Thursday, December 22, 2005

They Write Letters

To Romenesko:

From GEORGE ZACHAR: We learned in January that New York City newspaper hawkers earning $9 an hour were making more than Guild members at the Youngstown Ohio Vindicator.

Now, thanks to David Cay Johnston's research, we know that the average Wall Street Journal reporter makes about as much the average (striking) New York City bus driver, roughly $55,000 a year.

No doubt the various benefit and pension plans differ greatly, but it is still a sobering statistic. [Permalink]


Why is this a sobering statistic aside from the general belief that anyone who is a part of the "professional class" is intrinsically deserving of making more money than those who aren't?

There's a really weird class resentment going on. White collar workers "know" they deserve more money than blue collar workers. Some blue collar workers, ones in unions and skilled workers, can make decent money. Since a lot of white collar workers actually don't get paid very well, they resent the hell out of the fact that some uneducated lout gets to buy a nicer house than they do. And, thus, we get the out of touch media coverage of the NYC transit strike.