Posted on 02/09/2008 9:06:48 AM PST by Graybeard58
America is gap crazy. Legions of policy wonks and social scientists have carved comfortable careers exposing gaps and torturing data and logic to make these gaps seem wider or more sinister.
Politicians, meanwhile, have ensured their incumbency by redirecting gobs of other people's money to fund dubious efforts to close these gaps. Connecticut, for example, has gone through several generations of plans and many millions of dollars in a futile effort to close the achievement (education) gap. But there are many other gaps: a justice gap, marriage gap, environmental-health gap, age gap and a bunch more. One thing is certain: America has no gap gap.
It may seem like it, but men aren't always gap winners. They are less likely than women to get college diplomas and comprise only 42 percent of the nation's higher-ed students, gaps that conventional feminist wisdom holds is the comeuppance for the crimes of their fathers and grandfathers against women.
Then there's the wage (wealth) gap. Rich vs. poor; white vs. minorities; men vs. women generate the most gap gasbaggery, but politicians studiously ignore a fourth version. In 2007, hourly compensation for state and local government employees was $39.50 compared with $26.09 for the private sector. This wage gap has widened by $2.48 an hour — 23 percent — in just three years. Economists blame it on a "benefits gap" between public and private sectors.
America has nearly six times as many private-sector workers as public employees, but don't expect politicians to bring up this gap, let alone propose a remedy such as binding-arbitration reform. That's because they sold their souls to Big Public Labor long ago, and the unions will continue to lavish them with their financial and manpower support at election time to ensure the gap keeps growing.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
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The proper term would be the "ambition gap."
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Workers of the World Unite.
Done, if you ever want off, just let me know.
The gap I’m most worried about is the one between what I make and what I keep.
Amen.
Funny, I see no mention of the “intelligence gap”...
You beat me to it!!!! I was going to inquire about the gap between the ears of these bureaucraps :)
The “common sense gap” is not to be found because it is more properly termed the “common sense chasm”.
Public employee unions typically bring in surveys of the wage scale for same jobs from the state other counties or cities for comparison. They want parity. They never compare with the local private sector, which in our case is much less. The problem for negotiators arises when a local government cannot fill jobs (particularly professional ones like lawyers, nurses, clinicians, engineers, social workers) because their wages aren’t competitive on the regional scale. It is a vicious circle.
I know we have to hire attorneys from school before they pass the bar and offer to pay part of their school loans to attract them. I would say from our experience, that the public sector has no relationship to the private. However, in larger municipalities competition may be with the better paid provate sector. In which case, the private sector raises the public, then the outlying public sector is raised above the private in parity.
Get a government job.
The REAL gap is in the value of what is paid for. Government workers are mostly clerks and pinheads who do nothing to increase the productivity or economic strength of the American economy. Why are the least productive workers getting paid more? Unions. That’s right.
The economic worth of government workers is on par with secretaries and administrative assistants - paper pushers. Why should paper pushers get more than manufacturing? It’s a scam and we have to fight that fraud too. Government workers should be paid LESS, not more than the private sector. Historically, they were. But we weren’t paying attention - again.
It’s one more area where America is getting turned on it’s head.
Does gap toothed women count?
This is the key. The Dem pols agree to give the public sector unions big raises (out of the taxpayers' money) and the unions, in return, promise to give their backing to the Dem pols. The Dem pols are just buying their political support with OUR tax money. This will never change until the Dems are thrown out of office so badly that they can't prevent the undoing of this hideous partnership. I don't see that happening in the near future. In CA, the public unions own the state because they own the Dem pols.
Right, so what’s to stop non-government employees from forming their own unions? Some jobs you can’t outsource.
Think about it, Baseball players stick together and have a strong union and they have a pretty good life, football players have a weak union, and are forced to beg for their medical expenses.
“The gap I’m most worried about is the one between what I make and what I keep.”
GASP!!! You KEEP some???? We’re going to have to do something about that! /S
Guess your all for a pay cut for the troops, then?
(blanket statements usually lead to foolishness)
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