Nothing I haven’t known since I graduated law school and tried to maintain a middle-class living
Courtesy of Christopher Fountain, For What It’s Worth
WSJ: The new ruling class: Government workers and their 45% salary premium. I first stumbled on this truth in, perhaps, 1987, when I first made $60,000 ( I started at the wonderous sum of $22,000 in 1981) and discovered that $20,000 of that was going for taxes. You can’t maintain a family of five, in this area, at that level and also save, and I realized then that there were people running our government determined to keep things that way. It’s only gotten worse since.
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Full WSJ article here:
The Government Pay Boom
It turns out there really is growing inequality in America. It’s the 45% premium in pay and benefits that government workers receive over the poor saps who create wealth in the private economy.
And the gap is growing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), from 1998 to 2008 public employee compensation grew by 28.6%, compared with 19.3% for private workers. In the recession year of 2009, with almost no inflation and record budget deficits, more than half the states awarded pay raises to their employees. Even as deficits in state capitals widen and are forcing cuts in services, few politicians are willing to eliminate these pay inequities that enrich the few who wield political power….
