SI NEWS
By FDNY EMS Local 2507
FDNY Emergency Medical Services (EMS) workers put their health and safety on the line every day treating the city’s sick and seriously injured, yet still they are being denied decent compensation and treatment they rightly deserve.
The 4,000 members of FDNY Emergency Medical Services have been paid starvation wages for years, despite countless promises by elected leaders over the decades, including Mayor Adams. As our agency’s effectiveness is harmed by severe brain drain and disastrous response times, investments into EMS and its people must be made if we are meant to keep New Yorkers safe.
The launch of the #StandWithEMS campaign by EMS Local 2507 is bringing awareness to the dedication and sacrifice of our city’s emergency medical first responders, despite City Hall’s negligence toward providing the same respect and wages as compared to our great frontline peers at police and fire.
FDNY EMS wages start at $18.94 an hour, less than the newly mandated minimum wage for food delivery drivers. The career salary caps at $59,534 after five years. By comparison, NYPD officers and FDNY firefighters, who are also performing essential, lifesaving work every day, start at $60,000 and $54,000 respectively, rising to $126,000 and $109,352 after just five years. Meanwhile, our fellow medics in Nassau County start with a salary of $58,480, reaching a peak of $142,730.
Our mostly female and minority workforce, some of whom are compelled to live in homeless shelters, in cars, or rely on SNAP and HUD Section 8 Housing programs, are manning the front lines across our city administering life-saving care to victims of stabbings, gunshots, cardiac arrests, and strokes. These brave medical professionals are placed into dangerous situations on a daily basis, risking their lives in the face of deadly communicable diseases or even assault.
The low wages and difficult job conditions have led to a catastrophic 70% turnover rate within the first five years on the job. That massive attrition rate is a crisis. This flight of human capital is stretching our workforce dreadfully thin, while our members respond to record-breaking numbers of medical emergencies year after year.
In 2024, FDNY EMS responded to 1,630,446 medical emergencies, the most in the agency’s history and a 15.4% increase since the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a 45.8% increase since 2004. This level of emergency responses coupled with the oversized turnover rate is unsustainable for both the department and the city, as fewer ambulances and crews are being deployed on our streets.
The stress, difficult working conditions, and poverty wages do not make justifiable sense for any member to want to remain at EMS, for what amounts to about $12.18 per hour after taxes and deductions!
The impact of the mayor’s disregard and complete disinvestment in the FDNY EMS is illustrated in the latest Mayor’s Management Report, which shows average response times to life-threatening medical emergencies reached 11 minutes and 21 seconds in fiscal year 2025, up 1 minute 47 seconds citywide over the last four years and up 3 minutes 21 seconds when citywide emergency response times were 7 minutes in 2004.
Every second is critical in a life-or-death situation, and experience of the medical professional matters when your loved one’s life is on the line.
In 2024, EMS responded to 69,766 medical emergencies in Staten Island, compared to 65,003 in the borough in 2021. This is a 7.3% increase over three years of the Adams administration.
If FDNY EMS is to properly serve the millions of New York residents, commuters, and tourists that rely on us, something must finally change. We need a wage that encourages our members to remain on the job, and that puts us on equal footing with our sibling agencies.
Members join EMS out of a commitment to public service, helping their fellow New Yorker, and saving lives. It is a job that emphasizes compassion, commitment, and unwavering spirit.
However, how can anyone justify being unable to afford living in the city we are sworn to protect? We must often live hours outside of the city, requiring long commutes turning an 8-hour shift into 10 or 12 hours. On top of this, members typically must work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
If New York City’s policy leaders care about this city, they need to understand that if the status quo persists, EMS will continue to be hollowed out as members leave for the sake of their own survival. Response times will continue to uncontrollably soar, and New Yorkers will be left less safe because of it.
It is past time for the city to invest in EMTs and paramedics as they do for our great police and fire. New York must finally stand with EMS and correct the inequities members face. The city has continually failed to uphold their commitments when all we ask is for a wage commensurate with this dangerous life-saving work. Let’s treat our medical first responders with dignity for the difficult job they perform. We ask you to stand with EMS!
FDNY EMS Local 2507 is the union representing New York City’s 4,000 EMTs, paramedics and fire inspectors.
