Note to Nevada public employees: You’re not going to like this
The New York Times has just published an analysis of state public employee pay scales that promises to have Nevada buzzing from the unemployment line to the halls of the Legislature.
Nevada is hurting. No doubt about that. But Nevada state employees are doing better than many of their counterparts in other states, Michael Luo and Michael Cooper write.
They note: “An analysis of recently released census data compiled for The New York Times by demographers at Queens College of the City University of New York yields a complicated picture, one that highlights the variation in pay from state to state and occupation to occupation, and one that does not fit neatly into a one-size-fits-all approach to cost cutting.”
The survey doesn’t include public employee pensions, but instead focuses on workers with and without college degrees. The findings are intriguing.
They write, “When workers are divided into two groups — those with bachelor’s degrees and higher and those without — a very different pattern emerges. State workers with college degrees earn less, often substantially less, than private sector workers with the same education in all but three states — Montana, Nevada and Wyoming.
“Less educated workers on state payrolls, however, tend to do better than their counterparts in the private sector. The median wages of state workers without bachelor’s degrees are higher than those in the private sector in 30 states. California, New York, Connecticut and Nevada lead the way, each paying workers without degrees at least 25 percent more than the private sector pays those workers.
“Certain states, however, are clearly more generous than others, at least relative to the private sector. California, Iowa, Nevada, New York and Rhode Island are at the upper end of the spectrum for both college-educated workers and those without college degrees.”
Something tells me this story is about to complicate things in Carson City. I can almost hear the grandstanding from here.
