Last week, we had a splendid discussion in a comment section about teacher salaries. For those who don't have time to wade through the comments, here are the highlights. Someone talked about poverty level wages of teachers. I looked up the salaries of teachers in my town and I found that the average salary was $90,000. The majority of high school teachers made over six figures. The superintendents in this area pull in over $200 grand and most are in charge of two or three little schools.
I was shocked by these numbers, but I admitted that my perspective was skewed by years of low pay. We briefly talked about whether or not these salaries were fair, but everyone has their own yardstick for determining fair pay. Some thought that instead of questioning union pay that everyone should demand the same benefits that union employees receive. I said that matters should at least be discussed and debated, and the failure to do so has resulted in the election of Christie-types.
David Brooks brings together this discussion with the failed tunnel project. Gov. Christie claims that New Jersey can't afford this investment in infrastructure, because so much of the budget goes towards the public sector and pension programs.
New Jersey can’t afford to build its tunnel, but benefits packages for the state’s employees are 41 percent more expensive than those offered by the average Fortune 500 company. These benefits costs are rising by 16 percent a year.
New York City has to strain to finance its schools but must support 10,000 former cops who have retired before age 50.
California can’t afford new water projects, but state cops often receive 90 percent of their salaries when they retire at 50. The average corrections officer there makes $70,000 a year in base salary and $100,000 with overtime (California spends more on its prison system than on its schools).
Instead of responding to Brooks, I thought I would let you all take another shot at this.
Apt. 11d 
where did you find the $90k number ?
Most teachers I know are making about half that.
The BLS says the median salary for teachers is $51k, the top 10% get $82k. Average for NJ is 65k.
Public sector employees generally have a 4% pay penalty compared to private sector.
Yes, the benefits package costs are high and rising. About 90% of this is due to healthcare costs, not to any new luxuries. The union helps to protect their members from these costs, but those costs are not under the union’s control.
I cannot find any way to defend salaries in California prisons. That’s a different problem. The prison guard’s union is entirely out of control there. This does not mean All Unions are Evil, but of course some elements will draw this conclusion.
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I can’t give the link to the town, because my mom and my sister will immediately call me and yell about all the internet stalkers, Doug K. If you want to search, check out the stats on Bergen County, NJ.
But your point is very valid. The norm for teacher pay is far lower than what we’ve got here in this corner of NJ.
Really interesting about the prison guard union in CA. I had no idea.
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The union idea is loads better when the people on each side of the negotiating table have opposing incentives. When it’s a private company, and they will go belly-up if they pay too much, or agree to feather-bedding, the negotiators for the company will resist outrageous contracts. And, the company will cease to exist if they don’t. (GM and Chrysler to the contrary)
Christie is looking at labor costs which are wildly inflated by Davis-Bacon. Everybody bids based on (say) $115 an hour (includes benefits) for the tractor operator. The company which thinks it can do the job with 2700 hours of tractor operator labor can bid lower than the company which thinks it can do it for 2900. If you had lowest-bidder contracts for building the tunnel and no Davis-Bacon, the bid might be won by a company which hired $85/hr tractor operators. None of that kind of incentive exists with Davis-Bacon, and Christie goes to the negotiating table with one arm tied behind his back.
When there were 3 unchallenged auto companies, they could demand that one guy put the seat in the car and another guy (‘electrician’) put the wiring harness onto it. And the poor schlubs buying a new sedan paid. When Toyota and Honda build their non-union plants, a lot of their cost advantage was from work rules which allowed them to be more efficient.
So, I’m with Brooks. It offends me that people are being taxed to pay for contracts where the deck is stacked against efficiency and lowest-cost providers.
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I spent quality time with the NJ teacher salary data base in Bergen County, and, the salaries really are in the 90K range in Bergen County (and a few other NJ counties). The data isn’t set up to conveniently calculate if the average is 90K (especially since I don’t know which town L lives in). But, it’s definitely in the 80+ K range in many towns in Bergen.
I think 90K is a reasonable amount to pay a good, experienced teacher, and would be comfortable seeing that kind of salary in lots of urban places. But, I’ll admit that NJ teachers might be paid that because of CA prison pay-style machinations in NJ (in other professions as well) rather than NJ’s enlightened understand of the value of teachers (compared to other places).
I think the hiding of costs of benefits & pensions is rampant in government pay, and that it should be a lot more public, with decisions about pensions being as public as info about salary. In fact, I think that pension costs have risen so high in part in response to people complaining about straight salary. It reminds me of the historical story Verghese tells about wage controls being the reason for the job-tied health insurance system that developed in the US.
Public outrage over salaries (even in good times) have caused people to hide compensation as pensions/benefits (which are now coming back to bite everyone).
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I’m going to bang the drum, again, for one of my fave Cali quotes ever: Jesse Unruh to new Assembly member – “Son, unless you can eat their steaks, and drink their whiskey, and fuck their women, and vote against them in the morning, you don’t belong here”. Much of the pay-and-benefits situation is a result of short time frame on the part of the public-side negotiators: they just have to get a deal which works for the years they will remain in office. The teachers’ and guards’ unions have a very long time frame, and will bargain away short term stuff for deals which will bite the public only years down the road. Which they have done, time and time again.
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Thank you, interesting – I wonder why Bergen County is so high above the median..
The invaluable Ezra takes down the Brooks column and all its numbers. The pension funding problem, like Social Security, is a tiny little one. The big problem is revenue drops from the financial crisis, and healthcare. As Ezra says, “these are serious, complex challenges, not a simple morality play in which we just need to get tough with state employees and all will be well.”
Really the NYT needs to replace David Brooks with Ezra – Brooks has opinions, but Ezra has facts.
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My city, under 300,000 people and poorer than average, has a pension hole of something like $1 billion dollars. It currently trying to sell its parking (ala Chicago) for a patch that won’t fix the problem.
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My city, under 300,000 people and poorer than average, has a pension hole of something like $1 billion dollars. It currently trying to sell its parking (ala Chicago) for a patch that won’t fix the problem.
LAZ would get you halfway there, at least. But council already killed it, because it might cost 20 union jobs.
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I don’t think that was it. The bigger unions are supporting the sale. That’s who gets to draw the pensions they were trying to bolster. Also, I think they were saying the city would have to make $20 million in cuts next year if the sale didn’t happen. That is way more than 20 union jobs.
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Just to be clear, this isn’t the California problem of over-generous pensions (for most unions). If you shorted your pension funds and then lost half your population, you are in a worse situation than if only one of those applies.
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Looks like you are stuck with him.,
Bonus Quote of the Day
“Short of suicide, I don’t really know what I’d have to do to convince you people that I’m not running.”
— New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), quoted by Fox News, taking “Shermanesque” to a new level.
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