OK, is it good that Nancy Pelosi raised the maximum salary for House staffers to $212,000 today? She cited the need to retrain and recruit the best talent in the nation. Isn't hat's the usual justification when government wages go up?
You can live quite comfortably oon half that much. Am I a fool for thinking this pay raise isn't necessary? If an employee wants to take a better job, that's great. Am I a fool for thinking you can't replace them with someone who will do just as good of a job? If you truly were having trouble filling the staff positions, that would be different, but I don't believe that is the case.
Yes, half that -- $106,000 -- would bring in plenty of talented workers. If you were underpaying them, that would be different. But, $106,000 is a reasonably generous amount.
Washington, D.C., is one of the most-expensive cities in the nation. Rather than argue that that means they need a higher salary to pay their way in that city, I would suggest the price of living would come down if the average worker weren't making such a splendedly large sum of money. We call it a market economy. Or, if you like, call it supply and demand. Prices go up when people can afford to pay more.
Thirty-eight percent of Washington, D.C.'s employment force works for the federal government. With the high salaries they command, they are driving up the price of living in D.C. The median American makes about $33,000. If the salaries for government workers were more inline with those of the average American, the cost of living in D.C. would come down, and the average American would be more likely to afford living in D.C. Instead, we have a city of rich bureaucrats. They are financially too good to have too many average Joes (and Josephines) rubbing shoulders with them as neighbors.
When you can't afford to live amongst your leaders, it might be that the leaders are treating themselves a little like royalty. We don't need royalty in America.
No comments:
Post a Comment