NYC citywide payroll records show FDNY Emergency Medical Specialist trainees earned $36,330 in base salary in fiscal year 2025 — about two-thirds what a first-year firefighter at the same department earned. The gap runs through the entire pay scale.

A firefighter who joined the FDNY in spring 2024 drew a base salary of $56,287 in fiscal year 2025. An Emergency Medical Specialist trainee who came aboard around the same time earned $36,330 — responding to the same city dispatch, wearing the same departmental credential, bringing home about 35 cents less on the dollar.

New York City's citywide payroll records show the gap runs through the pay scale. An Emergency Medical Specialist-EMT with two years on the job carried a $41,617 base in FY2025. With four or five years, that reached $42,000 to $49,000. A firefighter at the same tenure level was already past $70,000.

Overtime supplements the base. Payroll records show most EMTs logging more than 100 hours of overtime annually, bringing effective earnings meaningfully above the base. The overtime doesn't close the spread with firefighters.

The FDNY's EMT and paramedic workforce is represented by District Council 37 Local 2507 — Uniformed EMTs and Paramedics of the FDNY — whose president is Michael Greco. Pay is set by collective bargaining with the city.

The New York Times reported July 15 on whether the pay structure leaves paramedics and EMTs able to afford to live in the city where they work. The payroll record gives the underlying numbers: for a trainee, a base salary that, before overtime, sits less than $1,000 above a standard-year equivalent of the state's current minimum wage.