Comments Elsewhere

Well, yeah, O.K. ha ha, rich economist constantly holds forth on the evils of income inequality, whatever, that’s not really the point. But just in case you were wondering, here’s the back-of-the-envelope math. Not counting the $20,000 in non-transferable travel budget, moving bennies, etc. that they offered him, CUNY is paying Dr. Krugman a nine-month salary of $225,000. I presume he won’t be working summer semesters, so let’s say that’s all his salary from CUNY for the year. Now normal tenured senior professors at CUNY make at most $116,364 a year. Adjuncts at CUNY make about $3,000 or so per course; you can teach at most 9 hours a semester. So let’s say you’re an adjunct maxed out at a 3/3 load; you make about $18,000 a year for that. So if Dr. Krugman he could pick out 6 adjuncts at CUNY and *double* their yearly income, just by giving away the amount of money he makes *over and above what the best-paid senior faculty make*. If he were willing to do the job (*) for a nominal fee (as you may know, Prof. Krugman has another line of work), he could literally pick some lucky adjunct at CUNY and double their entire year’s income — *every month of the year*. http://ift.tt/1l2fhO4 (* Which, let’s be clear, involves no teaching load, and seems to mainly mean that maybe he’ll drop by the office every few months to share his brilliance with whoever happens to be there. The point for CUNY is almost certainly to purchase some of the aura from his name on the letterhead.)