Pressdog.com

Cry me a Fiscal River

By Bill Zahren
(Posted 02/23/00)

Just the other day, I saw a rich white guy on TV writhing around on the ground, rumpling his Armani suit in the throes of a virtual spew hemorrhage about how free enterprise is the answer to all ills in life, including failure to know God in a more personal way and a crappy outside jump shot. And then he started speaking in tongues.

So you can understand why I’ve been chortling out loud over developments in my favorite section of the Sacred Free Market Economy: Wages.

Seems people are making too darn much money. The Fed is going to raise interest rates to something like 32% because people are just making too damn much cash and buying too much stuff. I can hardly sleep at night knowing my fellow laborers make more cash than ever, get job offers out of the blue and have multiple bidders for their services.

Maybe I’m just a little bitter. When I was in college in the early 80s, people held knife fights to get $4-an-hour jobs. There’d be five job openings at a factory somewhere and the human resources department would have to rent a mall to handle all the applicants who showed up. A month after graduation, I snagged a high-profile reporter job paying -- get ready -- $11,500 per year. Yes, I got all that money for only one year’s work! Dial up the Jag dealer. Actually, I didn’t have a problem with the pay. I was thrilled to be a real reporter and could have done a lot worse, cash-wise. I lived off my lovely and talented registered nurse wife who made 50% more than me for many years.

Nearly 15 years later and, well, we got ourselves a whole new deal here. Factory jobs that pay double the minimum wage go unfilled. If you have computer geek skills, you can drive your rusty Toyota Corolla out to Silicon Valley and seven recruiters will meet you at the city limits, each offering a BMW with a bow on top if you sign on the dotted. Because those skills are in demand, ya see. I’m praying for a similar writer shortage -- but not holding my breath.

The final sign of a total labor seller’s market came when employers started sucking up to teachers, perpetual winners of the Least-Appreciated Workers with the Most-Important Jobs award (social workers place a close second annually). I love teachers. They’re expected to teach kids everything from math to morals, even when the kid lives in a moral and educationally desert at home, and they still do an amazing job of it.

Lately, Iowa teachers and education majors find themselves on the lush end of Econ 101, where low supply meets high demand. Those sacred words from the Book of Tasseled Loafers have even been bandied about: “Bidding War.”

Recent newspaper stories here have talked about how recruiters from other states are hot for Iowa teachers. A story even quoted a Houston-area teacher recruiter who hires Iowa teachers over the phone. “Send them on down” she said in a newspaper interview published here in February. You could almost hear the southern accent. “It’s 78 degrees here today and the weather’s fine.” Oh, she’s an evil one. She’s going right for the throat – using Iowa’s winter to suck the teaching talent out of the state.

The legislature and local school boards are all knotted up about it, of course. They expect teachers to hang out in Iowa out of a love of the state, as if it’s a job akin to joining the Peace Corps or something.

So random people start making $30,000 each and suddenly Al Greenspan gets getting more TV airtime than Judge Judy. But I don’t recall Al Greenspan (glasses, deluxe suit, entourage -- striking) spewing on to Congress about how injurious to the economy it for the average American CEO to be making $1.2 zillion a year or getting a paltry 25% raise to their $3.2-million-per-year salaries. That, apparently, does not exert “wage pressure” that must be beaten down with the Interest Rate Hike Stick. Those salaries were caused by “healthy competition” for CEO talents.

OK. I can buy that. So why get all bunched up when the precious marketplace makes non-CEO salaries climb? Free enterprise means everyone has the absolute right to sell their services for whatever price they want to, just like businesses have the right to set their own prices. If nobody buys our labor or there’s a lot of it, its value goes down. If a lot of people want it, the price goes up. If employers treat us crappy, we can leave. If we treat employers crappy, we can get fired. If we work hard for good employers, everyone makes money. Those are the rules. Supply and demand. It’s a beautiful thing.

And just between you and me, money isn’t the main thing. Admit it. Money isn’t the main thing you look for in a job. Oh, it’s important. Jobs with huge salaries can turn your head, but cash isn’t the main thing most people look for in a job. I just changed jobs and money came behind the kind of work (creative writing), location (Midwest) and family considerations (good neighborhoods and schools for my kids). I didn’t want to take a pay cut, but I wasn’t looking to double my income either.

I recently saw a survey of Fortune 500 managers asking them to rank the top five priorities of their employees. They put salary and benefits at the top. When the actual employees were surveyed on their top concerns, salary and benefits were something like number 7. Employees are more concerned with being respected, having meaningful and challenging work, feeling valued as part of the team, feeling like they contribute to the success of the company. The good news about the tight labor market is employers are getting the clue that keeping employees happy (and therefore productive) is good business.

So that’s my tip. It’s treatment as much as treasure that makes us happy. As for the teachers, I say grab the marketplace by the short hairs and give it a little twist. Hey, this economics thing is kind of fun once you get into it.

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