Do you believe it's worse than 10 years ago? than 20 years ago?
Pay for officers in the US has only gone in one direction, and it's up. They have more resources than ever, more staff than ever. They are perhaps hit with Covid-related issues like everywhere, but "meh pay"? They're not teachers.
Or maybe you think everything has been terrible for the past 20 years. Maybe you think there's always been a police shortage.
And let me guess, all teachers do is hand out worksheets for 6 hours a day and why do you always see 3 constructions workers standing around a hole? But you- you cleared 1.5 story points today tying two Javascript libraries together, that's where the real value is.
I think that speaks more about being a bicyclist on the roads of New Jersey than the dangers a cop faces.
It's funny when people complain about HN being too US-centric, when in reality it's CA,NY/NJ, and MA centric. NJ is awash in money flowing from Wall St, so I don't feel bad that their cops make a decent wage.
The biggest danger most cops face is being hit while standing by a car they've pulled over. That totals to ~60mins if you spend a full day issuing traffic citations. There are much more significant risks the general public faces in their daily lives.
The entire world is not New Jersey- I'm sorry your posh township doesn't have more going on, but my guess is the garbagemen, plumbers, carpenters, etc make similar amounts. Move to Camden, they don't even have a police department anymore so I'm sure you'll love it.
Well, San Francisco cut their police budget by $6m... From $668 million. And they increased funding to other parts of the justice apparatus. Like and increase to juvenile programs and the district attorney's office. You'll be hard pressed to find even the most liberal cities in America have actually cut police funding in any significant way.
