I can't find it ATM, but recently there was a good article that linked this phenomenon to the disappearance of unions. As unions disappear in the private sector they become increasingly dependent on the public sector to employ their laborers.

Because union members vote and because unions so visiblly represent the working-class, in many cities the best way to be pro labor is to support union labor.

In areas were unions are strong but increasingly relegated to public sector work, that translates to pressure to bloat public sector projects with union labor.

One way to think of it is as a form of work program.

On a related note, some conservative commentators have pointed out recently that if you combine U.S. healthcare spending with U.S. welfare spending, it roughly equates to what European countries spend on healthcare + welfare. IOW, we don't overspend on healthcare so much as we trade-off social welfare spending for healthcare spending.

Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if you combine the overspending on public works projects with similar jobs programs, it would likewise roughly equate to what European countries spend on public works + jobs. IOW, public works projects are expensive because we refuse to adequately fund training, long-term unemployment benefits, etc.

I think this is all comes down to Americans' inability to embrace the necessity and role of social welfare programs. But because we can't admit of the need doesn't mean our society doesn't ultimately respond to the need; our response is just obscure and indirect in a way that preserves the fantasy of the free-market. For example, we can blame these excessive public works projects on "corruption" and "bloat" rather than admitting that they're pressure-relief valves for legitimate political, economic, and social demands. Something similar could be said regarding the Trump phenomenon.

Basically, our transit system is welfare for employees made redundant in other sectors.

Thank you. This was exactly the kind of I-never-would-have-looked-at-it-that-way answer I was looking for.

A professor once pointed me to the writings of George Plunkitt, the notorious Tammany Hall politician who openly defended so-called "honest graft". I don't know what his takeaway from Plunkitt's arguments were, but mine were

1) The institution of civil service was the solution for solving the problem of graft. Plunkitt even says that if politicians didn't fight the wave of civil service rules spreading across the country, it would put all politicians out of business. The red tape of the bureaucracy is the price we pay for getting rid of traditional graft.

2) But the civil service didn't magically erase the needs that were met by Tammany Hall-style politics. Back in the day "corrupt" politicians like Plunkitt were open about their graft, and voters voted them in regardless. Why? Because they provided the promise of job security; that if you do X you'll get Y--something the free market never guarantees at the individual level. The need and desire for job security never went away when the civil service came about, it just made it more difficult for voters and politicians to make an open, conscious exchange.

One easy way for politicians (intentionally or naturally, in response to dynamic political feedback) to provide a simple quid pro quo is to bloat public works projects. It can't be a coincidence that as relative wages for blue-collar construction work have declined, public works projects have gotten more expensive. That is, we've _tolerated_ more expensive public works projects to relieve/because it relieves the employment and wage pressures put on laborers in the private sector. That's easier to do than to affirmatively institute employment and wage supplementation programs.

We spend alot of time explaining the phenomenon in terms of loss of talent, experience, regulatory capture, etc. But perhaps the best and simplest explanation is precisely what Plunkitt was trying to drill into people's heads--nobody is going to vote themselves out of a job, no matter their claimed political preferences. I bet most Second Avenue Subway workers were as "disgusted" with the bloat as every other New Yorker, but their _real_ political preferences (and those of their families and friends) were better measured by who and what they voted for than by what they said. People's ire is easily blunted when receiving a nice, steady paycheck.

None of which is to defend honest graft. Plunkitt thought the only way to meet the needs of the small guy was through honest graft. There are better ways, I think, which are more efficient and therefore permitting greater overall social benefit. But those ways aren't achievable if we don't recognize and attend to the underlying economic and political forces, which will tend to steer things in certain directions whether we like it or not. The reasons things haven't changed despite the obviousness of the problem is because of these very real, counterveiling political forces. Those forces are far greater than just a few rich special interests.

It is because they are so corrupt. It has nothing to do with safety 99% of the time, but ensuring they need more workers on the job site. The mob got heavily involved with unions in the USA fairly early on, and influenced their tactics to what we have today. Europe didn't have that same issue.

it makes the union workers the beneficiaries of automation.

if automation lowers amount of labour needed, it's less work that the workers have to do, not fewer workers that the employer needs to hire.