The Superintendent of the Lehighton School District was just given a two percent raise each year of a three year extension of his contract. According to the Times News, in the first year of the contract his base pay will be $147,900, the second year $150,858, and the third year $153,875.
During Governor Jerry Brown’s first term as governor of California in the Seventies, he proposed an across-the-board raise for all state government employees of $400. You can imagine the howls of people who were making $100,000 a year. It was such a piddling amount.
On the other hand, if you were a janitor making $10,000 a year (remember this was the Seventies), $400 was a big deal. Percentage raises advantage the people on top; across-the-board raises of a set amount advantage the people making less.
That is why across-the-board raises with a set amount rather than a percentage are so rare. After all, this is America.
No comments:
Post a Comment