High on the Hog?
The Nation has an excellent piece on The War on Public Workers:
Conservatives have declared a new class war, but it’s not on bankers earning seven-figure bonuses. Instead, as Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels told Politico recently, the “new privileged class in America” is government employees, who “are better paid than the people who pay their salaries.” We have to escape “public sector unions’ stranglehold on state and local governments,” agreed Mort Zuckerman, billionaire editor of U.S. News & World Report, “or it will crush us.” Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot ominously predicts “a showdown looming across the country between taxpayers and public employee unions over pay and pensions,” while the Heritage Foundation warns that “the more the government taxes, the more it can pay its unionized workers.”
This decades-old assault on government employees has acquired new potency at a time of widespread economic suffering and populist rage. But the attacks have little basis in reality. A recent study by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Institute on Retirement Security finds that when such factors as education and work experience are accounted for, state and local employees earn 11 to 12 percent less than comparable private sector workers. Even when public employees’ relatively decent pensions and health coverage are included, their total compensation still lags behind workers in private industry. A separate analysis by the Center for Housing Policy finds that despite recent declines in home prices, police officers and elementary school teachers still don’t earn enough to buy a typical house in two out of five metro areas. Firefighters and librarians are unable to afford the median home in the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago metro areas. Nationwide, a school bus driver’s wage isn’t enough to pay rent on a standard two-bedroom apartment.
There’s so much important stuff in there, I’m just going to break that down into bullet points. Conservatives are going after public workers because they’re supposedly paid too well. But:
- State and local employees earn less than people doing comparable work in the private sector.
- Police teachers and elementary school teachers can’t afford to buy a home in nearly half of cities.
- School bus drivers can’t afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment.
But these are the people we’re supposed to resent, according to conservatives. People driving buses and teaching kids, not bankers and lobbyists. The attacks on public sector workers often include stories of bus drivers making $100,000 per year and the like. Never mind that there are bankers who actively harmed our economy who get more in a bonus than that bus driver makes in a year of driving on crowded streets and getting people to work—what’s the truth of it?
Greater Greater Washington looked at what workers are making in the Washington, DC public transit system.
The average salary for a bus driver is $49,500, and the maximum is $58,600. On average, bus drivers earn an additional $7,400 in overtime pay. Which is to say, they work extra hours to make some extra money. Metro police make more – up to $86,900, and an average of $12,700 in overtime. The $100,000 bus driver wasn’t entirely a myth: four bus drivers and six train operators worked enough overtime to make $100,000 or more. But by far the most common situation would be for someone with years and years on the job to be making a base salary of more like $50,000—or, in the case of janitors, $40,000—and adding $5,000-$10,000 in overtime. Which is, again, extra pay for extra work.
These are the people we’re supposed to resent for their lavish lifestyles? And the people telling us to resent them are well-paid think tank fellows and billionaire media moguls?
It defies logic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t defy belief, because we’ve seen this kind of gall again and again.
Tags: Jobs, public sector workers
Great post Laura. The banker never has to apologize for his salary but the guys dealing with over 1000 different attitudes a day get put under the spotline. Sickening.
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This kind of crap makes me so mad, for so many reasons. But if I had to pick one, it’s that it’s trying to exploit the appallingly low wages and the desperation of so many people to sow resentment against people who are making a decent-but-not-lavish living, in order to decrease the number of people making a decent-but-not-lavish living. Trying to get people making $25,000/yr mad at people making $50,000/yr to heighten class inequality by destroying the middle class.
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Great post. We need to be able to tell the true story here: private sector workers used to have unions, so they got good pay and benefits. While those unions were busted, public sector workers managed to organize and get better pay and benefits. The conclusion is simple: if you want decent pay and benefits, you need a union. The ruling class just ran a huge experiment, and to no one’s surprise, private sector workers started getting the shaft when they lost their unions. So do we need to get jealous and drag down people who have found a way to maintain a middle class life? Hell no. We get even … by finding a way for private sector workers to have a voice again
But this rhetoric is powerful, devious and sickening.
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Great post, Laura. I met a NH candidate for the US Senate over the weekend who told me he wants to eliminate all state workers, and staff departments with volunteers.
Needless to say, he got an earful.
Personally, I can’t bring myself to resent the lavish lifestyles of toll collectors. Bankers, on the other hand……
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It is becoming clearer every day that the attack on public workers is part of a larger assault on the working class. In Europe, especially now, as here in the U.S., the clamor for “fiscal austerity” has more to do with putting the boot on the necks of workers — and especially public sector union workers — than it does with actual concerns for budgets and deficits. If the concerns were truly about budgets and deficits the austerity-nuts would not oppose fair taxes on hedge fund managers or derivatives speculators.
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Whew. You people cannot be as clueless as your posts above indicate!
Attacking the downtrodden poor workers? “Appalling low wages” for public workers? Those Washington, D.C, salaries (which don’t include overtime), seem pretty damm good to me. After all, we are talking about people with only high school educations who drive buses and clean floors/windows. Are these jobs really worth $50k+ w/o benefits and pensions? Many think not.
Perhaps all of you are forgetting that the pay and benefits for public unions comes out of YOUR pockets (as taxpayers)?
And introducing what executives get paid into the argument is not germane at all. What companies choose to pay their people is the concern of the shareholders or owners, no one else.
Look at these links. Public unions are raking taxpayers over the coals! And these links only show salaries. They don’t include the great benefits they get while active employees or while retired. Or the ability to retire at ages as early as 50 YO with lifetime pensions, paid courtesy of the taxpayer (again, that is you).
Regular people in private industry don’t get these kind of salaries, benefits or guarantees.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/public-employee-salaries
Bart salaries
http://www.contracostatimes.com/bart-salaries
Top 10 BUS DRIVER earnings in San Francisco:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=66429&plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:75bf9787-f62b-4cfa-a9df-3956b464d250
Some fire people salaries in San Ramon, CA
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/comments/view?f=/c/a/2010/06/23/BA3N1E3P1F.DTL&plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:74275db9-701a-4878-ae23-0e555528b2e2
Also read:
How public-sector unions broke California
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_california-unions.html
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I’m just going to repeat part of that Nation article:
A recent study by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Institute on Retirement Security finds that when such factors as education and work experience are accounted for, state and local employees earn 11 to 12 percent less than comparable private sector workers. Even when public employees’ relatively decent pensions and health coverage are included, their total compensation still lags behind workers in private industry.
Less, even counting benefits. Yeah, lots of people make a lot less, but we’re talking averages here.
More, though, it’s a question of what kind of economy you want to see. For some, it’s one where anytime you see someone making less, you try to drive everyone (but the bankers and economists) down to that level. I’d prefer to see one where we have a solid middle class, where we think about how we can raise up the people who are barely scraping by to where they know they’re not one paycheck or one illness away from disaster, where they can plan to educate their children and have a decent retirement. But maybe that’s not the world you want to see.
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Well, the Nation is pretty far to the left anyway, isn’t it? I’m generally a middle of the road guy myself.
Regardless, no one in private industry gets the job security, salaries, overtime opportunities, benefits or retirement pensions and options that the public workers generally do.
Members of public unions seem to be “more equal” than everyone else who is not in a public union. Stop shedding tears for them because they don’t need them. Start thinking about how THEIR compensation comes directly from your pocket (as a taxpayer).
If you are scraping by making $10-20/hour, $30-50k per year yourself, do you also want your taxes support public union bus drivers with potentially less education who are making over $100k per year (plus benefits,etc.)? I think not.
Public unions need to be brought into parity with private industry pay scales, benefits and job security. With so many unemployed, there is no shortage of people who would be willing to take on the public workers job even with a reduction in pay and benefits.
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I guess I wonder why you keep ignoring the part where state and local employees EARN LESS THAN COMPARABLE PRIVATE SECTOR WORKERS. That you want to bring everyone down to rock-bottom pay, benefits, and security is clearly a decision you’ve made about the minimum-wage world you’d like to live in. But the refusal to acknowledge basic facts? That suggests dishonest intent here.
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I’m still waiting for my response to the above pap to show on the page here. I wonder what the problem could be? Hmmm. Maybe because what I said contradicts the above BS?
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Sorry — for some reason, perhaps the number of links, your previous comment got caught in the filter and I didn’t see it until this comment came through.
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As the ‘admin’ of the site. I can confirm Laura’s comment. Your last post got caught but an spam filter, because of the links. Sorry about that, not intentional.
Here’s my two cents on this….
One thing you have to keep in mind is the massive difference in cost of living between here in DC and say my home state of MN. The difference really is huge, and because of that there has to be a difference in salaries.
The second point is that I think it’s part of our ‘civic duty’ to ensure that the people who work in the public sector get a livable wage, and pay that promotes a middle class. The government shouldn’t be a bad boss. We shouldn’t think to compare ourselves with those who cut their employees wages as much as possible. Those employers are mistreating their workers. We the citizenry have to live by a higher standard.
I personally happy to pay taxes if that means the people who work for me, our public employees, are compensated fairly. I don’t want to be a bad boss.
There’s a whole other ‘fights corruption’ angle that I think is important too, but I’m already getting long winded.
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I don’t think anyone is against a “fair wage”. But the wage should match the skill and education requirements also, no?
It used ot be that government salaries were low but the security and benefits made up for that. Now, the salaries, benefits, security and ability to retire all far exceed what many people in private industry enjoy.
I mean bus drivers making $80 to 100k+? There are people who work their whole lives and never make more than $50k. And many don’t get guaranteed pensions with annual cost of living increases and the ability to retire early.
Maybe Wall Street banksters and other high end white-collar executives don’t care but average people are getting tired of the ever growing inequity between private industry and public unions that they are forced ot support through heavier taxes.
Cities and states are running out of money and part of the reason is the excessive pay and benefits of public unions, which are granted in exchange for the unions guaranteed support come election time. This has to stop and it will.
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