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The Return of the $70 Per Hour Meme

By Chuck Ansbacher

Thursday November 20, 2008

The Return of the $70 Per Hour Meme:

natashavc:

“The average GM assembly-line worker makes about $28 per hour in wages, and I can assure you that GM is not paying $42 an hour in health insurance and pension plan contributions. Rather, the $70 per hour figure (or $73 an hour, or whatever) is a ridiculous number obtained by adding up GM’s total labor, health, and pension costs, and then dividing by the total number of hours worked. In other words, it includes all the healthcare and retirement costs of retired workers.”