Washington Public Sector Labor Negotiations Blog
Trends and Developments Concerning Washington Public Labor Contracts
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
As we recently wrote, CPI Edging Up , the Seattle CPI continues to far outpace the All-Cities Index. The latest report has the Seattle Index at 2.6%, far outpacing the 0.8% All Cities Index. This probably should not be too surprising giving the robust Seattle economy which is far outpacing the most modest economic growth occurring elsewhere. The economic growth is no doubt placing additional pressures on local prices.
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
The latest release of CPI shows that it is continue to climb, edging up enough that it may also bump up contract settlements. The April CPI was released this past week showing the Seattle CPI-W climbing to 2.6. The All-Cities-W index, although also climbing, continues to significantly lag behind at 0.8. This chart reveals the trend line in those two indices over the past 12 months:
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In the last issue we discussed whether – and to what extent — population influenced a jurisdiction’s relative wage ranking. In this article we discussed to what extent assessed valuation influences that ranking.
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
Earlier in the wage series we discussed State wage rankings for the various public safety classifications. In the next part of the wage series we run our series of articles on factors that might influence or explain, at least in part, those wage rankings, with updated 2015 wage rankings.
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In the last blog article we addressed the recent .5% gap between the “U” and “W” indices. We discussed whether over time there was a significant difference between the CPI-W and the CPI-U, explaining that there was not:
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In our July 24th blog article we reported on the June CPI and noted the wide spread between the “U” and “W” inflation indices and promised to provide an explanation as to the differences in these inflation measures. We cover that in today’s report.
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is part of our continued series on Washington public safety employee wages. In this issue we report on wage rankings for 911 dispatchers and police records clerks.
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In our last article covering CPI we reported on the dramatic recent fall off in inflation (below 0%) numbers. We also predicted that, as to the pivotal June CPI report, the number would show an increase but that “we are not anticipating that these numbers will leap up anywhere near the 2% mark.” In fact, the June CPI numbers are out and they do show a turnaround in inflation numbers and numbers well short of the normal 2% mark.
By Jim Cline
One additional sign of good economic news this week came in the form of a Bureau of Labor Statistics Second Quarter Wage Report. The BLS, the data reporting branch of the Department of Labor reports that despite the low rate of inflation, reports wages are rising, 2.7% as to the period one year ago:
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is Part 5 of our 11 Part Summer 2013 Wage Series. In our last article, we covered Commissioned Deputy and Police Officer Wages. In this article, we turn to Firefighter and Corrections Officer Wages. We’ll cover Dispatcher and Records Clerk Wages in the next article.
