Who Are Ann Arbor’s Own 1 Percent? Hint: Many Work for Local Nonprofits & In the Public Sector
The New York Times recently published a feature about the 1 Percent. Reporters Shaila Dewan and Robert Gebeloff write: “Now, the colossal gap between the very rich and everyone else — the 1 percent versus the 99 percent — has become a rallying point in this election season….” It takes an income of $380,000 per year to join the 1 Percent Club nationally. The average income of the 1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center, is $1.5 million, and the superrich — the 120,000 tax filers that make up the top tenth of this group — earned an estimated average of $6.8 million in 2011.
Of course, wealth is relative, particularly as regards to where one lives.
In Ann Arbor, an annual income of $157,200 will put you in the top 10 percent, while an income of $207,000 will boost you into the top 5 percent, and an income of over $359,000 will put you into the top 1 percent both city and state-wide. Looking at the income distribution for Ann Arbor in 2009, nearly 19 percent of earners made between $100,000 and $200,000. Seventeen percent earned between $20,000 and $40,000. The bottom 10 percent of earners bring home $14,884 per year, and the bottom 25 percent of residents have to make ends meet on just $31,417 per year.
Just as is the case nationally, the gap between the top 1 percent and the bottom 10 percent on Ann Arbor has grown significantly over the past decade. Unemployment is stubbornly high, and pay for non-public sector workers in the area has stagnated or even fallen. Meanwhile, jobs funded with public money in Ann Arbor are some of the most high-paying gigs around. For instance, Ann Arbor’s elected officials are particularly generous with taxpayer money, giving our cash-strapped city (and school
Related Grilled Entrées
Short URL: http://www.a2politico.com/?p=12070
“Outlandish” is indeed the word for these salaries. Along with, perhaps, “obscene”.
When I contemplate stuff like this, combined with that multi-bazillion-dollar new city hall building, and the multi-bazillion-dollar new library parking structure, I wonder how in the hell Washtenaw County — obviously filthy rich — can tolerate ANY homeless population at all, and call itself compassionate. Well, perhaps no one in WC seriously calls him/herself compassionate. That would add up.
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Before we get our knickers all in a knot, I have some doubts about the accuracy of these figures. I personally know several of the people on this list and the jobs thay have at the U. I really don’t think those salaries are correct. It might be helpful if those named would confirm or deny the numbers?
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@Denise the salary figures come from the 2011 UM salary spreadsheet made available by the University. Remember that some salaries as BHall points out are pro-rata, but you can go to this link and download the 2011 file in PDF format: http://hr.umich.edu/hrris/reports/standard.html. The U of M Digital collection has the salary spreadsheets in XLS format, as well. An official at the University of Michigan confirmed the accuracy of the data.
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Statement from Occupy Ann Arbor
OccupyAnnArbor.org
This Friday, January 27, President Obama will speak at the University of Michigan Al Glick Field House. Obama’s visit could not be more timely. As tuition costs rise, University President Mary Sue Coleman
is becoming a vocal champion of market-driven “solutions” to decreased state funding. Last month, Coleman wrote an open letter to Obama in which she called on university presidents, business leaders, and wealthy individuals to tackle the rising costs of higher education.
It is becoming increasingly evident that leaders such as Obama and Coleman see education, less as a public good necessary for the health of our democracy, and more as an “investment” in straightening US
competitiveness in the global marketplace. At a time when the global economy is in crisis, Coleman’s aim to employ educational institutions in service of revitalizing the US economy may seem noble, but her market-centric language betrays her real priorities. When Coleman states that American business “has a vested interest in the talent and research embodied in higher education,” it becomes clear that she and her allies on Wall Street and in the US Chamber of Commerce want an educational system that serves the interests of the 1% over the rest of us.
Obama’s visit comes as Coleman calls for heightened collaboration between University and business leaders. UM is re-purposing ex-Pfizer properties to house researchers conducting corporate-friendly research and faculty “entrepreneurs” engaged in University-sponsored startup ventures. Coleman calls on wealthy alumni and “philanthropists” to contribute to University endowments, which in turn are invested on Wall Street and used to fund business ventures. These initiatives represent the same failed policies of corporate and political elites to drain public resources and impose austerity, all the while
benefiting the 1%, whom our leaders have been quick to praise as “job creators.”
We call on the people of Ann Arbor, as well as on the UM community to stand in solidarity against the corporatization and control of public education by the 1%. We call on everyone to see President Coleman’s promotion of “entrepreneurship,” capital investment, and “philanthropy” in the face of neoliberal austerity as intimately connected to the myriad policies that have unjustly concentrated
wealth in the hands of a small elite. We call on various groups to organize actions around the University’s crackdown on organized labor and to actively resist the pro-corporate policies of the Coleman administration. We are the 99% and we stand for education that serves everyone, not simply those with the deepest pockets.
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@money&buildings, thanks for sharing this statement. “The corporatization and control of public education by the 1%” just about says it all.
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Re. the U-M salaries, there’s a lot of folks who make in the high six figures who aren’t on the list — eg. surgeons and doctors — and there’s a lot of folks on that list who don’t earn what it looks like they earn.
For instance, you have to take the salary and multiply it by the appointment fraction. So the top person on the list — Alison Hirschel — actually gets paid $756,880 * 0.06 = $45,413.
It’s great scratch for a .06 appointment, to be sure, but it’s probably the case of U-M paying a big time lawyer to do a class for a few hours a week. Also might not come from the general fund, eg. taxpayer dollars. The hospital chief’s salary, for instance, comes out of hospital revenues.
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I just downloaded the spreadsheet. It’s is order of name, so it’s not too tough to find the people listed here. What you can’t do is sort by salary. #Bhall how come the hospital employees are not on the salary spreadsheet? Shouldn’t all the employee salary information be in a single document?
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Bhall: “Also might not come from the general fund, eg. taxpayer dollars. The hospital chief’s salary, for instance, comes out of hospital revenues.”
That’s like saying that personal income taxes in the U.S. don’t go to support the war machine (“defense department”), because other revenue covers that.
It all goes in to the same pot, and comes out of the same pot. The partitions within the pot are insubstantial.
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Another Occupy document – The Declaration:
http://www.nycga.net/resources/declaration/
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@Dave D.
I do not know the genesis of this, but I do not believe doctors who earn money from seeing patients — eg. clinical revenues — have those dollars reflected on the spreadsheet.
Otherwise, you’d see surgeon after surgeon among those making upwards of $500,000.
If they teach students — and this is a teaching hospital — or perform administrative tasks, then those salaries are reflected on the spreadsheet.
@alan2102,
Well, you might disagree, but it’s important to note a distinction. In other words, the money used to pay the chiefs of the hospitals are not taxpayer dollars; they don’t get paid from the same pool of money that comes from the state appropriation or tuition dollars. They get paid from money that is earned by the hospitals.
The same goes for people who work for the athletic department. Coaches’ salaries, and the salary of the the top ADs are not paid by state dollars or tuition money.
If we are going to attach value judgments to the salaries, I think it’s important to note where the money actually comes from.
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