SerpApi.Org
Members of the New York City Council, largely unemployable in any real job, voted Thursday to pay themselves more than US senators or most governors.
The 18.2% hike will boost their pay to $175,000, far more than almost any of them ever made before getting elected, or could ever hope to earn again.
The Quadrennial Advisory Commission, which recommended the fat pay increases, is a useful tool for the council to pretend they aren’t really voting themselves a raise, just ratifying what the commission (a pack of friendly insiders) suggested.
The city “last enacted a salary increase for its elected officials in 2016,” the QAC notes, and the “cost of living has skyrocketed.”
But today’s council members weren’t in office in 2016, and they ran for the job knowing what it paid — a big income increase for nearly all of them.
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Let’s get real: About 40% of today’s council members got their only significant professional experience as staffers for local or state politicians; this is just another step in what look to be lifelong careers in and around politics.
Incidentally, this used to be considered a part-time job, until “reformers” outlawed outside income in a bid to “professionalize” the council.
That is: To reserve the office for professional politicians, excluding nearly all private-sector professionals.
These tax-eaters have lived in the bubble world of municipal government for so long they have lost all sense of perspective.
Councilman Ty Hankerson (D-Jamaica), whose previous job was assistant to his predecessor Adrienne Adams, told Gothamist that his current pay of $148,500 is too low because of the many bills he must pay, and that even now it “feels impossible” for him to afford to buy a house.
Yet the median household income in Hankerson’s district is $71,000; imagine how bad his constituents who work real jobs must feel for him.
Maybe he should run a Go Fund Me so they can help him pay his car note.
Adding to the insult here, the raise is retroactive to January, so each pol will get a fat check of 10 or 15 grand to compensate them for all the underpaid labor they’ve been doing.
The City Charter says the council can’t give itself a raise: The hike shouldn’t take effect until in the following term, giving voters the choice of letting their representatives enjoy the raise or not.
It’s bad enough that the council is packed with hacks.
That they’ll likely get away with raising their own salaries is simply obscene.
