Traverse City Record-Eagle

Opinion Columnists

February 6, 2011

Jack Lessenberry: Snyder's 'guide' tells two stories

Traverse City — There was a lot of uproar across Michigan after Gov. Rick Snyder presented his “Citizen’s Guide to Michigan’s Financial Health,” mostly because of one small part of his report.

That was the section showing that state and local government workers are making more than they did a decade ago, “while private sector compensation has declined in real (inflation-adjusted) terms.” What’s more, it claimed state workers made, as of two years ago, more than twice as much as the average private sector worker.

The reaction was predictable. The guide’s release Monday set off a howl from government workers and their defenders, who felt that the report was unfairly bashing them by comparing college-educated skilled workers with unskilled laborers. Worse, they feared the guide might be setting them up to be a major deficit-cutting target.

Conservatives, naturally, said this just vindicated their worst suspicions of government workers living high at taxpayer expense.

Read the full story on page B4 in today's print or e-Edition.



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