Tuesday, June 26, 2007

How much do you make?

A personal question!

But also a public question, if you work for the people. There's been some hue and cry about a Lansing State Journal's move to give readers access to a database of state employee salaries, and the Asbury Park Press has made a similar move, by posting a tool that lets you search for the salaries of most federal employees. I don't know whether they've caught any flak, though.

6 comments:

lulu said...

The salaries of every teacher in the state of Illinois were published on a website (http://www.thechampion.org/teachers.asp ) My students always wanted to know what I made, but when I told them they could find the information on line they never wanted to take the trouble.

SquirrelGurl said...

Being a member of Club Fed, I took a look at the website. What's interesting to note is that it provides only the base salary for Federal Employees, and does not include locality adjustments that some may receive based on where you work.

Each year our college posts the salaries of all the employees of the University... its interesting to thumb through and see the vast differences in pay for professors...
(http://www.diamondbackonline.com/media/paper873/documents/lq3122jy.pdf)

SquirrelGurl said...

Dang it chopped my link off...guess if you want to see it you'll have to cut and paste. Or just search for it on the Diamondback's website.

http://www.diamondbackonline.com
/media/paper873/documents/
lq3122jy.pdf

Alasdair said...

Yes, that's a funny thing about information, that people ask for it but won't do anything to get it. I get a fair number of calls from people who just want to know something or another that they could easily have found out on their own, but know they can call the paper and have someone else do the work. I don't mind; you get some good conversations that way.

Field Notes said...

Yes, but you get more than your fair share of cranks too!!

Johnny Yen said...

I was going to make the point Lulu made. Since I'm in a Charter school, technically private sector, it's no longer the case.

Years ago, after my first year as a teacher, I discovered that some right-winger had taken the information from that site and posted every teacher in Illinois' name and salary, including mine, on his site. The point he was trying to make was that teachers are overpaid-- I was making $33,000 a year teaching in one of the most violent neighborhoods in Chicago.

I emailed him and asked for his name and salary so that I could post it on my website. He angrily responded that this was private information. I pointed out that my name and salary were on his website. He did not repsond.