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\n Photo: Robert Nickelsberg\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Many of the challenges Zohran Mamdani has encountered in his first 100 days as mayor \u2014 like ending street homelessness, halting the deterioration of public housing<\/a>, or preventing the deaths in custody<\/a> of jailed detainees on Rikers Island\u00a0\u2014 are not just tough but essentially unsolvable<\/a>.<\/p>\n But raising the abysmally low wages of emergency medical-services workers, New York\u2019s fabled corps of skilled \u201cstreet doctors\u201d who staff fire-department ambulances and respond to every manner of health crisis, is not one of those problems. Even in a tough budget season, it will be a scandal if City Hall doesn\u2019t fix this pronto.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have quite a few members who are homeless \u2014 either living in shelters, sleeping in their cars, sleeping at the station, sleeping on a friend\u2019s couch,\u201d says Oren Barzilay, president of FDNY EMS Local 2507, which represents most emergency medical technicians in the city. \u201cThey put on a uniform during the day, and at night, they\u2019re homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n You read that right. The first responders who answered more than 1.6 million 911 calls last year<\/a>, often alongside cops and firefighters, get starting pay of $39,000 a year and top out at $59,000 after several years on the job. EMS is part of the Fire Department, but EMTs get paid far less than the $54,000 starting pay of firefighters, who can expect to make $110,000 after five years.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a daily slap in the face of responders who show up within minutes when New Yorkers have a bad fall, a heart attack, or a bleeding cut. \u201cI worked overnight, so I worked from 6:30 to 6:30,\u201d Jasiah Canelo, a 23-year-old Astoria native, told me about his years as an EMT stationed in Washington Heights. \u201cThere\u2019s no elevators, so we would have a six-flight carry down, you know what I mean? That would happen eight or nine times a night. You\u2019re doing something, and it can get very physical.\u201d<\/p>\n But we, the citizens of New York City, did not pay Canelo a living wage for that grueling, lifesaving work. \u201cI was making around $3,500 a month. So I probably got $55,000 last year doing a bunch of overtime, and that\u2019s not including me paying my tolls and gas,\u201d he told me. \u201cAfter each paycheck, after I paid all my bills, I probably had like $150 to $200 to spend on groceries and food and all that.\u201d<\/p>\n Taysha Soto, an EMT and single mother stationed in Staten Island, told me she works 16 hours every day to supplement her $39,000 salary. \u201cWe give our best, and we\u2019re just not treated how we\u2019re supposed to be treated,\u201d she told me.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s people I\u2019ve heard of that actually do sleep in their cars, that are actually facing eviction, you know, because they\u2019re just so backed up with bills and everything. I had that problem not too long ago, where I was just backed up in bills and rent like three months. I just now got my taxes and I was able to catch up on bills and stuff, but I was backed up on everything, literally. And it\u2019s just not right.\u201d<\/p>\n The low pay leads to high turnover. \u201cWe\u2019re losing almost 1,500 members by the end of the year,\u201d Vincent Variale, president of Local 3261 of the Uniformed Emergency Medical Service Officers Union, told me. \u201cSo that\u2019s a considerable amount when you talk about the size of our service being 4,500.\u201d<\/p>\n Canelo enlisted in the Army earlier this year and spoke to me from Fort Benning, Georgia, on the day after he completed basic training. \u201cMy plan right now is I want to be able to sustain myself and kind of set up a future for my family,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I come back, I want to go to paramedic school, and I want to be a paramedic in the fire department.\u201d<\/p>\n The low-pay problem is getting more attention from prominent people. \u201cEMS are the lowest-paid first responders in the city, and that is unacceptable,\u201d newly appointed fire commissioner Lillian Bonsignore, who rose through the EMS ranks, said at the State of FDNY speech<\/a> earlier this year. \u201cI can talk firsthand about what it\u2019s like to live on an EMS salary. The majority of my career I had to work three to four jobs in order to support my family.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, Mamdani and the proud socialists in City Council have to deliver. \u201cWe have hopes that he will take this on, because this is exactly what he\u2019s been saying all along. Affordability, equality, equity for people that are being mistreated and treated unfairly,\u201d Variale said. \u201cThis is not even an EMS issue anymore. This is a public-safety issue. People are dying.\u201d<\/p>\n The simplest solution, aligning EMT salaries with those of firefighters, was supposed to happen under Mayor Eric Adams. \u201cFor years our EMTs, paramedics, and fire inspectors have been shamefully denied pay parity \u2014 that comes to an end when I become mayor,\u201d candidate Adams vowed in 2021<\/a> after accepting the endorsement of the EMS unions.<\/p>\n Adams never came through: The Daily News<\/a> reported that, despite the mayor\u2019s public promise, his chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, shot down the idea of parity. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t agree with that, because they do work, EMS workers definitely do work, but not on the same level as a police officer or fireman does. No, that definitely doesn\u2019t make sense to me,\u201d she said during a 2023 City Hall meeting with EMS advocates.<\/p>\n So the EMS unions went years without a new contract under Adams, and the system remains under severe strain. An estimated 14 EMS workers have committed suicide<\/a> since 2020, and the Independent Budget Office<\/a> found that reponse time is increasing due to short staffing.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you don\u2019t have the manpower, it impacts not just the workforce,\u00a0 now it\u2019s a public-safety issue,\u201d Barzilay told me. \u201cOne gentleman did CPR on his son for over 20 minutes before an ambulance arrived. So people are dying every day. We\u2019re not making this up.\u201d<\/p>\n And that creates an opportunity for Mamdani to score a triple win: boosting the pay of working-class New Yorkers, improving performance of a vital city service, and turning the page on a failure of the one-term Adams administration.<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Intelligencer\u00a0Newsletter<\/p>\n Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n