It happens all the time.
Indianapolis attorney Henry Efroymson sees an out-of-state peer working opposite him on a bankruptcy case and charging substantially higher fees than he does.
Indeed, legal professionals in Indiana earn an average of 25 percent less than their peers nationwide. And there are similar, double-digit-percentage wage gaps between Indiana’s architects, engineers, business managers and other high-wage earners.
It’s among these kinds of workers that Indiana most lags the rest of the nation in personal incomes.
Which goes a long way toward explaining why Gov. Mitch Daniels’ No. 1 goal—raising average incomes in Indiana faster than the rest of the country—has gone unfulfilled during his eight years in office.
“It’s just part of the culture,” said Efroymson, a partner at the law firm Ice Miller LLP, about Indiana’s modest legal fees. “And I think it refers to the fact, historically, that there have been fewer financial firms, and public companies and large international firms in the Midwest.”
As Daniels leaves office in January, there is a debate about whether his policies of keeping taxes and spending low, while pursuing alternative strategies to improve roads and schools, have been the best way to help Indiana attract and create more of those high-wage, knowledge-based jobs.
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