On Politically Favored Groups Raiding Public Coffers
The National Bureau of Economic Research still has a big question mark in place for the end date of the U.S. economic recession that it says began in December 2007. During the most brutally dreadful and bleak moments of this recession, not many workers in any industry were faring well—wages were mostly flat or declining, and jobs were bleeding out like an ER patient on a tawdry episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
But please take note that the public school teachers, principals, and support staff who kept their jobs (i.e., the more “experienced” workers protected by their unions) were doing noticeably better, on average, than all other workers in America, as measured by BLS’s Employment Cost Index. As a politically favored group, the ARRA pumped a lot of money their way (see red spike in graph). Now that the money has been spent and public