Maybe time to become a lifeguard and make six figures.... (San Diego: how much, salary)

[earlyretirement]

Lifeguards' high pay riles Calif. beach city - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110520/ap_on_re_us/us_lucrative_lifeguarding - broken link)



Wow, looks like many out there are in the wrong field.... life guards making up to $200,000 a year???? This is part of what's wrong in California.

[Ulysses61]

There's something wrong with that figure. I have two students currently who are lifeguards in San Clemente and they both made $14 an hour.

[earlyretirement]

It sounds like they are junior life guards. This figure is probably what their bosses (or whomever is training them) is making.

It's an obscene amount for a lifeguard to make. I agree with the oil executive and his comments at the end of the article.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

How comforting. We have two different planets, one for Govt workers and another for us regular tax paying schubs.

In San Diego, where swimmers and surfers flock each summer, lifeguards make roughly the same salary range but must retire later, at age 55, and get 75 percent of their salary with 30 years of service, according to the 2009 state data, the most recent available.

[Jenkay]

"Those whose salaries are in question point out that they hold management roles, have decades of service and are considered public safety employees under the fire department, the same as fire captains and battalion chiefs. The fulltime guards train more than 200 seasonal lifeguards who make between $16 and $22 an hour, run a junior lifeguard program that brings in $1 million a year and oversee safety on nearly seven miles of sand.


Many began as seasonal guards and worked their way into management roles and must stay certified as instructors in an array of advanced emergency, scuba and rescue techniques, said Brent Jacobsen, president of the Lifeguard Management Association, the lifeguards' union."


And lord knows, they don't provide any kind of service or anything...

[shmoov_groovzsd]

I wonder what a lifeguard makes in Australia? Brent Jacobsen said we're different. Different as in special I guess.

"We're professional level. Lifeguarding here is different than any other place in the entire world."- Brent Jacbosen
All I can hear now is a "USA! USA!" chant in the background. ugh.

[OmShanti]

I've worked as a beach lifeguard for years, and have never made more then $15 an hour, and never KNOWN of anyone making $200K plus a year.

The only way is if the person is a peace officer at a state park, also. My EMT instructor is Torrey Piney's peace officer as well as the head trainer for state park lifeguards and made alot, but I don't know if he even broke $200k.

[earlyretirement]

This is just one example out of hundreds where many people just don't really know how much money State employees are getting. You hear examples almost everyday. Remember those city council members in Bell, California that awarded themselves tons of money?? Who knows how many cases like this there are all over California. It's only the investigative reporters that are digging it all out.

But the average Joe Q. Citizen doesn't know just how much of this goes on. Part of the reason why California is broke, IMHO.

[Oerdin]

Originally Posted by earlyretirement

Lifeguards' high pay riles Calif. beach city - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110520/ap_on_re_us/us_lucrative_lifeguarding - broken link)



Wow, looks like many out there are in the wrong field.... life guards making up to $200,000 a year???? This is part of what's wrong in California.

That's one VERY well off city and I doubt it is the average. Certainly it sounds excessive to me but I don't know the details of how they are justifying it. Still, I have to wonder why you posted information about Newport Beach in Orange County in the San Diego forum?

[Oerdin]

Originally Posted by Ulysses61

There's something wrong with that figure. I have two students currently who are lifeguards in San Clemente and they both made $14 an hour.

That sounds more in line with what I'd expect. This could be a case like what the lying right wing talk radio people were doing last year; our right wing friends were outraged shouting that librarians in San Diego make $150,000! It turns out it one person, who was the head librarian, who managed all 30 something branches and she had 30 years of experience plus compared to all of her peers with similar duties & responsibilities she was actually paid less then the head librarian in every other city with comparable library networks. The city doesn't have an official head librarian's position so officially she was just classified as a "librarian" but the wing nuts were being dishonest when they claimed regular librarians were making $150,000. The reality is regular librarians make between $28,000-$40,000 depending on their exact position and experience which is no where near the $150,000 being claimed by the talk radio liars. The San Diego Reader and the San Diego News Network both had articles on how our local wing nuts lied on this issue plus if I remember correctly someone made the same claims right here in CDF San Diego which I had great fun tearing to pieces.