The Visual Du Jour – The Myth of The Overpaid Public Worker
January 5, 2011 by SocProf and tagged Labor, Sociology
Or maybe not, via the EPI:
Other findings:
“– State and local employees are substantially more educated than their private-sector counterparts. About 54% of state and local full-time employees hold a bachelor’s degree compared to 35% in the private sector.
– Public sector employees receive more of their compensation in the form of benefits than private-sector workers.
– Comparatively high rates of unionization in the public sector have helped to establish a floor on earnings for some lesser skilled workers, while the earnings floor for these workers has collapsed in the private sector.
However, attempting to remove any wage floor would be a misguided policy. EPI research has consistently tracked a failure of wages to keep pace with productivity gains, which has made it difficult for some fulltime workers to cover their families’ expenses. Leveling downward by cutting public employee compensation and weakening labor unions will only reinforce the three decades trends in worsening job quality and earnings opportunities for America’s workers and continuing the growth of inequalities that has weakened the middle class in our nation.”
And yet, that is, most likely, exactly what will happen: scapegoating and precarizing.
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