Keep this chart in mind the next time a teacher union boss complains that taxpayers don’t spend enough money on public education. According to this article’s assessment of the recent report from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, government wages and benefits are 39.9% higher than those of private workers.
Teachers are no exception.
Teachers make $37.90 per hour in direct wages. But they make a whopping $79.38 per hour in total benefits.
Benefits for teachers are a mere 109 percent of wages.
The push for ever more funding continues, regardless of public school achievement, and regardless of the taxpayers’ ability to foot the bill. There is no reverse. No braking mechanism that is acceptable to the unions at the helm.
In fact, the Mayor of Chicago has a helpful word for anyone struggling with how taxpayers could practically afford the unions demands for 50 billion dollars for the city’s failing public schools. “Stop asking that question.”
“Stop asking that question,” she said. “Ask another question.”
This is in a city, mind you, that already spends an astonishing $29,000 per student, including all sources and money for the capital budget. And Chicago Public Schools already faces a $391 million deficit for next and nearly $700 million for the following year when “Covid relief” money will have run out.
It is not about education, and never has been. Teacher unions exist to siphon money out of the system, and pour it into acquiring political power to protect their own interests.