{"id":1644,"date":"2004-10-22T14:08:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-22T14:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=1644"},"modified":"2017-05-12T17:51:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T22:51:40","slug":"1644","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2004\/10\/22\/1644\/","title":{"rendered":"Little Pay Gap In St. Louis"},"content":{"rendered":"

A slightly slanted story in the St. Louis Post-Dipsatch<\/i> lauds<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There’s a bit of good news for beleaguered blue collar workers in St. Louis: On average, their pay trails their white collar counterparts’ by just $3.73 an hour, the narrowest margin among large U.S. metro areas, Labor Department data show.<\/p>\n

In other regions, the gap between blue and white collar hourly pay was as large as $14.12 in mid-2003, according to the data, the most recent figures available.<\/p>\n

While there’s no clear explanation for the smaller difference in St. Louis, it’s likely evidence of a few trends and unique features of the area economy, experts said.<\/p>\n

Credit the region’s rich union tradition, economists say. And “we have several high-paying manufacturing companies here, like Boeing, the automakers and Anheuser-Busch,” said Donald Phares, an economist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Blue collar workers in this region earned an average of $17.72 an hour in mid-2003. That put St. Louis near the top, above several areas with higher costs of living. In Denver, for example, blue collar workers averaged $15.55 an hour.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While that’s nice, one with a less unionphilic attitude might hit immediately on these other ramifications first:<\/p>\n