6 ms·
Many FBI agents are struggling to make ends meet. Housing costs are to blame
- xyzzy4747 3y agoThe FBI is too big... hopefully this will be a disincentive to not look for jobs there. Every state already has its own police force. There's no need for a massive federal agency to do the same type of stuff.
- sealeck 3y agoWhat about crimes which transcend state jurisdiction (try getting 12 different state police forces to co-ordinate and run thousands of investigations together and see how well it goes)? Or issues like counter-intelligence? Or areas where local police forces are corrupt and won't investigate?
- shrimp_emoji 3y agoWhat about when the FBI is corrupt? Counterintelligence is CIA/NSA (who would never be in danger of that).
- sealeck 3y agoThe CIA is not authorized to operate domestically, counter-intelligence is the remit of the FBI.
- gentleman11 3y agoWe’ll, that would help their agents afford rent I guess
- nerdponx 3y ago[flagged]
- xyzzy4747 3y agoWe also have the CIA and NSA
- Kalium 3y agoThose are not law enforcement bodies. This is on purpose. We do not want them to be law enforcement bodies.
- polski-g 3y agoBoth of those entities are forbidden from doing operations on US soil.
- Der_Einzige 3y agoThe spooks spooks, the DIA, don't even get brought up much despite them being such a big deal in terms of doing "james bond" shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Intelligence_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Intelligence_Agency
- beanjuiceII 3y agoThis doesn't mean that FBI will not have plenty of high paying workers as contractors, it just means that there will be less high quality FBI employees.
- jtdev 3y ago[dead]
- i_like_waiting 3y ago>In New York, for example, starting salaries for FBI agents hover around $73,000. But a nonprofit group in the city reported people need to earn at least $100,000 to afford food, housing and transportation there. Does this hold truth? I know it's expensive city, but 73k is also median salary here, do they want to say that more than half people here cannot afford basic needs? That doesn't sound right
- api 3y agoI knew people making 100K in California spending up to 60% of their income on housing. Housing prices are destroying everything.
- fifteen1506 3y agoWhat about the free enterprise????
- leereeves 3y agoHousing isn't a free market; it's heavily regulated, subsidized, and politicized.
- wizzwizz4 3y agoHouses are also not fungible. If people have a reason to live in a particular area (e.g., work, jurisdictional issues), and housing isn't regulated, you get places like Kowloon: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/a/a7/20230611151639%21Kowloon_Walled_City_-_1989_Aerial.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/a/a7/...
- hackerlight 3y agoThe most extreme example the world has to offer is not representative of what would happen if the US legalized housing. HK has almost 200x the population density of the US and almost 100x the population density of California.
- master_crab 3y agoThe problem is the FBI uses mostly the same GS pay scale as the rest of the federal government. So if the pay stinks for them, it also stinks for every other government agency. And that’s a much bigger problem then Mulder and Scully not making rent.
- beanjuiceII 3y agoYes the gs pay scale also means these agencies use more contract workers who end up costing way way more. It's a dual world that exists
- sneak 3y agoYou’re telling me that an organization that has zero incentive to be efficient with money is being penny wise and pound foolish? This is the same problem with violent and criminal cops - the lawsuits against the department are paid by taxpayers, not the offenders. The people who make these bad decisions aren’t wasting their own money - they’re wasting the money taken from you and I by force. They have no incentive to stop wasting it.
- cyanydeez 3y agoThat's not what's happening guy. The people setting the pay scale are bought out by corporations who want that money spent on themselves. This isn't some avocado toast incident, not matter how much such a simple budget you understand
- dragontamer 3y ago> You’re telling me that an organization that has zero incentive to be efficient with money is being penny wise and pound foolish? All of these pay limits are capped by Senator's pay of $180k ish. No Senator (or House Member) is going to vote for typical FBI agents to have higher salaries than themselves. What we're seeing here is the American people refusing to give pay-raises to our executive class / leadership class, and then the natural degradation of our leaders and pay-scales all the way down the chain. We're well past due of giving Senators / House members a proper pay raise. Maybe then we'll actually have smart people running for these important positions again. > The people who make these bad decisions aren’t wasting their own money - they’re wasting the money taken from you and I by force. They have no incentive to stop wasting it. No Congressman or Senator will think that FBI pay raises would be fair, when they themselves aren't allowed a pay aise to a sufficient level. Top end executive level FBI (ex: FBI Head) will be close to Congressional pay or maybe just a little above that. Then, the rest of the GS scale builds down from there. By the time we get to starting salaries, its insufficient.
- YugyDugan 3y ago[flagged]
- the__alchemist 3y agoI'm floored they don't get a military-style cost-of-living-allowance. Similar situation of being assigned to live in arbitrary places, but (pending short term problems caused by slower or inaccurate COLA adjustments than rent changes) it's not a problem for US military members, since their pay varies by location, specifically to avoid the problem the article highlights.
- Kalium 3y agoThe GS schedule has location adjustments. They don't always keep up with the actual cost of living in a location. The NYC area means there's a 37% boost to pay, but NYC is not just 37% more expensive to live in than baseline.
- lazide 3y agoYeah, NYC is more like 10x compared to somewhere like New Mexico. It’s a typical gov’t employment issue. It’s also why so many military bases and gov’t centers (except for HQ type areas) tend to be in the middle of nowhere - the folks who man them can actually afford to live there. It’s also a huge kickback to Congress/house members (especially conservative ones), since military tends to vote conservative, and those areas also end up quite dependent on military/gov’t funding (Military Town, or industry town). So they can lock in votes by keeping relatively well paid jobs/income in areas dependent on them doing so, and those people will be relatively happy because compared to other options they do pretty well. Most officers end up owning multiple homes (and renting them out) as they move around the country, for instance. Not sure about now, but even E5s can end up with a house in many of these places, and that’s only like $42k/yr. The ones that get screwed are the ones low in the totem pole who end up in high COL areas, but those folks are usually pretty ambitious (hence why they are near the HQ/exciting area) and low overhead.
- dwheeler 3y agoThe broader problem is lack of housing that can be afforded by the non-wealthy, which is caused in significant part by zoning laws. If more housing was available, the increased supply would better match the demand.
- mrktf 3y agoThat is broader problem to solve, not taking account any civil infrastructure the houses will be bought by corporate rent company and renters will be charged "fair price" - pretty same as now (not long ago the was article with discussion about rent price fixing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575803 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575803 )
- readyman 3y agoYeah, capital accumulation is an inherent quality of capitalism, and accumulated capital then controls the state making so-called regulation impossible. It's only a matter of time.
- s1artibartfast 3y agoOnly in certain regimes, like when labor competition is high. The challenge is houses are the product of both capital and labor, so even if real capital returns are negative, you get stuck with high prices for construction.
- readyman 3y agoNonsense. Capital simply regulates labor competition to be low. Whether it's by increasing migration of cheap labor, policing worker organizing, company towns, regressive taxes, or many other strategies. There was one single period in history when this changed for a brief moment and capital learned its lesson to always use its power to keep the workers down. It has done so ever since.
- 3y ago
- matsemann 3y agoIsn't this a security clearance issue? I don't know how it's in the US, but when I've been involved in things like that, financial hardship is a big factor, as it can mean someone would be easier to sway if another actor proposed to fix their problems.
- sillysaurusx 3y agoInflation has been a killer. Someone I know wants to move out, but her old apartment went from $750/mo to $1250/mo in just a few years. That’s almost double. It might sound like an outlier, but I’m not sure there’s even anything sub-$1k anymore, and this is Missouri we’re talking about. As for the rest of the country, $200k is the new $100k. It’s kind of shocking because I remember a coworker telling me how sweet it felt to earn $100k as a 23yo. That was back in 2008, and he was talking about five years prior to that, so 2003ish. Grocery prices have also gone up substantially. $300 per trip isn’t unusual, and I remember it being around $200 max just over a year ago. I don’t think our spending habits changed much. Employees should probably band together and force the market upwards. I’ve done a lot of thinking about whether to embrace the invisible hand of capitalism, and I’ve wondered whether unionization does work. It doesn’t seem to have massive downsides. And what other choice is there when your salary doesn’t match inflation? Go somewhere else? Well, that works for programmers, but the vast majority of the country aren’t. Things will only get worse when AI does start mowing down jobs. I don’t think we’re close to that yet, but it’s one of those inevitabilities that we should try to plan for.
- colonwqbang 3y agoCapitalism may be the cause of some problems, but not inflation. Inflation isn't caused by free markets or the invisible hand, but by public policy and an oversupply of money being created by the state.
- rabite 3y ago[flagged]
- asveikau 3y agoPeople wonder why there's a lot of people doing that, or they get angry and blame the homeless for it, but here is an example where wages don't cover costs.
- probably_jesus 3y agoWe can afford to fund wars (while the military industrial complex gets rich) and bail out banks who sell junk mortgages (so bank shareholders get rich) and we can afford to house illegal immigrants (some of whom are enemy invaders, enjoying hotel living because it's the same cost of living as a crap apartment) but we can't afford to give the people who protect us a fair living wage (a lot of whom go into private security which is a national liability because it forces operators to go after the money just to be able to eat) This country's priorities are all bass awkward and it's the government's fault. What do lawmakers even do?
- fransje26 3y agoAnd the financial insecurity that comes with it makes them a lot more susceptible to bribery. Great. On the other hand, it is absolutely insane that the minimum needed to cover a family of 4 is around $150,000. At what point do we accept that the greed the current economic model creates is pushing price inflation beyond unsustainable levels, and at what point do we stop this circus before everything collapses and we, as a society, loose everything we have? This really reminds me of [0].. [0] https://www.insidehook.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/tom-toro-climate-cartoon-1.jpg https://www.insidehook.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/tom-to...
- kilotaras 3y agoHousing theory of everything[0] strikes again. Situation: Housing demand outstrips housing supply. First order effect: housing prices go up Second order effect: your FBI agents are now experiencing financial instability and worries Third order effect: your FBI agents are now more susceptible to bribes [0] https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-everything/ https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...
- bradleyjg 3y agoIt’s also worth noting where the money is going. It isn’t evaporating into the air. Everyone talks about increasing numbers of parents helping their adult children from the angle of a moral failure by the children. Why doesn’t anyone stop to wonder why so many older people have so much money in the first place?
- nouveaux 3y agoOlder people have more money because they 1) Lived longer to accumulate wealth. 2) Housing was cheaper relative their income 30 years ago. It's also worth noting that 50% of homeless people are over 50 [1] [1] https://www.governing.com/urban/the-nations-homeless-population-is-aging-dramatically https://www.governing.com/urban/the-nations-homeless-populat...
- bradleyjg 3y agoHousing was cheaper relative their income 30 years ago. This wasn’t some cosmic accident. It was a result of policy choices.
- TimedToasts 3y agoFourth order effect: hiring more FBI agents to monitor the Third Orders. Fifth order effect: hiring more FBI agents to monitor the Fourth Orders. Sixth order effect: Eventually unemployment will be solved!
- 3y ago
- devonsolomon 3y agoIn Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and The Traitor he goes into detail on Aldrich Ames, a double crossing CIA agent who sold out US soviet assets to the Soviets (which led to 10 being executed) in exchange for Soviet cash. I think Macintyre called it one of the largest betrayals in US history. He did this because he was struggling with personal debt and his new wife had expensive taste. Feels like there should be a lesson in there somewhere.
- oldpersonintx 3y ago[dead]
- Waterluvian 3y agoThere is no salary level that can guard against this kind of thing given “expensive tastes” can ruin even those who are perfectly well-off.
- TimedToasts 3y agoNPR running sympathetic stories for Big Brother, including the last paragraph framing opposition as supporters of Emmanuel Goldstein. He does not like MiniLove - you would be agreeing with him if you also did not like it just fyi. NPR could have talked about the current size of the FBI budget, the costs associated with this request, the size of the current deficit - nope, straight to Goldstein.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoDownsize the FBI and redistribute their budget to the few who remain.
- earth2mars 3y agoMake corporate rental investment unaffordable. I heard majority of single family homes are owned by corporations. Is that true?
- earth2mars 3y agohttps://todayshomeowner.com/blog/guides/are-big-companies-buying-up-single-family-homes/ https://todayshomeowner.com/blog/guides/are-big-companies-bu... Over the last decade, the number of investors purchasing single-family homes increased from 10% to 15% each year, with a spike of over 80% from 2020 to 2021 alone.
- User23 3y agoThere is plenty of affordable housing in the DC metro area. A quick search online finds numerous homes and condos available for under $200k, which is well within the budget of an FBI employee. This is the kind of diverse high density housing that is so popular here, so where's the problem?
- go88faxme 3y agoWhy stay in FBI earning measly? That says A LOT about those kind of people. Either they are idealist or just plain doing "side hustle" like Danzel in Training Day.