Chicago needs more champions of literacy like Willie Wilson – Wirepoints
May 7, 2024
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It’s rare to see city leaders in Chicago take an open, unabashed stance on the collapse of literacy. To complain is deemed as too political, too racist or too anti-public schools. So it’s refreshing to see Willie Wilson, a successful businessman and leader of the black community, call for a literacy initiative “with the goal of getting 100% of Black students reading at grade level.”
Gov. JB Pritzker calls it an “ethics” reform.
While this new advisory referendum could be nothing more than a political distraction, it could also be that lawmakers are gauging Illinoisans’ appetite for another bite at a progressive income tax hike – this time with lower property taxes as a sweetener.
At $1.5 million per job, the new incentive package from the state is at least 15 times the norm. For this much money, the state could have just handed out a million bucks to 827 people, instead of creating 550 jobs.
Ted joined Jeff Daly to discuss the university student protests erupting across the nation on the Israel/Palestine conflict, why it’s so dangerous for society if the media abandons facts in favor of narratives, why that allows government to spin away the problems like crime and financial crises, why it causes the voting public to become apathetic, and more.
2006 Hourly Rates: Operating Engineer, Highway 1:
Base Wage = 39.75
Health = 6.85
Pension = 5.60
Vacation = 1.90
Training = 0.70
Total = $54.80
2019 Hourly Rates: Operating Engineer, Highway 1:
Base Wage = 49.30
Health = 20.50
Pension = 16.85
Vacation = 2.00
Training = 1.65
Total = $90.30
Increases 2006 vs 2019:
Base Wage = 25%
Health = 300%
Pension = 300%
Vacation = 5%
Training = 235%
Total = 65%
No one is talking about the insane pension costs for trade labor.
$90.30 an hour for 2000 hours a year is $180,000. That’s a 5%er type of salary.
Does the Pension amount include the employer FICA contribution? I don’t think it does. So add another $3.75 to the employers’ hourly pension contribution, bringing the amount spent on “retirement” contributions to over $20/hr. In other words, over one-third of the base wage amount goes towards retirement. That seems like a crazy number. That would be like Salesforce paying a programmer $100,000 and contributing $33,000 to his 401(k). Maybe not the best comparison given the “seasonal” nature of the trade labor…
How is this not getting more publicity?
This is why we get one mile of road for every five miles Indiana can do. There is a road near me that has been under construction for three years running, 159th near Orlando park. You never see anyone working, it’s been ripped up for years.