NY’s $51.71-an-hour summer job

The small Hudson Valley city of Poughkeepsie is now home to some of the best-paying summer jobs ever: $51.71 an hour.

That’s right: $51.71 an hour.

The project started off as perfectly sensible. The work involves restoring Fallkill Creek, damaged in last summer’s post-Hurricane Irene flooding. To get the job done and put up to 150 unemployed young people to work, the state Labor Department tapped a federal storm-cleanup grant.

So far, so good: There’s work that needs to be done, people who need work and a way to pay for it all.

But $51.71 an hour?

Clearing debris and lifting heavy objects isn’t easy, but why pay temporary manual laborers the same hourly rate as a skilled employee in a $100,000-a-year full-time job?

The story of how a simple and necessary public works project became a full-blown boondoggle is a classic tale of government excess and regulatory insanity. article here