Posted by Voter, a resident of the Barron Park neighborhood, on Apr 21, 2012 at 9:05 am

This makes even less more egregious the practice of paying gold plated, far out of market salaries and pensions to our union bureaucrats in city govt, while backfilling the cost by raising our utility rates. Why are we supporting 200k/year firefighters and 100k/year secretaries and street sweepers when the market would fill those positions for half the cost without the ridiculous, generational theft that is the current public pension debacle.

Worse yet, after all the increases, the city cant even afford any vital infrastructure maintenance because they spent their whole general fund on themselves. I used to be a democrat but now I'm an independent whose prime criteria in any vote is dismantling public union power/influence/theft.

Posted by jobs, a resident of the Adobe-Meadows neighborhood, on Apr 21, 2012 at 9:12 am

You need to look at the entire economic picture, not just tiny changes in one number. Other surveys show that the total number of people with jobs has been increasing every month for more than a year. And of course, huge gains in the stock market since Obama took office show that the one percenters are doing pretty well, too.