Project Coulter: Public Sector Employees

Ann Coulter released an article on her website on March 9, 2011 entitled "Six-Figure Bus Drivers and Other Working-Class Heroes."  The article can be found on Coulter's website, here.

The first thing put forth by Coulter is the following:

Can we stop acting as if people who work for the government are the heroes of working people? 

Fine, we understand that Wisconsin public sector employees like the system that pays them an average of $76,500 per year, with splendiferous benefits, and are fighting like wildcats against any proposed reforms to that system. But it's madness to keep treating people who are promoting their own self-interest as if they are James Meredith walking into the University of Mississippi.

I knew diving into this issue would be hard.  As consumers of news media we can hear completely conflicting stories and statistics on a variety of issues and particularly political wedge issues.  

Nonetheless, Upon some very basic research I found these three estimates of a different but more consistent number.

• This article, says the average compensation of Wisconsin public sector employees including benefits is $50,774 and an average of $1802 dollars more than private sector employees
• This article, says that in Wisconsin public sector employees without a degree make on average $37,000, and those with a bachelors are paid $51,921
• This article, says that in 2007 in California the average state worker was paid %53,958 per year

Furthermore, this increase in pay differential between public and private sector employees my be explainable by a difference in education attainment. 

Wisconsin state workers have a median wage of $45,691, 22 percent more than the median wage earned by workers in the private sector. But these figures, which do not include benefits, can be deceptive because the state workforce is much better educated than the private-sector workforce. In Wisconsin, more than 60 percent of state workers have at least a bachelor's degree, compared with just over 20 percent in the private sector, according to census data. College-educated workers on the state payroll in fact earn a median wage that is 9 percent less than that of their peers in the private sector. <link>

And once this difference is accounted for, a Wisconsin study has shown that public employees may make less than their privately employed counterparts.

Coulter also writes this in her blog:

Because of the insane union contracts in Wisconsin, one Madison bus driver, John E. Nelson, was able to make $159,000 in 2009 -- about $100,000 of which in overtime pay. Jackie Gleason didn't make that much playing bus driver Ralph Kramden on "The Honeymooners." Seven bus drivers took home more than $100,000 that year.

Research on the subject brought me to an news article that may have been the one to inspire this paragraph. It can be found here.  And Coulter is right -  there were bus drivers, around 7 every year, out of the 800 who are employed. Further...

the average MCTS operator makes a little more than $21/hr and takes home around $50,000/yr... 136 drivers earned at least $70,000, 54 made at least $80,000, 18 operators made more than $90,000, and the number of six-figure operators doubled to eight... In 2006, drivers clocked an additional 96,730 pay-hours for unscheduled overtime. In 2007, operators racked up 94,818 extra pay-hours. Through March 2008, the company had to cover another 19,500.

 

These high wages are likely not the result of people getting paid too much, it is the result of employees having to work too much.  

But in the end, comparing absolute wages, or benefits is hard, like an apples to oranges sort of thing.  Though I have not done research to support the conclusions, this article here, broaches some of those variables.

Coulter finishes her article with this:

Fine, we like teachers, firemen and police officers. We appreciate them...

Does that mean we should pay them $1 million dollars a year? How about $10 million? After all, these are the people who educate our kids, run into burning buildings and take dangerous criminals off our streets! 

Assuming the answer is no, then apparently we're allowed to discuss government workers' compensation -- even though they do important work. As George Bernard Shaw concluded his famous quip (often attributed to Winston Churchill), "Now, we're just negotiating over the price." 

Ann purports that the people who are missing at the negotiations are the American public. In her words, "public sector employees got themselves terrific overtime, holiday, pension and health care deals through buying politicians with their votes and campaign money"

But - isn't the solution to this more open bargaining, not the removal of collective bargaining rights? You know, then we could get to that negotiating...