This is Part 5 of our 10 Part 2016 Wage Series. In our last article, we covered Commissioned Deputy and Police Officer Wages. In this article, we turn to Firefighter and Corrections Officer Wages. We’ll cover Dispatcher and Records Clerk Wages in the next article.
In part 4 of our on-going wage series we now turn to the rankings of County Deputy and City Police Officer rankings throughout the State. This series always produces both expected and unexpected information about the relative standing of jurisdictions.
This is the third article in our 10 part series reporting on contract settlement trends. This article highlights some of the recent economic developments most likely to impact your negotiations outlook.
This is the second part of our 10 part Fall 2016 wage series. In this article we take a look at recent contract settlements and examine how those trends vary from recent previous years. Our view of 2015 and 2016 settlements and what we have so far from 2017 indicates that the Washington State public sector wages are a mirror of national wage stagnation. We see some wage increases with little substantial “real wage” growth (as measured once controlled for inflation). Whether a growing economy eventually will accelerate these is something we’ll discuss later in this series.
In the last issue we discussed whether – and to what extent — population influenced a jurisdiction's relative wage ranking. In this article we discussed to what extent assessed valuation influences that ranking.
In our last article covering CPI we reported on the dramatic recent fall off in inflation (below 0%) numbers. We also predicted that, as to the pivotal June CPI report, the number would show an increase but that “we are not anticipating that these numbers will leap up anywhere near the 2% mark.” In fact, the June CPI numbers are out and they do show a turnaround in inflation numbers and numbers well short of the normal 2% mark.
One additional sign of good economic news this week came in the form of a Bureau of Labor Statistics Second Quarter Wage Report. The BLS, the data reporting branch of the Department of Labor reports that despite the low rate of inflation, reports wages are rising, 2.7% as to the period one year ago:
The February "Economic and Revenue Update" from the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council provides a good summary of the recent rounds of good economic news both nationally and locally. The key findings by the Revenue Council include that on the national level.
The Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council just released their November report on the State and national economy and like their report last month, it provided mixed news about the state of the economy.
The Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council just released their November report on the State and national economy and like their report last month, it provided mixed news about the state of the economy.
