Striking Statistics

The Yankee Institute's D. Dowd Muska has released a paper that exposes our state government's suffocation of the private sector:

"As Table 1 indicates, average hourly wages for employees in Connecticut government are substantially higher than those for workers in the private sector.

Table 1
Average Hourly Wages, All Employees, Hartford Metropolitan Statistical Area

public sector vs. private sector

white collar - 34.52 vs. 26.63
blue collar - 20.63 vs. 16.87
service - 20.25 vs. 11.37

source: 'Hartford, CT National Compensation Survey,' Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, June 2004"

But it gets better:

"As Table 2 shows, between 1990 and 2005, employment in local government grew by 27.5 percent.

Table 2
Full-Time Equivalent Employees, Connecticut Local Government

1990 - 98,315
1995 - 101,732
2000 - 110,553
2005 - 125,392

source: U.S. Census Bureau"

Dowd recommends repealing state mandates, adopting anti-mandates, and better local decisionmaking to cut state government expenditures and lower property taxes for Nutmeggers.

You can read the paper here.

Somehow, I don't think Speaker Amann will be asking Dowd for advice.