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Thanks for responding to my specifics.
Source 1: Cook County Prevailing Wage for January 2015
I can say a family member of mine, working for the city as base level Stationary Engineer, recently confided that he cracked the 50/hr rate several years ago, and a H.S. classmate of my kid started as laborer last year claiming starting pay in the 40's (per hour). And this kid *is* actually laboring bringing pipe & materials to steamfitters working in ditches!
And please keep in mind these wages contractually increase every year, and it varies but is usually around 1-1/2 - 2%/yr.
And I'll repeat: "Laborer" in the Chicago or Cook County employment parlance means unskilled laborer. They are not skilled tradesmen or trade apprentices. And the city has a lot of them.
Now if you'd like to make the argument that nationwide the streetsweepers are making low wages, it's yours to make. But the topic of my posts here starting with my first post has been the local government, it's workers, and their wages and pensions.
To your second clause: No - you haven't demonstrated that (even though this may have been perceived as true decades ago). The reality is the government workers in Chicago are generally making more in wages than their counterparts in private industry, with far better benefits and extremely lucrative pensions like those found in only in a very small minority of private employment situations (and virtually never at these job classifications).
But high wages aside (Chicago does have a relatively high cost of living), the real killer is pensions that are vested after 10 years service and collectible at age 50! Due to the already excessive length of this post I'll expound upon this in my next reply to you (including the phenomenon of multiple pensions from multiple agencies), but you may want to mull over this doc in the meanwhile:
Source 2: Illinois Policy Report - Saving Chicago
In summation
From this and my previous post:
- You now know the structure of Chicago's retirement plans.
- You now know last year's Cook County employee wages (my 1st link).
- You've been armed with data showing employee retirement ages (my 2nd link).
From just the above supplied source data, and ignoring that Chicago's employee wages are higher than the County, and that the 2015 data does not reflect the 2016 COLA increase or the increase coming up in 5 months - what do you think?
What's your opinion?
This Cook County 2015 wage doc popped-up in Google. Chicago pays around 10-15% higher than the Cook County - and has many of the same job classifications and titles as County - though the city has quite a few more titles in addition. It's difficult to get detailed wage info out of the city itself (or the unions), and the published annual city budget posts by department and function - not individual employee. So I'll post County for reference here (showing laborers at 38/hr), since that's all I can find on the net:
Source 1: Cook County Prevailing Wage for January 2015
I can say a family member of mine, working for the city as base level Stationary Engineer, recently confided that he cracked the 50/hr rate several years ago, and a H.S. classmate of my kid started as laborer last year claiming starting pay in the 40's (per hour). And this kid *is* actually laboring bringing pipe & materials to steamfitters working in ditches!
And please keep in mind these wages contractually increase every year, and it varies but is usually around 1-1/2 - 2%/yr.
And I'll repeat: "Laborer" in the Chicago or Cook County employment parlance means unskilled laborer. They are not skilled tradesmen or trade apprentices. And the city has a lot of them.
This is definitely not Chicago or Cook County's wage structure. With the exception of truck drivers, the laborers are the entry level to the mainstream workers' hourly wages.
Now if you'd like to make the argument that nationwide the streetsweepers are making low wages, it's yours to make. But the topic of my posts here starting with my first post has been the local government, it's workers, and their wages and pensions.
To your first clause above: Well - that's a matter of your opinion, and fine with that.
To your second clause: No - you haven't demonstrated that (even though this may have been perceived as true decades ago). The reality is the government workers in Chicago are generally making more in wages than their counterparts in private industry, with far better benefits and extremely lucrative pensions like those found in only in a very small minority of private employment situations (and virtually never at these job classifications).
But high wages aside (Chicago does have a relatively high cost of living), the real killer is pensions that are vested after 10 years service and collectible at age 50! Due to the already excessive length of this post I'll expound upon this in my next reply to you (including the phenomenon of multiple pensions from multiple agencies), but you may want to mull over this doc in the meanwhile:
Source 2: Illinois Policy Report - Saving Chicago
While this article is speaking in generalities, I'm providing specific data for Chicago and Cook County; I'd welcome WaPo to examine examine and verify my data in specific terms, and see if they're willing to claim my data is inconclusive!
In summation
From this and my previous post:
- You now know the structure of Chicago's retirement plans.
- You now know last year's Cook County employee wages (my 1st link).
- You've been armed with data showing employee retirement ages (my 2nd link).
From just the above supplied source data, and ignoring that Chicago's employee wages are higher than the County, and that the 2015 data does not reflect the 2016 COLA increase or the increase coming up in 5 months - what do you think?
What's your opinion?
