I wouldn't assume beach lifeguarding to be an easy job, and I would expect a job that puts my life at risk to compensate me fairly for that risk. The overtime numbers are concerning, however, since the last thing I would want is to have exhausted lifeguards on duty.
> Do we really think the top lifeguard in LA is putting his life at risk?
Risk is meaningful to this discussion in that it deters people from taking the job. That reduces supply and boosts price. I don’t think lifeguards are paid a premium for being supply constrained.
California has a public sector compensation problem. (In particular, its unwillingness to investigate overtime fraud.) But estimating pay solely based on how dangerous the job is won’t be accurate.
Being a lifeguard in LA would be a dream job for millions of people especially if they could make $400k a year doing it!
This is low skilled labor! The only requirement is to be a strong swimmer and have basic leadership skills.
I don't think supply of willing lifeguards is a constraint here.
I'd imagine if LA county put out an ad to replace their top lifeguard and offered even $200k a year they'd receive thousands of applications from perfectly qualified people.
Teenagers lifeguarding at suburban pools is unskilled labor. For an urban beach, I want someone with medical training—say, a paramedic—as well as knowledge of the local oceanography and meteorology. They need to be able to pull people out of the water, yes, but also be able to close beaches when they become unsafe and anticipate when things will become unsafe.
Accurately calculating the risk of a lifeguard job seems tough to me. It seems to me it’s a rather binary risk. You either don’t drown or you drown, but obviously the less probable of those outcomes is very serious. In other dangerous jobs, there is more of a gradient of danger.
Saving a panicky drowning person can involve them punching you etc. Local hazards can include sea life, infections, debris, rocks etc leading to a host of serious injuries.
I'm surprised that small engine mechanics are #18 and supervisors of mechanics are #19. Since the two are so closely correlated, perhaps this is caused by duels or something violently similar, between mechanics and supervisors of mechanics. It just seems it shouldn't be life-threateningly dangerous to be a small engine mechanic.
It'll be car crashes. Any job where you're in the field around vehicles will be pretty dangerous. It's why garbage collectors and delivery drivers are high on that list too.
Cars are very convenient, and necessary in many places. But we really underestimate just how dangerous they are, and how bad the US is at regulating them. Our society is nearly identical to Canada, yet we have twice the traffic fatality rate. Something has gone very wrong with US car culture.
I don't know, but if he's managing a lot of people and made it so that those people also get highly paid - he's built a little empire. Maybe that's wrong. But these are also people that save lives. If you cut off the top, and try to keep the lower levels, when is a new "top dog" going to take over and demand high pay again?
Lifeguarding in LA is a combination safety job and entertainment job. LA depends a lot on tourism, and specifically beach tourism. Keeping the beaches safe is very important for tourism.
I did this in New York when I was younger. Not as highly paid, and shorter seasons of course. The common thread I see here is that the pay scales with seniority/leadership more than with risk. The main difference is that this can be someone's career in LA, whereas in New York it's more or a seasonal supplemental (usually only teachers are longtimers) thing.
Easy or not, the pay numbers are obscene regardless. Let alone how many employees are in the 100k club. The danger is how much this contributes to their retirement payout.
California had to change the law to prevent ridiculous retirement payouts and that is where the ire belongs. There is no logic to public employees pulling down 100k retirements but this is where we are. People bemoan private employer payouts need to be watching their backs as they are fleeced by public employee salaries, boosted by overtime and other bonuses, and then their retirements. My favorite is Forbes's work on Illinois 100k club[1]
Look, the average pension for many public servants is not all that grand, it is the big money people who are fleecing not only the tax payers but other public service retirees. There is every reason a retiree should have a good retirement payout but when you start getting into multiples of what the average income of someone in your state is someone needs to step back and say, what gives.
Let alone the pension debt Illinois carries - this is not uncommon across the country
The second person on the chart has base pay of 140k, and overtime of 131k. If they have 1.5 overtime rate, then that is an AVERAGE of 62 hours a week, every week.
I know utility workers that make over $250k/year due to extreme overtime. Often a sticking point with their salaried management.
It's not a lifestyle I would choose, but I can see the allure of being top dog in a close knit team. I heard an NPR interview the other day with a CA firefighter. He basically admitted to working so much because 1) he didn't know how to function at home with his family and 2) he was a respected crew chief. When you're "married to the sea" you have a routine of people getting your coffee, etc., that I'm sure you don't receive at home.
I doubt that the risk to lifeguards, that have a flotation device with them, approaches anything experienced by fire fighters, cops, truck drivers, etc. As noted in the article, valor in rescues doesn't seem to correlate with pay. The danger is mostly from sun exposure.
This is outrageous, frankly. The job is really not that hard.
> Macko jumped into the rough waters in a remote Palos Verdes gorge and pulled a man to safety through potentially skull-crushing swells and over razor-sharp rocks.
