Steve Elkins, District 5 representative on the Metropolitan Council which includes the City of Edina, has a commentary in today’s Strib titled: Not every enterprise can do more with less.
When standards of living are rising (as we hope, over time, they always are) then wages, including wages in professions that suffer from low labor productivity gains, will, by definition, be rising faster than inflation.
That’s what a rising standard of living means. As a consequence, the operating costs of labor-intensive organizations with little opportunity for labor productivity gains rise faster than inflation. This phenomenon came to be known as "Baumol’s Cost Disease."
… In fact, most of the services provided by state and local governments today suffer from this "disease."
… It’s just that the big bucks go to the state and local government functions where we’re all quite vocal about not wanting fewer public servants per citizen. Does this mean that we should just give up and pay our taxes because government can’t be "reformed"? No, it just means that we have to recognize that "reform" is not easy.
See Steve’s bio page on the Met Council site for more on his background.
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