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March 03 , 2011 - Emily Makings
"The young versus the old"
As I noted yesterday, Bill Gates gave a talk at the TED conference on state budgets. Video of the talk is not yet available, but the Wall Street Journal has reported on it, here and here. Mr. Gates said states are stuck in a system that pays out vast amounts for early retirement, health care […]
March 03 , 2011 - Kriss Sjoblom
Pew-Rockefeller Study of State Revenue Forecast Accuracy
The Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Institute of Government have released a study of the accuracy of state revenue estimates. Here are the first three paragraphs from the press release: WASHINGTON — States have been making more serious errors in estimating their revenues during tough economic times, according to a new report […]
March 02 , 2011 - Kriss Sjoblom
More on January Employment
As I noted on this blog yesterday, the state Employment Security Department estimates that, seasonally adjusted, the number of nonfarm jobs in Washington state was 11,000 greater in January than in December. An article in today’s Seattle Times (State’s Monthly Job Results Good, But There’s A Catch) makes much too big a deal of the […]
March 02 , 2011 - Emily Makings
Gates on State Budgets
Today Bill Gates is speaking at the yearly TED (technology, education, design) conference. In a blog post, he says that his talk will be about state budgets: This time, I wanted to share some of what I’ve been learning about state budgets. I got interested in them because states supply most of the money for […]
March 01 , 2011 - Kriss Sjoblom
Average State Employee Pay Increases
Following up on Dick’s posts yesterday and today on employee compensation, here is a chart showing annual increases in average state employee pay for the years 1999 through 2009. I have excluded higher education because tuition increases have provided extra pay increases for faculty in recent years. The underlying data come from the fiscal.wa.gov web […]
March 01 , 2011 - Kriss Sjoblom
January Employment
The Employment Security Department released today the employment situation report for January. The headline numbers look good. Seasonally adjusted, the state added 11,000 jobs in January, and the state unemployment rate fell two-tenths, from 9.3 percent to 9.1 percent. The private sector added 11,600 jobs: service producing industries added 13,700 jobs, while goods producing industries […]
March 01 , 2011 - Richard S. Davis
As we were saying about compensation comparisons …
… they’re not easy to get right. USA Today headlines today that Wisconsin is one of 41 states where public workers earn more than their private sector counterparts. According to the paper’s analysis of data from the U. S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, State, city and school district workers earned an average of $50,774 in […]
March 01 , 2011 - Emily Makings
Too Many Cooks
The fifth paper in the Thrive Washington series was released yesterday. Consolidation versus Specialization looks at ways to restructure the executive branch. It makes these recommendations: Reduce the number of statewide elected officials from nine to six. (Specifically, have the governor appoint the state insurance commissioner and the lands commissioner and eliminate the elected office […]
February 28 , 2011 - Emily Makings
The Art of Budget Cutting
We're already at the end of February, which means the legislature has only four months to close out the 2009-11 budget. There's a lot of work ahead, but let's start the week with the funnies.