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Re: [PLUG] Tech jobs and politics, and IT diploma mills
On Wednesday, July 9, 2003, at 12:21 AM, Art Clemons wrote:
William H. Magill:
>So a starting salary (which, I believe is for a Bachelors with no
>additional credits) of 30,000ドル is pretty massive when compared to the
>median for the rest of the city. And above the medians for both the
MSA
>and the suburbs.
Be careful with your use of stats from the census. For example, the
figures you cite aren't as usable as you think. They are broken down
per person, but are per household. The Philadelphia median you cite
is particularly disappointing. What you really need is a breakdown of
salaries for the college educated for the metro area (which can be
retrieved with the Ferret program on the census.gov site if you want
to learn how confusing things can be and how to set parameters).
Comparing someone with a high school education earning 9ドル per hour
with a college educated teacher leads to funny results and not
realistic ones. 30,000ドル is not a great deal of money per year
especially after taxes hit.
However, the Median Philadelphia Household Income IS that low, and it
has been for years. It has seriously lagged the MSA for at least 20
years. That's what "inner city" poverty is all about.
I cited the Household Median figures from the 2000 Census (Lewis
Mumford Center at University of Albany). All data comes from the Long
Form Census questionnaire.
http://mumford1.dyndns.org/cen2000/CityProfiles/Profiles/
6160msaProfile.htm
http://www.albany.edu/mumford/census/cities/Citiesstate.htm
The Median HOUSEHOLD income for the US was 39,657ドル
In Pennsylvania, it was slightly less, 38,938ドル.
In the Philadelphia METRO (MSA) it was 47,345ドル.
In Philadelphia it was 29,947ドル.
In the Philadelphia suburbs it was 55,823ドル.
Median "per capita" income for the MSA was 28,874ドル.
and for Philadelphia it was 16,147ドル.
and for the Phila suburbs it was 27,385ドル.
Median Household Income: This is the median income for all households.
A household includes all the people who occupy a housing unit as their
usual place of residence. The median income divides the income
distribution into two equal groups, one having incomes above the
median, and other having incomes below the median.
"The Per Capita Income: This is the average income figure obtained by
dividing aggregate income by total population of an area."
============
And those Households represent:
MSA City Suburbs
% Below poverty 11.1 23.5 5.5
% College 27.7 17.3 32.2
% Professional 37.8 31 40.1
% unemployed 6.2 11.1 4.4
According to the Population Research Institute (Penn State):
[HTML version]
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:1tPU7avcYOMJ:www.pop.psu.edu/
general/pubs/working_papers/psu-pri/
wppa9901.pdf+median+individual+income+pennsylvania&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
[http://www.pop.psu.edu/general/pubs/working_papers/psu-pri/
wppa9901.pdf]
"The median personal income of college graduates at nearly 30,000ドル and
graduate and professional degree graduates of 40,000ドル per year are
three and four times higher, respectively, than that of high school
dropouts in the Pennsylvania labor force.
As presented earlier, however, the largest number of Pennsylvania young
stopped their schooling with a high school diploma. How do they do?
These workers had a median annual income of just over 18,000ドル during
the 1995 to 1997 period. By comparison, the annual personal income of
college graduates is 63 percent higher and graduate and professional
degree graduates 120 percent higher. Clearly, educational attainment
has a dramatic impact on earnings patterns of young workers in the
Pennsylvania economy."
The 2000 Census defines the Household "Money Income" MEAN (not median)
quintiles:
I $ 10,188
II $ 25,331
III $ 42,359
IV $ 64,727
V 141,621ドル
Note that the Mean is 22,199ドル for all US households.
http://faculty.ucc.edu/egh-damerow/public6.gif
[ From: http://faculty.ucc.edu/egh-damerow/U_S_Demographics.htm]
Minimum wage is a hotly debated issue. But we're talking about incomes
which far exceed the minimum wage.
It's nice to say that compared to other college educated people,
30,000ドル is not a lot of money. But the fact is that it puts one
squarely in the "middle class" (Third quintile.)
Not bad for a starting salary for one person.
I'm not arguing that we all don't want to make more money, but only
that the whining by the Teachers Unions about being under-paid, is just
that... whining. [And when you include the Paid Time OFF.. ie school
holidays, it is only 9 months of work, not 10. Even when I worked for
the University, I only got 26 days off per year, and that was about
twice as many as any in other business except Government Employees and
teachers.]
And by the way, there is nothing in their contract which stipulates
that a teacher has to use their own funds to pay for "school supplies."
That they want to do it may be a fine and nobel action on their part,
but don't complain to me that they are forced to do it. ... How many of
them are on 24x7 call with pagers and cell-phones? It's part of the
job. Similar with grading at home -- 7:30-3:30 sounds like an 8 hour
day to me. ... I'd love to have an 8 hour work day. Haven't seen one of
those since I can't remember when. Coaching after school sports ...
that's a paid proposition unless, again, the teacher is being nobel
(and foolish). Every school coach I've ever known has been paid. (There
are some nasty liability and insurance issues when they are not.)
If you want to talk about underpaid workers, talk about the sanitation
department on a day when the temperature is in the 90s. It's a job that
90% of the "work force" is INCAPABLE of doing. (Try picking up your own
trash can that you had to drag to the curb, and lifting it up into the
back of a truck sometime.) Yet they get paid less than teachers.
(...even in Philadelphia!)
I don't begrudge teachers what they get paid. I just resent their
constant whining about it.
T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
# Beige G3 - Rev A motherboard - 768 Meg
# Flat-panel iMac (2.1) 800MHz - Super Drive - 768 Meg
# PWS433a [Alpha 21164 Rev 7.2 (EV56)- 64 Meg]- Tru64 5.1a
magill@mcgillsociety.org
magill@acm.org
magill@mac.com
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