But CRUD app developers are most precious resources on earth. Other people should not really exist after providing services, food, security and on demand rides etc.
My uncle is one of those people who sits in subway booths.
He does almost nothing.
He makes 80k a year.
My political ideology is deeply in favor of the working class. I believe in strong worker protections, in the unionization of labor in most industries, and that capital controls a disproportionate amount of wealth and power in this country.
But I must also insist that these costs are unfair and insane.
He's also getting about another 70k in benefits, for a total compensation well into the 6-figures.
People wonder "why is the subway so filthy?" Well, if you wanted to hire people to keep the subways clean, they would have to be paid $100K+ in total compensation.
Ok, so why not hire a private company to keep subways clean? A private company would be able to pay free-market compensation to hire cleaners.
"In terms of cleanliness, which is also an issue of public health - why doesn't MTA have a dedicated crew of 4 or 5 people with a power washer, soap and squeegees to move methodically through each station, working on the weekends or overnight? "
Can't have it, because the MTA is not in the moving-people-business, they are in the wealth-transfer-business.
In fact, MTA have been investing in vacuum cleaning systems for the tracks with the aim of reducing fires that lead to delays. You're being disingenuous. Here's an article:
So it's frankly absurd of the commenter to say that just 4-5 people could manage this task. One manager mentioned in the article leads a team of 300(!) cleaners.
They do have those teams. I've seen them work; they've got power washers, and they blast the stations. They cleaned my previous-local station once every few months, at least.
The stations don't stay clean because they move millions of people per day, not all of whom are clean. Today I saw a kid throwing up on her way into the station; she and her mother were somehow polite enough to pause above a drain to do so. Combine that with people tracking upstairs dirt in, and littering, intentional and accidental (I dropped a candy wrapper while getting my kid home; I'm not stopping to pick it up mid-tantrum), and you've got a pretty messy situation.
I used to work for a far less offensive agency in NYC, a public library system, and IT managers there make a cool $200K -- though most librarians who are in unions make much less. I wouldn't feel too bad if they were competent folks who deserve the market rates, but many of them didn't really deserve what they were getting.
Yes I know a real person that works for MTA police but no he didn't make 130k, he made 195k. Go on seethroughny.net and look it up. Try to find MTA police NOT making over 130k. Keep in mind this also includes 20 yr retirement with state tax free pension.
I don't doubt that such people exist, but it's definitely not the norm. If you start with a base salary of 70k or so (not terribly unreasonable if you've got seniority), you rack up overtime (usually at 1.5× multiplier), and you work lousy shifts like nights and holidays, making 130k isn't impossible.
In those data, one sees Mr. Arthur Harkin, a Long Island Rail Road conductor, made $195,000. ($220 thousand in 2017 dollars.)
[1] https://www.empirecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MTA-...
[2] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=69.489&year1=2...