For three years now, FDNY EMS Local 2507, the union representing these lifesavers, has been battling City Hall for a new labor contract. Starting pay for EMTs and paramedics — whose primary responsibility is to render immediate medical assistance to New Yorkers in need and rush them to a local hospital — is under $40,000 and rises only to a shade under $60,000 after five years of service.
By contrast, an NYPD officer starts out with an annual salary of $60,000, rising to $126,000 after five years of service; an FDNY firefighter starts out with an annual salary of just over $54,000, rising to $105,000 after 5 ½ years of service.
The disparity between EMTs and paramedics, and their first responder brethren, is bad enough. Last week, the City Council added insult to injury with a bill increasing the hourly wage for app-based delivery workers to $21.44 per hour — which is a 13% higher rate than the $18.94 per hour wage a NYC EMT/paramedic earns.
We’re not saying that the app-based delivery workers do not deserve a raise; they certainly do for the services they provide. But for City Hall to continue to leave life-saving first responders hanging with stagnant wages like this is utterly disgraceful.
Because of this massive wage disparity, the NYC EMS service is undergoing a tremendous brain drain, as many of these lifesavers are forced to quit and find employment with better wages. Indeed, Local 2507 says EMTs quit their posts within five years. It’s equally difficult to recruit new workers to a job that requires high skills for little financial reward. Meanwhile, the number of 911 calls only grows year after year in New York City.
It’s time for Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council to finally give NYC EMTs and paramedics the higher wages they deserve and earn every time they rush out on a call and encounter patients in severe medical distress, families in anguish and situations in which every second and every decision may be the difference between life and death.
You should write to Mayor Adams at the contact page on his website, nyc.gov/mayor. You should also email your local City Council members and Speaker Adrienne Adams at speakeradams@council.nyc.gov. Please tell them the city’s EMTs and paramedics are essential workers who deserve the best possible pay for their incredibly important vocation.
Every New Yorker or someone they love will eventually need the services of an EMT or paramedic. We need to ensure that those EMTs and paramedics can do their jobs to the best of their abilities — and that can only happen if they are given the living wages they need.
At least two were killed in the attacks, including a 12-year-old boy, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At least 15 people were injured.
“Throughout the night, Russia launched more than 420 drones and over 20 missiles, including ballistic ones. The waves of attacks lasted all night and continued into the morning,” Zelenskyy said Monday on social media.
The attacks hit one day after Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed to have shot down 26 Ukrainian drones. Those salvos — the latest in the 3-year, long-range war — came as Zelenskyy called for another round of peace talks with Russia.
NATO meeting about Trump’s plan to bolster weapons in Ukraine
Last week, President Donald Trump announced plans to add to Ukraine’s weapons stockpile by selling American equipment to NATO allies, who would then send arms to Ukraine, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump said deliveries of air defense systems could begin “within days.”
Now, world leaders are attending a virtual meeting led by British Defense Secretary John Healey and his German counterpart, Boris Pistorius.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and NATO leader Mark Rutte, as well as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, are expected to attend the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, according to Haley.
Providing Ukraine with more long-range weaponry would give Kyiv the chance to strike further into Russian territory, a move that some in Ukraine and the United States have said could help push Putin toward negotiations to end the fighting.
Asked if he intended to supply Ukraine with weapons that could reach deeper into Russian territory, Trump replied, “We’re not looking to do that.”
Trump issues 50-day ultimatum to Russia
Trump last week threatened to impose steep sanctions on Russia’s oil buyers if it does not accept a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days.
In the hours following his announcement, Trump told the BBC he is “disappointed but not done” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Sunday said Russia is open to achieving peace with Ukraine but maintained Russia’s “clear” goals are the main priority.
“The main thing for us is to achieve our goals,” he said. “Our goals are clear.”
The Kremlin has insisted that any peace deal should see Ukraine withdraw from the four regions that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured.
It also wants Ukraine to renounce its bid to join NATO and accept strict limits on its armed forces — which Kyiv and its allies have continually rejected.
House of 1000 Doors: Family Secrets is a hidden object adventure game that takes players into a mysterious mansion that serves as a portal between worlds. As the protagonist, Kate Reed, a writer with a troubled past, you are invited to explore the house and help the spirits trapped within.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has opened up about his friendship with Lewis Hamilton and the dating advice he gives to the seven-time world champion.
Economic researchers say flexible work helps startups compete with big firms for young talent.
Luke MacGregor/Reuters
Economic researchers say flexible work helps startups compete with big firms for young talent.
Data shows RTO mandates hit younger and experienced employees harder due to work-life conflict.
Big businesses may feel more pressure to enforce RTO amid economic uncertainty and declining shares.
If David were taking on Goliath today, he might do it from home.
Startups and smaller companies offering flexible work arrangements could better challenge larger rivals less willing to let employees log on from home, and many may already be doing so, workplace researchers told Business Insider.
“It’s a great way for small companies to compete with big companies for talent,” said Nicole Kyle, who studies the future of work, about giving workers greater autonomy.
Nick Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University who studies remote work, told BI that his research shows that in January 2023, 27.2% of fully paid working days were from home. By June 2025, the rate had edged up to 27.9%. That’s mostly thanks to smaller companies and startups, he said.
It comes as some of the biggest names in corporate America have gone all in on time in the office. Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan require five days, while Starbucks said last week that it would bump its RTO mandate to four days from three.
Researchers told BI that doing the opposite could help smaller firms compete for talent and cut costs.
Many young workers focus on flexibility because juggling the demands of work and life tends to get easier as people age, said Ellen Ernst Kossek, a professor emerita of management at Purdue University who has researched work-life balance challenges.
In a decadeslong study involving several hundred thousand workers, she found that people under 30, compared to older age groups, report more work and life conflict overall. That goes beyond family duties and includes time for exercise, domestic tasks, caring for pets, and just being alone.
In-demand workers could choose flexibility
Rather than across-the-board mandates, Kossek said, employers should construct a human resources strategy that accommodates an organization’s needs and those of its workers.
“We’ve got to balance employer and employee interests, or nobody’s going to want to work for big companies,” Kossek said.
While fresh grads in need of mentorship and empty-nesters inching toward retirement are often more inclined to enjoy going to the office, people of prime working age who are both experienced and relatively young — between 30 and 50 years old — are attracted to more flexibility, especially in tech industries, Stanford’s Bloom said.
Someone leaving school with a master’s degree in computer science and a specialty in AI would fall into “one of the hottest talent pools out there,” he said. If the grad had competing job offers and one employer allowed someone to work from home twice a week and one didn’t, it would likely be an easy choice, Bloom said.
Because caregiving responsibilities more often fall to women than men, rigid RTO requirements tend to lead to a paucity of women in the upper ranks of some prestige industries, he said.
“It’s pretty hard to argue that having 90% men in a firm is great for business, which is the case for many tech and finance companies now,” Bloom said.
Big businesses are under pressure
In a year of tariff whiplash, many businesses are facing rising costs, and remote work can be an easy scapegoat for lackluster performance, Mark Ma, a University of Pittsburgh business professor, told BI.
“A jerk-knee reaction is to blame remote work and call employees back to the office,” Ma said.
Although the US stock indexes have been notching record highs, Ma said that if investors grow worried, for example, that tariffs will eat into corporate profits, more companies could feel compelled to issue RTO mandates.
Starbucks, which said in a recent email to staff that it would increase its RTO mandate to four days from three starting in October, saw its stock fall earlier in 2025, though it’s now up slightly for the year.
CEO Brian Niccol, who joined the Seattle coffee chain in the final months of 2024, wrote in the memo that having people together in person lets workers “share ideas more effectively, creatively solve hard problems, and move much faster.”
Kyle, who is a cofounder of CMP Research, told BI that certain types of work are often better done when colleagues are together, though not all work falls into this category. Flexibility can allow teams to best design their workflows, she said.
Bloom, from Stanford, said that smaller and newer companies are more likely to embrace remote work and tend to grow faster. In contrast, older and larger firms are leaning more toward office-based work and typically see slower expansion.
“Enforcing RTOs is kind of like saying we as a company have decided to cancel the corporate jet and halve all travel allowances,” he said.
Just like draconian cost cuts can signal trouble, a sudden RTO push could make investors nervous, Bloom said.
Flexible work could reduce costs
Smaller companies unable to offer paychecks equal to those in Magnificent Seven tech firms may be in luck if they offer more flexible work as a perk, said Ma.
He said that allowing employees to work from home can allow workers to spend less on transportation and meals. At the same time, companies may even negotiate a salary cut with employees in exchange for greater flexibility. That could help companies hang onto workers.
Bloom said that the ability to work from home two to three days a week could be worth as much as an 8% pay increase, which is “a meaningful amount” for higher-level managers who make six figures.
Workers who have a hybrid setup tend to leave at lower rates, he said. That can be a big savings for companies.
“Every person that quits costs a company a fortune because you’ve got to go out, advertise, reinterview, onboard, retrain — and you’re still looking at six months until someone is as up to speed as the person who just quit,” Bloom said.
