PrefBlog

I found some excellent commentary on teachers’ salaries:

While we might all agree that the middle class is partly a state-of-mind, I define the middle class as the middle 50 percent of individual earnings. With this definition, at age 20-24, 50 percent of individuals with a university degree working fill-time at a single job outside the Toronto CMA earn above $27,300 and below $60,008. Thus our 23-year old teacher who earns $49,400 does actually start in the middle class of the universityeducated group. However the stay of that teacher in the middle class of even the university-educated within society is very brief!

By the time our teacher is aged 25-29, after 5 years of teaching, the teacher has decisively exited the middle class within the university-educated group. The salary of $66,893 after 5 years of teaching falls well above the 75th percentile of salaries although it is remains below the 90th percentile. But after 10 years of teaching, at age 33, our teacher is quite close to the 90th percentile of salaries within the university-educated group. The teacher’s salary is $88,759 and the 90th percentile is $91,000. The last step in the salary grid would push the salary over the 90th percentile salary for a person aged 30-34.
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Finally I would note that all these comparisons of the salaries of teachers to other wage-earners ignore the very large benefit and vacation packages that are part of the compensation of teachers. Even using just salary data, it is clear teachers are very well compensated throughout their entire careers relative to similar persons in Ontario. The benefits and vacation are the whipped cream, toppings and chocolate sauce on the Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

Grave consequences are predicted if the US government shuts down:

A shutdown of the U.S. government would reduce fourth-quarter economic growth by as much as 1.4 percentage points depending on its length, economists say, as government workers from park rangers to telephone receptionists are furloughed.

Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics Inc. estimates a three-to-four week shutdown would cut growth by 1.4 points. Zandi projects a 2.5 percent annualized pace of fourth-quarter growth without a shutdown. A two-week shutdown starting Oct. 1 could cut growth by 0.3 percentage point to a 2.3 percent rate, according to St. Louis-based Macroeconomic Advisers LLC.

It was a mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualDiscounts gaining 5bp, FixedResets up 7bp and DeemedRetractibles off 4bp. Volatility was muted, judging by recent standards. Volume was slightly below average.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 27th, 2013 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.