California, Pennsylvania become deadbeats to thousands of state workers

Updated

When we reported on the likely prospect (which has since become reality) of California handing out IOUs while lawmakers tussled over how to close the state's budget gap, we didn't think "work now, get paid later" was going to become a common way for states to handle short-term cash crunches.

Looks like we were wrong. We're sad to say another state has resorted to making state workers pay the price for its inability to produce a workable budget.

According to CNNMoney.com, Pennsylvania has frozen the pay of its state workers as of July 1. This means that the paycheck employees got on July 17 only includes the hours they worked in June, while the paycheck they would ordinarily receive on July 31 will be replaced with a big, fat goose egg. Worse yet, whenever they are reimbursed, the state's not even going to throw in any interest for their trouble. (California is at least throwing its creditors a bone with 3.75% interest).

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