The headline of the day at the Tribune: “Could sluggish Illinois lottery aim higher? Private firm falling short in sales; poorer neighborhoods bring in most revenue” (* this may be behind a paywall, but should be accessible by googling the title) Apparently, Illinois hired a private firm to run the lottery based on optimistic projections of revenue growth, and, in particular, revenue growth among the affluent. Lottery Control Board member Geoffrey Richards is quoted as saying, “Has there been an... Read more

A while back, I was involved in benefits benchmarking studies, and worked with people who provided executive “total compensation” studies to our clients. The norm was this: Our clients wanted to be at the 50th percentile for broad employee benefits, and would look at increasing where they fell behind or decreasing, say, health insurance contributions, where they came out as more generous than average. At the same time, our clients targeted the 75th percentile for executive compensation.  You can see... Read more

So the minimum wage and income inequality are in the news again. First of all, I’m really getting tired of the assertion that “One of Henry Ford’s great insights as a businessman was to realise that in order to create a mass market for his automobiles, he had to pay his workers sufficient to buy his products,” as Jeremy Warner at the Telegraph, and countless others, assert.  This is debunked by Tim Worstall at Forbes, in an article in which he... Read more

Everybody’s getting snarky about the NBC “Sound of Music” production. Here are the obvious observations (every article or post  about SoM seems to be in list form, so I’ll follow suit): 1)  NBC always said they were producing the original Broadway production, not the Julie Andrews movie.  Anyone who gripes that this didn’t follow the script properly and, for instance, had moved My Favorite Things and The Lonely Goatherd around shouldn’t even be commenting. 2)  It’s not Julie Andrews.  Get... Read more

Drudge this morning links to an article in the “Quorum Report” (a site I’d never seen before) claiming that House Speaker John Boehner told “various Texas business interests” that he would schedule immigration votes after the filing deadline for the 2014 elections.  In other words, the implication is that he would hold votes only after it was too late for upset citizens to protest by fielding a candidate to primary an amnesty-supporting GOP congressman.  If this is true, this means... Read more

Yeah, “OPM” is a shibboleth of sorts — if you follow certain blogs you know this stands for Other People’s Money. But there’s a particular OPM-type of problem that the Medicaid expansion highlights: the fact that, when a state or municipality can do something funded by the federal government, either wholly or nearly so, it’s treated as free money. We’re learning that the large majority of new healthcare enrollees are actually people who are either newly eligible for Medicaid or... Read more

So here’s the thought for the day: Food stamps are an entitlement program. If you meet the eligibility requirements, you’re automatically accepted upon application.  There’s minimal wait and no cap on the number of recipients. The equivalent program to aid low-income individuals in being able to afford housing is the Section 8 voucher, described here.  But, as this HUD fact sheet notes, there are waiting lists and potentially waiting lists so long that they are closed to new applicants.  Just... Read more

Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman is the latest journalist to “take the food stamp challenge” and report on it.  (*Note: this link seems to take you to a paywall, but if you google food stamp challenge brotman, you’ll get there.) Does she do it right? First of all, her budget is $31.50 a week — the average food stamp benefit.  This means she starts off wrong, since the “average” benefit includes all those who are determined to have sufficient income... Read more

So this comes out of a discussion while visiting with family, about the situation of a someone in the extended family: Relative “John,” age 18 and a junior in high school (he was redshirted) gets his girlfriend “Mary” pregnant and she has twins the fall of what would be his senior year.  They both drop out of high school; he gets a job to support the children and she, initially, takes care of the babies.  Later, due to generous support,... Read more