UC Berkeley's 'income inequality' critics earn in top 2%
For Immediate Release
June 23, 2016
California Policy Center
Contact: Will Swaim
Will@CalPolicyCenter.org
(714) 573-2231
Income inequality at UC Berkeley worse than world’s-worst Haiti
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Scholars from the University of California at Berkeley have played a pivotal role in making income inequality a major issue in 2016 political campaigns. But while they decry the inequities of the American capitalist system, Berkeley professors are near the top of a very lopsided income distribution prevailing at the nation’s leading public university, according to a new study by the California Policy Center.
You can read the full study here.
Marc Joffe, the study’s author, examined state salary data to determine that inequality among the 35,000 UC Berkeley employees is worse than that of Haiti.
Ironically, income inequality at Cal shows up dramatically in its Center for Equitable Growth (CEG), the university’s home to critics of income inequality.
According to the most recent data:
- Center Director Emmanuel Saez received total wages of $349,350.
- Its three advisory board members are also highly compensated Cal professors: David Card (making $336,367 in 2014), Gerard Roland ($304,608) and Alan Auerbach ($291,782).
- Aside from their high wages, all four professors are eligible for a defined-benefit pension equal to 2.5% times final average salary times number of years employed.
All four are in the top 2% of UC Berkeley’s salary distribution, and that Saez is in the top 1%.
Says Joffe: “It could be that an effective researcher has to know his or her subject: thus to the study the top 1%, we suppose one has to be in the top 1%.”
Among Berkeley’s most prominent critics of income inequality is former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. Reich receives somewhat lower compensation than the four CEG economists, collecting $263,592 in pay during 2014. But Reich’s salary was likely not his only source of income in 2014. Reich makes himself available to give paid speeches through a number of speaking bureaus, charging a fee estimated at $40,000 per talk.
“If UC Berkeley economists are really opposed to income inequality and are concerned about low-paid workers, they might consider sharing some of their compensation with the teaching assistants, graders, readers and administrative staff at the bottom of Cal’s income distribution,” Joffe concludes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Study author Marc Joffe is the founder of Public Sector Credit Solutions and a policy analyst with the California Policy Center. Joffe founded Public Sector Credit Solutions in 2011 to educate policymakers, investors and citizens about government credit risk. PSCS research has been published by the California State Treasurer’s Office, the Mercatus Center and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute among others. Before starting PSCS, Marc was a senior director at Moody’s Analytics. He earned his MBA from New York University and his MPA from San Francisco State University.
ABOUT THE CALIFORNIA POLICY CENTER
The California Policy Center is a non-partisan public policy think tank providing information that elevates the public dialogue on vital issues facing Californians, with the goal of helping to foster constructive progress towards more equitable and sustainable management of California’s public institutions. Learn more at CaliforniaPolicyCenter.org.