Quote:
Originally Posted by Chatbrat
-A fire fighter or policer who puts their lives on the line deserves much better pay than a roofer or a landscaper
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Just to keep things in proper perspective. I am not sure why you think a roofer or a landscaper does not put their life on the line.
Here are the death data:
There are about 1.2 million firefighters in the US not including private and federal. There are about 70 deaths per year in that group and
more than half are heart attacks or stress and this includes things like a
66 yo who died after 20 mins on a treadmill which is not clearly a job related death. A death rate including all 70 as job related gives 58 per million.
Roofers have a
death rate of over 300 per million or more than six times that of firefighters, and 12 times if you don't include sudden death from heart disease.
So if risk of death is going to be brought up as a main criteria then roofers have a much better argument for a huge pay raise.
Landscapers? I don't have data for the workers but I do for the supervisors.
Fatality rate of 181 per million on the job, or double that of firefighters.
Do I think our public servants are underpaid, yes. But the risk of firefighting is much lower than many other fields. And the risk in the Villages is certainly lower than in most other departments.
Just FYI here are the highest fatality risk occupations and
deaths per million in 2015
Logging 1327
Fishing 548
Aircraft pilots and flight engineers 404
Roofers 397
Refuse collection 388 yes the "garbage man" is five times more likely to die doing the job than a firefighter
Iron and steel workers 298
Drivers 243
Farmers 220
Electrical install and repair 205
Supervisors of landscapers 181
Estimating this one
Police 145 [2016 data
145 death and estimated
1 million police]
and Firefighters 58