Sunday, December 18, 2016

Public Union Bubble to Burst?

http://www.economist.com/node/17849199

Excellent article worth reading all of. A sample.
Many people have jobs for life and performance measures are rare. The result is a paradox: the typical public worker is better off than the people he is supposed to serve, and the gap has widened significantly over the past decade. In America, pay and benefits have grown twice as fast in the public sector as they have in the private sector.
 How much does all this cost us? Hard to calculate, but consider ...

It is impossible to calculate the cost of the unions' inflexibility. But several recent studies provide some indications. Policy Exchange, a conservative think-tank, calculates that people in the British private sector work 23% more hours than their public-sector counterparts over their lifetimes, thanks to public-sector strikes, sick days and early retirement. Barry Bluestone, a left-wing economist, calculates that the price of America's public services increased by 41% in 2000-08, while that of private services rose by 27%. Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford University, argues that replacing the bottom 5-8% of American teachers with merely average performers could move the United States from near the bottom to near the top of the international maths and science rankings.

If  Trump can accomplish a single thing, a huge weakening of public unions would be very high on my priority list!

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