Patronage salaries paid far above comparable private industry work

Evidence

Since jobs were the fuel of Tammany’s political machine, a disproportionate share of the rest of the budget went to purchase that fuel; between the day Hylan entered office and the day Walker left it, the number of city employees almost doubled, and their salaries, paid as political rewards at levels far above those paid for similar work in private industry, almost tripled. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 1452

Categorization

• XREF: Builds on ch8 claim that city job patronage powered the Tammany machine, quantifying it here. — connects to: Industrial concentration raises top officers’ share of compensation while employment size lowers it — Ken-Hou Lin & Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Financialization and U.S. Income…, 145; US income inequality is dominated by top managers capturing historically unprecedented pay — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1755; New York patronage civil service produced gross pay inequity and rigged exams — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 301

Broader Connections

• US income inequality is dominated by top managers capturing historically unprecedented pay #exemplifies (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1755
• Industrial concentration raises top officers’ share of compensation while employment size lowers it #expands (0.75) — Ken-Hou Lin & Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Financialization and U.S. Income…, 145