Though we have seen steady growth in the private sector of the American economy, growth in public sector wages and jobs have been lagging. Public sector jobs, which used to provide a safe route to the middle class, are now barely able to keep workers economically afloat. The effects of these shifts can be felt the hardest in deep red states that supported the Tea Party in its heyday. These states and counties are extremely against any sort of tax increases and these sentiments are felt in the form of shrinking budgets and scarcity of workers in the public sector. The article cites that public sector jobs make an average 27% lower than comparable jobs in the private sector. Public sector employees are now forced to work two jobs just to retain a decent standard of living. Virtually everyone agrees that the people working these jobs deserve to maintain a moderate standard of living but no one seems to want to front the bill. The questions that I have after reading this article are, how may we solve this problem while still keeping the American economic system in place and would we fare better as a society if we adopted a more liberal approach to the market system like that of Germany or Sweden?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/22/business/economy/public-employees.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fbusiness&action=click&contentCollection=business®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
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