Tuesday, August 19, 2008

How Rich Can You Get?



Aldermen are being urged to give up their recent pay hike to help balance the city budget. Wonder how Ald. Shiller feels about this? Read all about it at the Sun-Times here.

30 comments:

  1. How about we give up a couple of alderman. I can think of an alderman in the 46th ward who doesn't seem to do much working anyway.

    I think Tunney, Smith and Schulter could cover for her.

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  2. Well, Greg Harris and Heather Steans are certainly covering for her right now.

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  3. Very true holy moley.

    I really think it is a shame to pay an alderman $100k a year when she won't even meet with the members of her ward.

    What's even more ironic is that I've spoken with Mary Ann Smith twice. Not politically, I just happen to be walking in her ward on a couple of occassions when she was around and she went out of her way to be nice and say hello and engage me in some conversation. And it wasn't even an election year.

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  4. 6.5% - you've got to be kidding me. I work for a Fortune 50 company and we're lucky if we get 3.1%/year.

    WTF is going on??? Money is nowhere to be found and they're pegging 6.5% for someone like Helen Shiller who does absolutely nothing for this Ward. More wasted Gov. money...

    I agree with Pablo, cut the Ward in half, give one part to Tunney and the other to Smith. BANG a savings of 104K year. Oh, and can Denise Davis as well....that's what, another 65K year?

    jjo

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  5. Does anyone ever wonder what Helen Shiller does with her big salary? At one time she scolded her fellow aldermen about their greediness by saying that she would give her raises to the poor. Has that happened? She seems to be pretty anti-materialistic (no fancy cars, clothes, etc.) What does she do with it? I'm curious.

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  6. I did see her with a coach purse at the town hall meeting. So I'm not sure she's completely anti-materialistic.

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  7. Really? That is so weird and not what I would have expected. I mean, how and why would someone like her go about making a "status" purchase? Next time I see her I will show her where to buy some rockin' vegan handbags.

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  8. I was a surprised to see it too, that's why I remember it. That being said, I have my issues with Helen, but overall I don't think she's a materialistic person.

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  9. Me neither. I'd also really like to like her. She just makes it

    so

    damn

    hard

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  10. Hate to break it to folks, but $100k/year is far from rich. Especially with the taxes that are slapped on us (even Alderman pay those taxes).

    I do agree though, 6.5%? Are they serious?!

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  11. C'mon if I could give myself a raise I would and I bet most of you would do the same. I'm not saying that it's right or even deserved but would you expect anything less from a Chicago alderman. Given the state of the budget this is ridiculous, I guess you can call it Chicago politics.

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  12. Too bad the people that are suppose to work for us never do specially Schiller. She deserves a pay cuy as well as being voted out and get someone in hear that cares. It up to us to take the steps. Lets give her a raise out of her office and get a worker for our ward in there.........

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  13. Well this year she paid for Uplift's band uniforms. I can give her credit for that.

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  14. Cutie,

    did she pay out of pocket, or did she use the $40k that was added to her expenditure account?

    Granted, new uniforms for the kids is a wonderful gesture; but, let's make sure we give credit where it's due. Either to her, or to us (since, either way, we paid for it).


    Beyond that, if the city's budget shortfall is $420M, I have a fairly decent idea how they could immediately reduce that to $370M.

    And they could probably lower it even more, if they just thought really, really hard about it (and had souls, of course).

    I'll give 'em a hint: it rhymes with "spiff".

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  15. Anybody making more than my is rich. So that basically everybody.

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  16. 100k is rich to me too. Hey Uptown Updater, you should start an anonymous poll on the site asking people which income bracket their households fall into. That would be interesting to see.

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  17. Does Helen actually say she gives her raises away?

    Has any political reporter ever asked her to support this with a gift acknowledgment receipt? Can you verify this in the City Council disclosure reports?

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  18. Yeah, I would say 100K is a very comfortable income.

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  19. I'm not sure what Helen does with her money, but it's just odd, that her 'office' is located on the absolute worst strip of Broadway anywhere.

    One would think the presence of an Alderman's office would reverberate 'ripples' of good in the vicinity.....
    quite the opposite.

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  20. The estimated median household income for people in Uptown (or, everyone living in 60640)for 2005 was $34,475. (For those of you who slept through high school math like me "median" means half are above and half are below). The estimated 2005 median for all households in Illinois was $50,260. [My source is city-data.com]

    Helen Shiller with her PT job makes waaaay more than many of her constituents and yet she is still quite content to demonize many of us as if she is not a property owner earning in the top 5% of wage-earners nationally. I would love to earn the equivalent of her hourly rate and still be able to do the work that I do. Nice work if you can get it.

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  21. Well put, and thanks for the info!

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  22. I think the right perspective is to what other politicians make. The President makes $400,000/year and represents about 300 million people. US Senators and Congressmen make about $160,000/year and represent anywhere from a few hundred thousand to several million. IL state reps/senators make less than $60k/year. Our aldermen get over $100k and 6.5% raises. Granted most politicians have outside earnings and have usually held previous jobs, but Chicago aldermen seem to have a nice gig going on base pay alone. There are CEOs of companies earning millions in sales who make less. And to paraphase Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused, "I was thinking of working for the city for awhile. You know, put a little money in my pocket."

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  23. But you live in Cook County, IL. The rules and the norm don't apply. Corruption is a bitch, huh. I'm going back to watch the Olympics...

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  24. I'm "arrogant" and a "douche" for pointing out that making $100k in Chicago is far from "rich"?

    I don't get it. I don't think that's a poor salary. I think that's a nice amount to make. But it's not "rich". It's just not.

    $100k, turns into about $65k after taxes. If you're the single earner in a household taking home $65k, please tell me how that's "rich". I'll wait for an answer.

    If you make less than $100k, yes, that's not rich either.

    I'm not bashing anyone for how much they make. Just saying that people flip out when they see $100k and it just doesn't go as far as people think in the land of 11% sales tax, "amusement" tax (check your cable bill for that one), or $80 to park on the street that you're already paying $5k in prop taxes on.

    And, no, I don't make $100k.

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  25. "Rich" is a very emotionally loaded word. "Rich" is subjective; "Rich" is relative. If you define "rich" as anyone in the top 50%,$100K is rich. If you define only the top 1% as rich, then no, $100K is not "rich."

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  26. okay, i apologize for the comment. here is another recent article apparently about a spat between hilary and obama.

    http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2007/11/29/does-a-97000-salary-make-you-upper-class/

    bradley is right, its just how you perceive it. but if we're talking in this case(shiller), a single person's salary of 100,000+, i believe that is rich. If you have a family of 4 and your spouse does not work, and you are making a 100,000 for the entire household, that does not make you "rich".

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  27. Colin,

    I would call $100k per year, in Shiller's case comfortable. If you make $100k a year and manage it correctly you can live a pretty nice lifestyle, but Shiller isn't rich.

    Plus she's going to have a nice city pension once she's out of office, and IMO she really hasn't done much in 20 years to garnish it.

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  28. Pablo, please understand that my comments were made unrelated to Shiller and if she earns her pay (she does not as far as I'm concerned).

    My point all along was that living in Chicago, with the insane taxes and fees, $100k is far from "rich".

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  29. I agree with "Bradley." Rich is a loaded word...too difficult to define and pin down.

    McCain thinks an income of $5 million is rich...which is pretty much high corporate execs and professional athletes.

    $100K isn't 'rich' in my view. It is comfortable but certainly not rich.

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