Left-wing columnist and professor Paul Krugman has a new job by City University of New York. The university is paying him $225,000 a year to teach on the subject of income inequality.
Gawker reports that CUNY offered Krugman $225,000 a year plus a travel fund of $10,000. According to the press release announcing Krugman’s acceptance back in February “Krugman’s move reflects his ongoing interest in inequality, a core research focus of the Luxembourg Income Study Center.” The press release adds that LIS databases “enable research on income inequality, family poverty, labor market
disparities, and debt accumulation, as well as the economic and social
policies that influence those outcomes.”
Krugman isn’t even being asked to teach during his first year. The offer letter says “During year one (2015-2016) you will not be expected to teach or supervise students. Instead you will be asked to contribute to our build up of LIS and the inequality initiative and to play a modest role in our public events.” After the first year, Krugman will begin teaching one seminar a year.
In another email exchange Chase Robinson, the person making the offer on behalf of CUNY, writes “we can provide not just a platform for public interventions and a
stimulating academic community�–especially, as you will know, because of
our investments in the study of inequality–but also a relatively
comfortable perch.”
Krugman will apparently be making more than all but a few Medical professors at CUNY. His CUNY salary alone does not, as Patrick Brennan notes at NRO, but his salary from the NY Times in addition to speaking fees surely put him there.