Losing ground

Study Finds a 1.2 Percent Increase in Faculty Pay, the Smallest in 50 Years (New York Times)

Academic pay has been squeezed by the recession, according to the annual salary survey by the American Association of University Professors.

Over all, salaries for this academic year are 1.2 percent higher than last year, the smallest increase recorded in the survey’s 50 years — and well below the 2.7 percent inflation rate from December 2008 to December 2009.

The survey found that average salary levels actually decreased this academic year at a third of colleges and universities, compared with 9 percent that reported lower average salaries in the previous two surveys. Private and church-related universities reported shrinking average salaries more often than public institutions.

And the academic pay situation may be even worse than the survey indicates, according to John Curtis, the association’s director of research and policy.

“A lot of faculty are losing ground, and the data probably underestimate the seriousness of the problems with faculty salary this year, because we’re only looking at full-time faculty and, as we’ve seen for several years, there’s an increasing number of part-time faculty, who are not included,” Mr. Curtis said. “Also, the survey doesn’t capture the effect of the unpaid furloughs a lot of faculty were forced to take this year, because the numbers we have are the base salaries agreed on at the beginning of the year, not the actual payroll results.”….(continued)

SEE ALSO ~  The Worst Salary Year (Inside Higher Ed)

This seems appropriate somehow: a dog catching a big fish.

"Stop having sex," suggests typical OC Reg reader

Jan Norman of the OC Reg, who writes on "small business," is running a readers poll regarding the “most important issues”:

Poll: What’s the most important issue?

240 Register readers have taken the poll thus far (at the time of this writing).
Here are the results (in percentages):

31% The Economy
29% Unemployment
19% Federal budget deficit
8% Environment/global warming
7% Healthcare
5% Terrorism
2% Situation in Afghanistan

Naturally, these percentages might not represent Register readers in general. Presumably, both groups (Reg readers and those who took the poll) skew "conservative."

For comparison, Norman provides the results of a recent Gallup poll of American voters:
Percentages: “extremely” or “very” important:

The economy: 93%
Unemployment: 87%
Healthcare: 84%
Federal budget deficit: 78%
Terrorism: 76%
Situation in Afghanistan: 70%
Environment/global warming: 46%

Looks like Reg readers tend to disagree with much of the rest of the country concerning the importance of “Healthcare” as an issue.

Naturally, some Reg readers left comments. Unsurprisingly, they tended to carp about the absence of "immigration" as an issue option. Sometimes, they got, um, colorful about it:

c1143 says:
Where is the “Strengthen the border” issue???
English Defence League says:
immigration?
Gary S says:
Without private sector jobs, there will be no money to pay for all of these new programs that are being forced down upon us by our imperial masters.
Taro says:
Why wasn’t immigration included in the survey???
Those illegals are taking the jobs away from American citizens....
antarez says:
I totally agree, Wait till Obama tries to force this Amnesty BS next. Time for us to vote out all his supporters in the next elections before he can totally ruin the Country.
Spring. says:
Its been proven over and over, illegals only take jobs that normal americans dont want. Even in the recession, i know people that dont have a job, but they dont want to go in gardening or McDonalds. Thats their problem. So as far as im concerned, i dont care about illegals, besides, the government knows they are benificial, they will NEVER do anything to stop it.
rjs says:
it is SCARY out there, THE COSTS OF TAKING CARE OF LATINOS AND WHAT THEY GOBBLE UP !!!!!! STOP HAVING SEX, there will be nothing left in a few years !!!!!!!