http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/20090104/OPINION01/901040346January 4, 2009
Remember, during the whole debate over a bridge loan for auto companies, how members of Congress kept saying autoworkers are overpaid? Some U.S. senators and representatives claimed United Auto Workers members were knocking down $73, even $75, per hour.
That led federal lawmakers, like U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., to call for a cut in pay for auto workers as a condition of the "bailout."
It turns out the figure was wildly wrong. You can only get to figures that high if you include all kinds of things not typically considered wages — health care, benefits, vacation time, pension costs, retirees' health care, etc.
The real average hourly wage for a United Auto Workers carmaker, straight time, comes out to something between $28 and $30 an hour. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger testified before Congress that average pay for assemblers in the auto plants is $28 per hour. General Motors Corp. recently told The Associated Press that the average UAW laborer earns $29.78 per hour.
Hey, that is pretty good pay. A worker making those wages and working full time all year would get $58,240 or $61,942 annually, depending on which number you use.
Yeah, that's a decent living. You won't get rich making that kind of money, but it is pretty good pay.
Still, it is a far cry from the $169,300 that U.S. senators and representatives were paid this year. If Congress members really work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks out of the year (and they don't), it is well over the $73 per hour rate they so objected to. It would in fact be more than $81 per hour, and that's not counting their benefits, their health care or their pension costs.
FULL story at link.
Don't forget the perks in D.C. Paid medical, Travel expenses, etc... And Congress got a raise in each of the 10 years the minimum wage didn't go up.
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