{"id":248050,"date":"2010-01-29T18:36:54","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T23:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/gdp-up-but-government-unions-ate-your-raise-38789\/"},"modified":"2010-01-29T18:36:54","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T23:36:54","slug":"gdp-is-up-but-government-unions-ate-your-raise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/248050","title":{"rendered":"GDP Is Up, But Government Unions Ate Your Raise"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>On 01.29.10 02:01 PM posted by James Sherk<\/p>\n<p>Figures <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/eci.nr0.htm\" >released today by the Bureau  of Labor Statistics<\/a> provide less encouragement than<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bea.gov\/newsreleases\/national\/gdp\/gdpnewsrelease.htm\" > today\u0092s GDP report<\/a>.  Total compensation increased by only 1.5 percent in 2009 (without adjusting for  inflation) \u0096 the lowest increase on record. If a turnaround has begun, workers  are not feeling it in their wallets.<\/p>\n<p>However, this pain has not been distributed equally  throughout the economy. In the private sector, total compensation grew just 1.2  percent in 2009. On the other hand the compensation paid to state and local  government employees grew 2.4 percent. The average government employee got twice  the raise that private sector workers did.<\/p>\n<p>Why did government workers get higher raises? In the  private sector workers compete to produce goods and services that others value.  In a recession, production falls and employers have less money to pay raises  with. On the other hand, taxes fund government paychecks. Government employees  can continue getting raises no matter the health of the overall economy, so long  as taxes keep coming in.<\/p>\n<p>This fact has turned the labor movement into determined  tax hikers. Union membership has grown in the government even as it has fallen  in the private sector. Three times as many union members now work for the Post  Office as in the Auto Industry. In 2009 the numbers crossed: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Labor\/wm2773.cfm\" >a majority of union  members now work for the government<\/a>. Higher pay for government employees can  only come through higher taxes on private sector  workers.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"ftp:\/\/ftp.bls.gov\/pub\/special.requests\/ee\/Tables\/strike.txt\" >Unions almost  never go on strike anymore<\/a>. Instead, they fight to get more for their  members by lobbying for tax increases. Unions spent tens of millions of dollars  last year <a href=\"http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/Research\/Labor\/wm2773.cfm#_ftnref16\" >campaigning  for higher taxes across the country<\/a>: Illinois. California. Minnesota. Washington State. Arizona. In many cases they have  succeeded.<\/p>\n<p>The latest example comes from Oregon, where <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.oregonlive.com\/mapesonpolitics\/2010\/01\/tax_measures_have_passed_vindi.html\" >public  sector unions outspent businesses 3 to 2 to pass two ballot initiatives raising  taxes by $700 million<\/a>. The unions wanted higher taxes to prevent spending  cuts. Had the taxes increases failed government employees in Oregon would have  faced cost cutting measures such contributing toward the cost of their health  benefits \u0096 something they currently do not do.<\/p>\n<p>Government employees have done well in this recession.  Few government jobs have disappeared \u0096 unlike in the private sector \u0096 and their  pay rose at twice the rate of their private sector counterparts. No wonder that  government employees are almost three times as likely as private sector workers  to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rasmussenreports.com\/public_content\/business\/indexes\/rasmussen_consumer_index2\/two_economies_government_workers_optimistic_private_sector_not\" >believe  that the economy is in \u0093good or excellent\u0094 shape<\/a>. The question for policy  makers is why should private sector workers have to pay for  this?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/01\/29\/gdp-is-up-but-government-unions-ate-your-raise\/\" >http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/01\/29\/&#8230;te-your-raise\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 01.29.10 02:01 PM posted by James Sherk Figures released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics provide less encouragement than today\u0092s GDP report. Total compensation increased by only 1.5 percent in 2009 (without adjusting for inflation) \u0096 the lowest increase on record. If a turnaround has begun, workers are not feeling it in their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}