INDIANAPOLIS –  A recent report from the Center on American Progress showed Hoosiers’ real median wages growing by just 0.1 percent between 2000 and 2016. Over the same period, Kentuckians’ real median wages grew by 4.2 percent and Illinoisans’ grew by 6.2 percent.

From the Center on American Progress: Interactive Map: The Midwestern Recession

While Hoosier working families’ incomes remain flat, one segment of the workforce is doing quite well – Holcomb administration employees.

According to a report from the Journal Gazette, top administration positions of the first-term governor are seeing big increases. The new Department of Transportation head saw his pay increase 14 percent over the last Commissioner and the top officials at the Department of Correction and the Family and Social Services Administration saw pay bumps of nine and seven percent, respectively, over previous incumbents. The governor obviously recognizes the importance of competitive incomes when it comes to staffing his own team and has shown no qualms dishing out taxpayer dollars to attract talent. If only that willingness to raise incomes extended beyond the Statehouse.

From Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: Governor pays big for talent

On top of hefty raises for administration staff, Statehouse Republicans plan to examine raising the governor’s and other statewide elected officials’ pay this summer. However, in what can only be described as utterly tone-deaf, Statehouse GOP rejected adding a study of how to raise working Hoosiers’ pay in a floor vote during the 2017 legislative session.

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