Entry level $38k average $52.

NYPD pay is $60k starting and $125 after five years. That doesn’t include overtime or benefits. At 33k officers and counting, they’re the biggest department in the country. Base salary in Houston is $80k with Senior Officers earning as much as $140k.

Go more local and you’ll find the starting officer pay regularly outruns the median salary and benefits. The NYC median salary is $73k. Houston is $56k. You can find officers in smaller towns earning less. But they’re inevitably in a township with residents that are even poorer.

And, again, this is just baseline salary. Police Unions regularly secure 1.5x - 2x overtime pay compensation, resulting in some curious compensation figures

Houston senior police officer Matthew Davis’ annual salary was about $90,000 this past fiscal year. He made nearly $170,000 more in overtime.

It was not an anomaly. Davis has collected more in overtime than his base salary every year since at least 2020, and was previously disciplined for participating in an overtime scheme involving fabricated witness claims on traffic tickets. He is part of a growing pattern among the city’s highest-paid traffic enforcement officers who routinely collect overtime earnings that match or exceed their base salaries, a Houston Chronicle analysis found

Hardly the only department that’s been scandalized by this kind of misconduct.

The coveted nature of the job is little dicks want power to abuse.

Definitely one of the “fringe” benefits.

The job does suck.

Most jobs suck. Few include the number of perks afforded to entry level staff.