LIRR workers make almost as much as investment bankers.
With the LIRR strike going on, I decided to look into how much these workers are getting paid. Apparently, as of May 16, 2026, the average annual pay for a LIRR worker in is $241,295 a year. That number probably includes overtime, but then I discovered that the average LIRR conductor makes around 140K annually, with a base pay of $53 per hour in 2024.
Like what the fuck is going on?
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Because they move 300k people every week on 300+ miles of route, and you move logos on a computer screen 3 pixels
Do Wall Street guys have brains anymore?
You are comparing a set of all employees, including mid to late career workers, to 23 year olds with broccoli haircuts.
If you stay in finance, you will be making far more than 140k-$240k per year when you are in your 50s.
Hochul and Lieber are between a rock and a hard place. It’s not entirely their fault that the union has kept asking for large raises and benefits packages the past several decades. It’s absurd that they are paid more than almost everyone except specialist doctors and high finance/law. They make more than 2x the median HHI of Nassau/Suffolk County. There are probably thousands of people that would sign up for the LIRR job even if it paid $90k. It’d still be a big upgrade over true minimum wage, manual labor jobs.
I also believe public sector unions are a net negative to society.
Part of it might be Long Island job market is just flat out terrible outside of healthcare (used to have more corporations years ago, there are still some local companies that pay well where 6 figures is feasible but it's becoming less and less common).
If you're in Suffolk County and a LIRR employee, I get why they're looking for a raise. Cost of living has skyrocketed across Long Island (Nassau in particular is absurd, the only Millennials I know buying homes here are couples making $500K+). Home prices have doubled in many areas vs. ~10-15 years ago.
I don't blame them for going on strike.
How so?
It lets people get away with the bare minimum without risk of being fired. I don't disagree with your point that people should be allowed to make money and support their families but this job pays pretty well for something that doesn't even technically need a college education and isn't very skilled to do. So many of them brag about abusing overtime and chilling on the job. It's ultimately making ridership worse. The customers will pay for this at the end because fare will continue to go up as it has been. Yet quality has only sunk.
I'm not really sure why we feel the need to compare this. I mean, you could do the same thing with so many jobs. Doctors make less on average than senior bankers. Do doctors not deserve to make more?
I just don't understand why we have to attack another groups pay when it comes to something like this. FO finance is probably 1 of like, 5-6 career paths where you can easily make 500k+ a year within a decade of joining fairly reliably. Can we not all accept that this is a good thing for us?
I mean seriously, it's a good thing that other people are able to make enough money to support their families? This is their first raise since 2022, while long island prices have continued to skyrocket. And the averages are 136k a year base salary, so sure overtime does factor in a lot.
And ultimately, they're asking for more because they can get more. That's capitalism. They have a lot of power in the negotiation tables to demand more, so they are.
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