum wage, but it's still not enough to comfortably afford the high rents in the city. SF has, and has had for awhile, some of the most restrictive construction and zoning laws in the country, and as a result demand has far outstripped supply. A decent number of people in SF become homeless for the most obvious reason that they just can't afford housing.

mynameishere 8y ago

the people we rely on to extinguish our flames cannot afford What a strange example for you to use. First, firefighters in most urban areas make muchos, muchos dollars. Second, firefighter jobs are extremely desirable, for that reason and many others ("heroism", firefighter groupies, extreme lengths of downtime, early pensions, etc) Third, in poorer areas, volunteers are all-too happy to be firefighters. As I said, strange example. Maybe you could fret about garbage collectors instead...?

jdavis703 8y ago
Cops also make money similar to firefighters. Yet in Atherton (close to Palo Alto), the cops turned part of their station in to sleeping quarters. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be on the wrong side of a gun from a cop who is sleep deprived and probably overworked.
mcguire 8y ago
California (https://www.businessinsider.com/firefighter-salary-every-us-state-2018-5#california-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/firefighter-salary-every-us-...): Firefighters Median annual salary: $35,440 10th percentile salary: $20,520 90th percentile salary: $57,060 First-Line Supervisors of Fire Fighting and Prevention Workers Median annual salary: $53,180 10th percentile salary: $28,270 90th percentile salary: $78,740 (Firefighters in Alabama make more than in California?!?!)
- simonsarris 8y ago
  He said in urban areas. Here's a job posting for SF: https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=CCT&R2=H002&R3=900310 https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=CCT&R2=... Entry Level (H-2) Firefighter $78,676.00 - $121,420.00/year Entry level and before any overtime. If you look at individual salaries you see things like one fire fighter making 220K in overtime alone(!). Other make less, but lots and lots are making 300-400K: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-francisco&y=&q=fire https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?a=san-fra...

z3t4 8y ago

I don't think a society can work if there are large inequalities. The winners have to pay for the losers. At least enough to get them off the streets.

pyrrhotech 8y ago

I agree with the post, but firefighters in the Bay Area are probably not the best example. There are many millionaire, early retired FF in California. Some in my old neighborhood that I knew personally even that were much wealthier than I am as a SE (I have since relocated to the southeast). Compensation is quite high, especially when considering total pay, often 250k+ and as high as 500k+ is possible. Source: https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=fire&y= https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=fire&y=

i_am_proteus 8y ago
Thanks for pointing this out. I don't know any FFs personally; I do know plenty of teachers, social workers, and people in service jobs who are either making long commutes, living in shared arrangements more cramped than intended, or have left for places where compensation for those jobs compared to cost of living equals a better quality of life.