Compensation in Public, Private Sector Way Behind Productivity
Opponents of working families and their unions have tried to pit public workers against those in the private sector, by fomenting an internal class warfare centered on disparate wages and benefits.
One of their real goals is to hide the uniting factor of both groups: Compensation has stagnated for ALL working people even as they produce more.
In fact, both public-sector and private-sector compensation has seen comparably modest growth: up 20.5 percent in the state/local sector, up 17.9 percent in the private sector, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). In contrast, hourly productivity grew 62.5 percent between 1989 and 2010—more than three times as fast as compensation grew in either the public or the private sector.
Working people have more in common with each other, whether they work in the public sector or private, than they do with the wealthy elite. But it’s in the interest of corporate CEOs and their lawmaker puppets like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Ohio Gov. John Kasich to sow seeds of resentment and deflect the real issue: The haves are getting rich and fat at an enormous rate, at the expense of the rest of us.
Forbes’ 2011 Billionaires List released yesterday breaks two records: total number of listees (1,210) and combined wealth ($4.5 trillion). As Forbes writes:
This horde surpasses the gross domestic product of Germany….
Rand Paul and the Right to Work for Less
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The Rand Paul for Senate campaign says their guy was glad to get $2,500 from the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) because the group “supports candidates best suited to protect Americans from labor union abuses.”
Jeff Wiggins isn’t surprised that the viciously anti-labor group is backing Paul, who wants to be Kentucky’s next Republican senator. In short, says Wiggins, president of the Paducah-based AFL-CIO Western Kentucky Area Council:
It’s a case of an extremist organization supporting an extremist candidate.
Bailout Billionaires, Kill the Middle Class
We know how the bridge loan to automakers is being spent because the Bush administration made sure they only got aid after agreeing to tough stipulations.
So that accounts for $14.5 billion of our taxpayer money. But what about the rest of the $335.5 billion that went to Wall Street financial firms?
On “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough pointed out today that we do know how Wall Street spent $1.6 billion: on chauffeurs, company jets, home security, country club memberships and stock options.
