In venial violation of my implied pledge not to write about the governor or legislature of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin public employees demonstrating against the governor, or the presumed counter-demonstrations we’ll see today, I do want to add that I don’t believe that I’ve heard more poppycock, flim-flam, manufactured outrage, exaggerated claims, unfounded views, or flimsy assertions about any topic whatever than I’ve heard about this one. Last night on NPR, for example, I heard E. J. Dionne claim that he thought that average people would leap to the defense of the demonstrating public employees. I could only wonder if he’d had a stroke. Contrariwise I suspect that Wisconsin’s public workers won’t get a great deal of sympathy from people without jobs, people who earn minimum wage, people without health insurance or pensions, or people who contribute materially to their own health insurance or pensions. As far as many ordinary Americans are concerned Wisconsin public employees are the rich.
I continue not to know much about Wisconsin politics or conditions and similarly plan to maintain my ignorance on the grounds that I don’t live there and that as far as I’m concerned as long as they stay within the boundaries set by the U. S. Constitution Wisconsin’s social and political arrangements are up to Wisconsinites.
There a forum at the New York Times on the subject. With one exception none of the participants appears to be better informed on the subject at hand than the average man or woman on the street in Berkeley, California. Was the 2010 Wisconsin election really “stolen by monied interests” as averred by one of the participants?
I would genuinely like to see a defense of the proposition that public employees unions are no different than private sector unions. I have yet to see one although I’ve seen defenses of unionism in general which seem to me to be beside the point. I have no opposition to private sector unions per se and believe they can, potentially, serve essential purposes particularly in the area of working conditions. Unfortunately, too often private sector unions have effectively conspired with incompetent and cowardly top management to drive their industries overseas.
I think the teacher benefits are a little like Thaler’s theater tickets. The perceived loss for teachers is high.
On the other hand, I think most center-right observers are correct when they say the teachers misjudge the public reaction. It may be time to end collective bargaining by public employees.
I don’t have a big problems with the private sector unions; I wish they would be more long-sighted in keeping their companies competive. Higher labor costs, fewer jobs, more machines, closed plants.
The problem with the dynamic of non-sustainability in the public sector though is a loss of public services. Either the services are not being performed, they are coming with additional expenses, or they are being performed poorly.
I’m told that a local talk radio program (left-leaning) fielded calls from public service members upset about increased pension/health-care contributions, who insisted it would make more sense to cut benefits to the poor.
Maybe i’m wrong, but my perception is that in my dad’s day teachers had low pay, but great benefits and retirement. Somewhere along the line they gained mainstream pay, but kept what are now great benefits and amazing retirement.
Inside the system they have a poor peception of how good that is.
I can’t speak with any authority about what the compensation of teachers in places other than St. Louis was years ago but I can about St. Louis. Until about 50 years ago teachers in St. Louis were overwhelmingly single women. You couldn’t be married and be a teacher in the St. Louis school system.
Pay was low but it provided a modest pension. Prior to 1940 health insurance wasn’t provided but by 1950 it was (most Americans had private health insurance by 1950 or at least surgical insurance).
I can produce check stubs to support all of this.
“As far as many ordinary Americans are concerned Wisconsin public employees are the rich….”
Then where is my yacht? Look, all I know is my wife and I came here 5+ years ago for her (non-unionized) university job. Her starting salary put her some $15,000 under what a new PhD would get working for the Feds in the area (GS-11 pay scale). The “contributions” to her personal retirement/pension account by the state amount to less than $2300. IN those 5+ years she has had no raises – not even a cost of living increase – but she has been furloughed at 3.5% of salary for the last two years, AND, unlike other state employees, has had to contribute additional money to the pension system (somewhere between 1.5% to 2%).
Her take home pay is less now then when she started, her buying power is even less, and now she’s being threatened with an additional 12-15% reduction in her base compensation.
And now she’s being told she ought not to complain about having her salary lowered from the low 40k area to the mid 30k area because she is “rich.”
This still looks like power politics to me. I assume then when the Dems get back in power they will make things good for the teachers unions and institute similar restrictions on the police and firefighter unions who supported Walker.
As an aside, when these kinds of things happen I wish they would publish the actual salaries and pensions involved rather than have everyone try to dig it out.
Steve
Rich,
Sounds pretty bad. Why hasn’t she quit?
Rich, universities have very different pay systems (and very different problems) don’t they?
She hasn’t quit because if you leave a tenure track job early (i.e. before tenure) it is infintely harder to get another one, AND poor pay was balanced (somewhat) by a decent pension.
“Rich, universities have very different pay systems (and very different problems) don’t they?”
No, they do not. They are state employees just like any other state employees. Well, I tell a lie. One big difference is they bring in money in the tuition students pay. (Its funny how none of that money makes it back into salaries. Tuition has been increased 5 times in 6 years and still salaries have been cut.)
But the larger point is these workers are not “rich” despite what the ignorant my say. They are not to blame for the current state of the budget in Wisconsin, yet they have been subjected to a disproportionate amount of the cuts so far – probably because they were not unionized – and they are scheduled to bear a disproportionate amount of the pain to come.
I’m not saying you cannot be skeptical about the big teachers unions and their pay and perks…I’m saying there is more going on in this state than just that.
My understanding is that k-12 teachers are hired on with full in-statement, from the start, and only gain seniority and pay increase. The word “tenure” is used, but I think it means, essentially, end of probation.
Now, at the uni level, do people really get hired as full professors? Or are there more qualifying rungs, usually part time instructor, instructor, professor, and finally tenured professor …something like that?
The issue not whether there are some public employees who have low wages. I’m sure there are.
Calculations I’ve seen from multiple different sources produce a median total compensation of Wisconsin teachers at around $89,000. That means that more than half of all Wisconsin teachers are in the topmost quintile of income earners in the U. S. By many Americans’ standards that makes them rich.
I’m not claiming that Americans should think that or that it’s fair that they do. I’m also not claiming that all Wisonsin teachers are rich. What I’m saying is that I believe that most Americans aren’t going to be very sympathetic and I continue to believe that.
john personna:
I don’t know what it means in Wisconsin but here in Illinois for primary and secondary educators “tenured” means they can’t be RIF’ed until everybody at the same level who isn’t tenured has been and and at that point they’re terminated on a LIFO basis.
For practical purposes tenured staff with lots of seniority are unfireable.
There is a two-tier system in faculty hires for universities. Tenure Track and non-Tenure track.
Tenure track hires come in with the rank of Assistant Professor. There is a period 0f 5-7 years before a tenure vote is held. Once tenured the rank becomes Associate Professor. After that it is possible to become a Full Professor, though it isn’t a guarentee. People have been Associate Professor for 30 years or more. Generally the jump from Assistant to Associate, and Associate to Full Professor will merit a jump in salary. Seniority has no bearing on pay increases, only merit based promotion.
Now, there are times when professors move from one institution to another, and sometimes they are given tenure immediately. (Generally they would have had tenure at the place they were beforehand.) That isn’t exactly rare, but more unusual. These are usually senior scholars.
For the non-tenure track positions the ranks are usually adjunct professor or lecturer (rarer). These are people (like myself) who get paid by the class (sometimes by the head), with usually few, if any, benefits. It is sometimes possible for adjuncts with PhD’s to make the jump into a tenure track job. This category of university professor is the fastest growing because they are the cheapest. (I figure the university makes $30,000 pure profit on each class I teach with 40+ students in it. I’m probably underestimating their profit margin.)
Whatever problem arise in the funding of state colleges and universities it is not caused by professor payrolls. Even the best paid senior prof is a money making machine.
Backtracking Ann Althouse’s numbers suggest her salary w/o benefits is close to $200,000. OTOH, I know of an history professor at one of the smaller state schools, who apparently has a pretty modest lifestyle. I assume the law school, run by lawyers, votes itself salaries based upon the millions they believe they would be making in the private sector, and the administration tells the history professor he is lucky to have a job.
Back in Illinois, I agree with Rich, the non-union public employees have taken huge hits in state budgets. It shapes my attitude about the public unions, not the employees.
Here is a good piece on the unsustainability of public sector union compensation:
http://economics21.org/commentary/why-public-sector-union-compensation-matters/
Bainbridge also has a nice piece on public sector unions. It would be nice to directly address the issue, rather than force a crisis with tax cuts, then only go after the public sector unions that did not support your election. Ah well, no manufactured crisis should go to waste.
http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2011/02/the-case-against-public-sector-unionism.html
Steve
That does sound very different from the k-12 situation.
Also, when you say “profit” I wonder what you access for (over)building, maintenance and management?
“A class” in a full uni is a small part of the whole. Jc’s are much better at delivering “classes”
Maybe I should just ask Rich what fields his wife and he chose, if they looked at average compensation in that decision making process, and if compensation was high on their original “rewards” list.
John, the way I figured it is thusly:
Full in-state tuition is around $430 a credit hour. 42 students taking a three credit class = 42 x 3 x 430 = $54180
I get paid $3400 a class. 54180 – 3400 = $50780
So I’m allowing $20780 in overheard per class I teach, over and above my pay.
“Maybe I should just ask Rich what fields his wife and he chose, if they looked at average compensation in that decision making process, and if compensation was high on their original “rewards†list.”
I teach Political Science and Philosophy, my wife teaches History. And, yes, we went into this knowing we wouldn’t get wealthy, but would get to live “the life of the mind.” But that doesnt mean we thought it would be fair. My wife teaches about 240 students an academic year. At $430 dollars a credit hour that means her courses generate around $310,000 a year. Her salary and benefits come to under $50,000. Current proposal would raise tuition to around $500 a credit hour. For 240 students that would be $360,000 a year and they are no proposing to reduce my wifes salary and benefits to around 45-46k.
The idea that university profs are a “drain” to Wisconsin taxpayers is simply false. So why exactly are they being targeted?
Now, I realize the situation is very different when you are talking about unionized primary and secondary school teachers. I just would like everyone else to realize that difference as well.
Have you seen this piece on price and quality?
http://chronicle.com/blogs/measuring/the-olive-garden-theory-of-higher-education/26724
If you, your wife, and your friends really believe that you generate that income, start a chain.
The fact is though that universities really sell something other than classes. They sell a non-written assurance that their graduates are certain sorts of people.
The classes those people take matter less.
(Maybe I should point out that no one pays 3x$430=$1290 because they personally value a general education class to that level. They do it because the uni forces that class into the bundle that must be bought and paid for, to earn that “sort of person” non-written certification.)
John, there can be as many different kinds of motivation as there are people, the fact is tuition is buying classes. (i.e. that is all tuition is good for – classes. Room, boards, and student fees are extra.) If you believe employers would be just as succesful hiring someone who spent $100 buying a diploma from an online mill as opposed to someone who got a degree at an actual university… well, thats fine. It just doesnt really explain why the median income for workers with just a high school diploma is $26,000, while college graduates earn $49,000.
“If you, your wife, and your friends really believe that you generate that income, start a chain.”
One cannot because of accreditation. You could never get a libertarian styled university off the ground because the powers that be wouldn’t allow it. Sure, you could start a school, but when no grad school, law school, med school, etc. will accept the degrees given out by your school, the school would die right quick. With this much money at stake there is no way they (i.e. the existing university system) would allow a change in the status quo.
Come on Rich, don’t assume that I’ve never read anything on this. On signaling. On selection.
If you have a reasonably prestigious school, then you don’t really have to do anything other than limit admission to keep the game going.
You would select for students who will succeed, put them in dark rooms for four years, and then let them out in the world to succeed.
The world, seeing your success would send you even more qualified applicants, you would select the best of them, and repeat.
In fact, you could charge more each cycle, because you “success” has produced “better” graduates.
And of course, the hanger-on general-education departments are the worst part of this cycle. Suck people away from their field of study, charge them, and then let them out to succeed again … brilliant.
(You may sense some lingering resentment for time spent at GE requirements 30 years ago, lol)
Dave said: “Calculations I’ve seen from multiple different sources produce a median total compensation of Wisconsin teachers at around $89,000. That means that more than half of all Wisconsin teachers are in the topmost quintile of income earners in the U. S. By many Americans’ standards that makes them rich.”
THis maybe, but that is no reason why every other form of state employee has to be lumped in with the teacher unions. This study underlines the real situation.
http://epi.3cdn.net/9e237c56096a8e4904_rkm6b9hn1.pdf
Public sector employees in Wisconsin actually make far less than Private sectors employees with the same level of education:
TOTAL COMPENSATION (Full time – Wages and all benefits):
BA/BS: Private – $82,134 Public – $61,668
MA/MS: Private – $100,296 Public – $74,056
PhD: Private – $128,306 Public – $91,623
Now, the situation at colleges and universities is even more pronounced as a large part of the instruction is being done by part-time faculty who are not factored into the above at all.
Right, private sector BS Comp Sci make more than public sector PhD History.
Did we learn anything there?
John said: “If you have a reasonably prestigious school, then you don’t really have to do anything other than limit admission to keep the game going.
“You would select for students who will succeed, put them in dark rooms for four years, and then let them out in the world to succeed.”
Actually, that doesn’t seem to be the case. http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/how-much-value-does-an-elite-college-provide/
Oh, there seems to be an initial benefit to being at the prestige place, but that advantage quickly goes away. We should all take heart. Idiots with a Harvard degree are still gonna get canned for being idiots.
“(You may sense some lingering resentment for time spent at GE requirements 30 years ago, lol)”
Be thankful you went to school at a time when GE requirements still meant a lot. 🙂 Too many of the students I run across today would not be able to follow this discussion.
“Right, private sector BS Comp Sci make more than public sector PhD History.
“Did we learn anything there?”
Never let Comp Sci majors vote because they don’t know what not to do? 😉
Actually, I went to school at a time before GE requirements inflated. I saw them expand a lot in just the four years I was there.
The main thing to realized is that I read maybe a hundred books while in college, and some thousands since.
It seems colleges think they have the last educational crack at students, while at the same time taking credit for their lifetime learning when it occurs.
There is a contradiction there. It’s probably better to graduate those Comp Sci in 3 years, and hand them a reading list on the way out the door. Those that are going to read, will.
BTW, Dave knows that I’ve been a “reinvent education” type for some time. I’ve said that this is a period of transition, and that we will probably come out, a century from now, with something completely different.
The old university was built around a library. 1:1. It was where the knowledge was, as well as the place of learning.
The thing you all (if I may be so bold) haven’t got a grip on yet, is that knowledge has escaped.
The teaching model is built around a false perception of localized knowledge. It may be that teaching itself will blow away as well.
(Technically I am a Chem major)
Sounds like you need a union Rich.
Steve
“The main thing to realized is that I read maybe a hundred books while in college, and some thousands since.”
Sadly very few students read a hundred books in four years. IF I had to guess I’d say 30-40 in four years would be about it.
“Dave knows that I’ve been a “reinvent education†type for some time.”
Sadly, other people use the same termminology, only when they use it it is to argue that we shouldn’t worry if the students read zero books in four years.
I live in Wisconson and what I am experiencing is closer to Dionne’s prediction than yours. But in any case, the bulk of your post is an averring of your ignorance of Wisconsin! How can you then presume to correct Dionne in the first place? You’r either ignorant about Wisconsin, or else you know enough to correct EJ Dionne. It can’t be both. And I might add, the mere fact that you believe you are ignorant of Wisconsin politics is no reason for you to conclude or insist that others ought to believe themselves to be as well. My sense is that Dionne has spent a great deal of time thinking about labor economics and poitics in this country, and by his lights thinks he may know a bit about my state. And I think he’s closer to the mark than you.
If you profess your ignorance about a topic, then don’t presume to correct others on what they about it. If you prefer to do the latter, then don’t at the same time claim the false high ground of a supposed ignorance of the topic and castigate others for also claiming to know something about it, since you are doing the same.
I should say: if Dionne was talking about Americans at large, or if you heard him to be, then fair enough, you can oviously speak (to a very small degree that is equal to my own) do that.
I will say that holding a total compensation number over someone’s head who has been negotiated into a position of often accepting health benefits in lieu of salary increases over the years and calling them rich is a bit misleading. Good health benefits are nice, but you can’t spend them. And, while I’m far from one of those Upper East Siders who thinks “$400,000/yr, that’s not rich for where *we* live,” calling even a person with an $89,000 salary (which is not the situation of the median employee you cite), good benefits, and a solid pension “rich,” well, I am currently unemployed for more than a year, and even *I* think it’s pushing it to call that person “rich.” Solidly successful. Affluent, probably. Well-off, maybe even. “Rich”? At $89,000 a year? That’s kind of a joke, Dave, and I think you know it.
Also the raw median state employee total compensation number is further misleading because it includes state employees who are uncontestedly rich: the governor, the UW chancellor & top profs; Brett Bielema, Bo Ryan, Barry Alvarez, et al. If we want to talk about teachers, troopers, prison guards, or revenue collectors, then that is who we should talk about. Including these outlier positions skews the numbers to distort what these standard middle-class jobs pay in Wisconsin. If you can speak to whether you accounted for this, then by all means do so; you didn’t speak to it in the post.
“Good health benefits are nice, but you can’t spend them.”
Spoken like someone who never had to cut a check for a personal health insurance policy.
FWIW, my Kaiser premium is my second-largest expense each month.
Re. “rich” and “$90K” it totally depends on where you live, right?
If the family median in your zip code is $30K, then yeah, maybe.
http://www.city-data.com/
“Sadly, other people use the same termminology, only when they use it it is to argue that we shouldn’t worry if the students read zero books in four years.”
Sounds like those kids should just go to JC, or the equivalent on-line.
Subtract the annual total of Kaiser your checks from $89,000. Would what’s left as cash income for a year before taxes makes a person rich? Yeah, didn’t think so.
Dave & john, you two should be sure you would be making the same case about what is rich if the people in question had the same salary & benefits package in the private sector.
When setting tax rates, $250,000 is not rich. When discussing union salaries, $89,000 is rich.
Steve
As I have repeatedly written in the posts and comments I’ve made on the subject I don’t consider either $250,000 or $89,000 to be rich. I reserve that terminology for the top .1% of income earners.
However, as has been repeatedly demonstrated to me in my posts and comments on the subject lots of people do think that $89,000, the top fifth of income earners, is rich.
This is going to be relatively easy to test. If there’s a nationwide outpouring of sympathy and support for the striking and demonstrating public employees in Wisconsin, I’m wrong. If there isn’t, I’m right (about my initial claim that ordinary Americans were unlikely to rally to the support of Wisconsin public employees).
“Last night on NPR, for example, I heard E. J. Dionne claim that he thought that average people would leap to the defense of the demonstrating public employees. I could only wonder if he’d had a stroke. Contrariwise I suspect that Wisconsin’s public workers won’t get a great deal of sympathy from people without jobs, people who earn minimum wage, people without health insurance or pensions, or people who contribute materially to their own health insurance or pensions.”
My strong suspicion is that Dionne was talking about the people of Wisconsin. You don;t make clear that you are talking about ordinary Ameircans, not Wisconsinites in this prediction. You then say that ordinary Americans may see these compensation levels as rich, and they may, but that doesn’t specify that you meant that prediction to apply to Americans at large. Americans at large probably don’t give two hoots about Wisconsin public employee compensation (which, by the way, is not the issue in this dispute). Wisconsinites are the relevant constituency.
I’m struggling to understand why you chose to weigh in here when you intended not to, and in the midst of professing patent ignorance of the relevant political community. It’s very Joe Scarborough of you.
Michael Drew, I’m struggling to know why you keep posting that Dave shouldn’t post on this topic. If you don’t care for it, move along.
I have trouble following Michael Drew. He seems to be coming in at an emotional wavelength. Perhaps that’s true for many with a “gut” reaction to this.
For what it’s worth, I’m a moderate and a centrist who is often accused by the rightists of being one of the leftists. If I, the centrist, have no sympathy for public employee unions, that should really be a signal to you.
Look, for the last couple years our President has talked about helping teachers, giving them special college loans, getting more money for schools … and at the same time we need unions to protect teachers from the pernicious bosses? (The same bosses the unions support in elections?)
That’s the key. The unions want to own both ends of the bargaining cycle. They want BOTH sides of the table.
Rich, I’ve got no beef with professor salaries. What I’m more concerned about is whether the custodian staff starts making more in total compensation than the professors, forcing further reductions in the services being provided by the college. There is an issue of numerously here; people are focusing on K-12 teachers because there are a lot of them, and their compensation packages have greater resonance.
In Illinois, the community that has done the best in the recession is probably Champaign-Urbana, it’s had low unemployment, rising wages and while there was some downturn on all of the McMansions built in the last 5-10 years, it’s not as bad as elsewhere. I don’t think that’s a reflection of professor pay, but the large administration, construction, and dependent private businesses. And the colleges come to the state asking for more money to help underwrite tuition, and they are getting blank stares from even Democratic politicians.
PD Shaw, I’m struggling to understand where you think I have said Dave shouldn’t have posted on this.
And john personna,
The fact that you feel moved to inform me that you are both a moderate and a centrist does indeed send me signals, albeit likely nt the ones you think it ought to (about public employee unions or anything else). And I don’t see how what you think about public employee unions should inform anything that I’ve been saying here, as nothing I have written actually expresses any views on unions. If, however, you are simply taking it upon yourself to advise me as to how I ought to feel about public employee unions, well, I guess that’s fair enough. Consider me advised.
Funny, Michael. You respond to me when I am talking about public unions, and then think I’m odd to think you are on the same topic!