Merry Christmish

[JayB]

Hey - found some people making less than $23.47 in hourly wages!

 

" CYNTHIA TICKET TAKER Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $21.37

AMIR M TICKET TAKER Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $21.37

ROBERT G TICKET TAKER Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $21.37

MARC TICKET TAKER Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $21.37

ROBERT C TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70

PAULINE J TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70

O D TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70

MICHAEL N TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70

MELODY TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70

PATRICK M TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70

WANDA J TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70

JOSEPH J TICKET SELLER/A Department of Transportation Hourly 100 $16.70"

 

$23/hour*40 hours/week*52 weeks/year * 147 full time ticket takers = $7,032,480 + pensions and benefits. I'd guess the total tab is ~$12million per year in present and future costs for taking taking money and handing out tickets. Even if you assume zero costs for pensions and benefits that's a pretty steep tab, and far, far more than it'd take to attract and retain people who are qualified to do the job.

 

Can't help but wonder how that compares to the annual tab for 147 FTE's at movie theater chains that do pretty much the same job. Or the annualized costs of automating all or part of the ferry-ticketing process.

[Kimmo]

prevailing wage rates include benefits.

 

so if you take the horrifyingly egregious income of $23 and change per hour, times it by full time status (is this what most get?) you get $920 /week (minus benefits, which are not paid in cash). so maybe that ticket booth attendant walks with around $600 per week cash? like, oh my god no wonder we are bankrupt. lower the taxes on the rich immediately lols.

 

sounds like you chose the wrong career, jayb!

[Kimmo]

here's another example of egregious state-mandated pay rates:

 

 

Industrial Power Vacuum Cleaner Operator, Journey Level: $9.24

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure just about any of the low skill jobs in WA could be taught to 6 year olds, like they do in India. It only makes economic sense. because: everything is really about economics, when you think about it.

[Fairweather]

prevailing wage rates include benefits.

 

so if you take the horrifyingly egregious income of $23 and change per hour, times it by full time status (is this what most get?) you get $920 /week (minus benefits, which are not paid in cash). so maybe that ticket booth attendant walks with around $600 per week cash? like, oh my god no wonder we are bankrupt. lower the taxes on the rich immediately lols.

 

sounds like you chose the wrong career, jayb!

 

Read JayB's list again, Kimmo. It clearly states that these are "base salaries".

 

http://www.thenewstribune.com/soundinfo/statesalaries/

 

[Fairweather]

here's another example of egregious state-mandated pay rates:

 

 

 

That's a neat trick you're trying Kimmo, but it won't work here. We're talking about state/govt employees--not what the state mandates for the unionized private sector vis-a-vis the contracts they award.

[JayB]

$23.40*40*52 = $47,840.

 

To some people that's a pittance, to some it's good money - both are subjective value judgments.

 

It's a fact that the state could attract qualified people to dispense and collect ferry tickets for considerably less than the cost of $47K, + health benefits + the cost of an inflation indexed pension. It's also a fact that the state could save a considerable amount of money by contracting out this service and automating a significant amount of it.

 

I can think of quite a few ways in which the state could make better use of the money less saved, which would benefit people who make considerably less than $65K in total comp each year.

 

Having said that - the mystery is not why people are willing to accept those wages for taking ferry tickets, it's why the state is willing to pay them. Particularly when more important things are getting cut or entirely eliminated.

[JayB]

here's another example of egregious state-mandated pay rates:

 

 

Industrial Power Vacuum Cleaner Operator, Journey Level: $9.24

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure just about any of the low skill jobs in WA could be taught to 6 year olds, like they do in India. It only makes economic sense. because: everything is really about economics, when you think about it.

 

Are you saying that paying only what's necessary to staff a state job with a consenting adult who's qualified to do the job is the moral equivalent of child labor???

 

The persistence of child labor in countries where the value of the average adult's economic output is extremely low is a conversation worth having - but I'm not quite sure what the logical or moral connection to what the state pays consenting adults in one of the wealthiest countries in the world is....

[Jim]

$50k base salary for taking tickets and making change - really - you could only get that in the public sector. But I would not want to have a race to the bottom, there are reasonable changes that could be made to public sector contracts: increase the amount of contribution to health care, get rid of pensions for current employees and go to 401ks, lay off some staff already.

 

The pensions are especialy unsustainable - the sooner we deal with it the better. There's likely some other places - a friend who works at UW in a similar job as mine get 100% match on his 401k - I mean, really? funded by taxpayers.

 

The recent spate of cuts by the state are just unavoidable - and rather than do something such as eliminate automatic year-in-grade step increases (not COLA) the govenor decided to go witht he plan to reduce employee hours by 3 hrs a week. Just for this year. This is just pushing out the invitable changes a bit more.

[JayB]

Yup.

 

"Alabama Town’s Failed Pension Is a Warning"

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/business/23prichard.html?src=twrhp

 

[Peter_Puget]

$23.40*40*52 = $47,840.

 

23.40*2080=48,672.

 

You were understating annual base wages for 1.0FTE by almost 2%.

 

It is worth repeating that at every dollar above the market clearing wage rate we give to these workers is a dollar we are keeping from education, healthcare, food stamps and so on. It's Kimmo's old misallocation problem again.....

[olyclimber]

Real socialists would not be arguing about the $50,000 stack of pennies taken by the proletariat ticket takers. Arguing that would be giving into the Capitalist Pig Theory of Economics. Instead, real socialists should be equating it with this compensation list:

 

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/12/boss-10_CEO-Compensation_Rank.html

 

 

 

 

[olyclimber]

Of course HuffPo is all over it!

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/01/ceo-pay-layoffs_n_701908.html

[Jim]

While I agree that no one is worth what the CEO of Verizon gets - he isn't getting paid with my tax dollars.

[olyclimber]

You're such a capitalist pig Jim.

 

This is just simple redistribution of wealth.

You can wait for it to trickle down, or you can tax and give it to the ticket taker!

[Peter_Puget]

of course there are other issues with government unions as well: hello!

[prole]

Because being a ticket taker and being able to put a kid through college or buy a house is unacceptable!! Permanent underclass now!

[olyclimber]

It would be better if we had a Logan's Run carousel type approach.

[prole]

It is worth repeating that at every dollar above the market clearing wage rate we give to these workers is a dollar we are keeping from education, healthcare, food stamps and so on.

 

Why would that money necessarily flow to those programs when it could mean another tax-cut for the Eloi?

[Jim]

Because being a ticket taker and being able to put a kid through college or buy a house is unacceptable!! Permanent underclass now!

 

While I think it's a generous pay scale, if you read my post I didn't say anything about reducing it, but dealing with what is clearly unsustainable policies - topped by unfunded pesions. So what would be your solution? Ignore it as has been done for the past 20 years? With or without a financial crisis this was eventually going to be a problem - and it will, and is affecting delivery of social services and environmental programs. Raise taxes? Good luck on that one in WA. Just give me a solution here on how you would tackle the unfunded obligations?

[Jim]

You're such a capitalist pig Jim.

 

This is just simple redistribution of wealth.

You can wait for it to trickle down, or you can tax and give it to the ticket taker!

 

Well, seems WA tried to come up with some tax programs, some that I voted for - but these were voted down. So now what?

 

What, specifically is your solution for dealing with unfunded obligations for pensions? Reasonable measures to make the state more solvent will allow for a greater delivery of social and environmental programs, for instance.

 

What do you think the state is going to do, exactly, to tax the CEO of Verizon? That is a federal tax issues - yep, Congress should not have given more tax breaks to the uber-rich, they have had more than enough over the past two decades. Sustainable practices on the state end is something different. How does responsible economics on the state site translate into opression in your view?

[olyclimber]

my caveman mind unfortunately does not understand the questions, let alone the answers.

[olyclimber]

Merry Christmas!

 

[Jim]

my caveman mind unfortunately does not understand the questions, let alone the answers.

 

Oh dear. Irony meter clogged with eggnog.

[olyclimber]

zen is the only way out of this mess

[G-spotter]

"No work, no eat" - Hyakujo