Want to make at least $100,000 a year?

Consider becoming a Metra conductor or engineer.

Be prepared to put in enormous hours for your six-figure salary but not earn time-and-a-half for your extra time.

You could be paid for downtime between the morning and evening rush to do with as you please — from sleeping on a Metra-provided bed to jogging on the lakefront.

Nearly one in four Metra conductors and assistant conductors pulled down at least $100,000 last year, and an even higher proportion of engineers — almost 40 percent — took home that amount, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows.

What the hockey-stick portrayal of global temperatures did in bringing a sense of crisis to the issue of global warming is now being replicated in the controversy over income inequality, thanks to a now-famous study by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, professors of economics at the Paris School of Economics and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively. Whether the issue is climate change or income inequality, however, problems with the underlying data significantly distort the debate.

The chosen starting point for the most-quoted part of the Piketty-Saez study is 1979. In that year the inflation rate was 13.3%, interest rates were 15.5% and the poverty rate was rising, but economic misery was distributed more equally than in any year since. That misery led to the election of Ronald Reagan, whose economic policies helped usher in 25 years of lower interest rates, lower inflation and high economic growth. But Messrs. Piketty and Saez tell us it was also a period where the rich got richer, the poor got poorer and only a relatively small number of Americans benefited from the economic booms of the Reagan and Clinton years.

If that dark picture doesn’t sound like the country you lived in, that’s because it isn’t. The Piketty-Saez study looked only at pretax cash market income. It did not take into account taxes. It left out noncash compensation such as employer-provided health insurance and pension contributions. It left out Social Security payments, Medicare and Medicaid benefits, and more than 100 other means-tested government programs. Realized capital gains were included, but not the first $500,000 from the sale of one’s home, which is tax-exempt. IRAs and 401(k)s were counted only when the money is taken out in retirement. Finally, the Piketty-Saez data are based on individual tax returns, which ignore, for any given household, the presence of multiple earners.

If the Supreme Court rules next spring against insurance subsidies in states that have refused to run their own marketplaces, these states will face a decision with implications for millions of people who’d suddenly lose subsidies: Do they cave and set up their own health insurance marketplaces, after all?

When most Republican-led states rejected the chance to set up their own marketplaces, or exchanges, two years ago, many offered a few similar reasons: They didn’t want to do anything that can be viewed as helping to implement the Affordable Care Act, it would be too expensive to run and they didn’t see any difference between state and federal control. That last factor suddenly changes if the Supreme Court rules against subsidies in federal-run exchanges.

The latest Obamacare case accepted by the Supreme Court on Friday revolves around whether the Congress intended for residents to receive financial assistance to purchase health coverage in states that didn’t set up their own insurance marketplaces, or exchanges. Subsidies in state-run exchanges aren’t at stake in the case, King. v. Burwell.

The House Ethics Committee for the first time Monday released details about its probe of Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., with the focus on whether he improperly received free rent for a South Side office over decades in violation of state and federal laws and House rules and standards of conduct.

The bipartisan ethics panel also announced Monday it will continue its investigation of Rush, disclosing reports from the Office of Congressional Ethics concluding there was “substantial reason” to believe the free rent amounted to impermissable in-kind contributions, gifts or special favors.

The OCE asserts Rush got a free rent worth $365,040 over 20 years, based on records kept by Draper & Kramer, the real estate management firm employed by the landlord, Lake Meadows Associates.

There are a fair amount of articles giving opinions on what the Republican Congress should do. But, in Illinois, we have an interesting situation that the US should pay close attention to. The state elected a Republican governor that lead with fiscal issues first. He won every county in the state, save one. The one he lost has been solo Democratic ruled for 50 years.

On the flip side, Democrats in both of Illinois legislatures have a super majority. They can override any veto. That means the Governor and the legislatures will have to negotiate-or just have a stalemate and with the fiscal problems that the state has, stalemate isn’t helping the math.

Illinois has massive fiscal problems, and so does the city of Chicago. 70 years of one party rule in the city have turned its books into a bunch of red ink. It’s so bad here, Muni bond guru Bill Gurtin said there are only two muni bonds his firm would never touch-Puerto Rico and Illinois.

People might find it convenient if Mundelein legalizes beer or wine sales at gas stations, but Police Chief Eric Guenther opposes the proposal.

During a 40-minute discussion Monday night at village hall, Guenther voiced concern about potential sales to minors, saying violations certainly would occur if gas stations are allowed to stock alcohol.

Gas-station clerks are too distracted by the action at the pumps to ensure customers are 21 or older, Guenther said.

A majority of Illinois voters backed a proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot to raise taxes on millionaires but don’t look for the wealthy to be pinching their pennies any time soon.

In order for such a tax to become law, the Illinois Constitution would have to be changed. And that can’t happen for at least two more years.

Last Tuesday, about 64 percent of voters backed House Speaker Michael Madigan’s nonbinding “millionaire tax” proposal, which would tack a 3 percent income tax surcharge on taxpayers who make more than $1 million.

With the election over, it’s time we turn to finding fresh solutions to the massive pension and other debt problems we face in Illinois. That’s what North Riverside officials have been trying to do with their firefighter pension fund, and it’s a battle for all to watch.

Chicago faces a pension crisis. Communities all over the state face similar problems, particularly with police and fire pension funds. And Illinois, of course, is the state with the worst pension debt in the nation. That makes it even richer that the state is preparing to withhold sales tax revenues from communities that haven’t made their required pension payments. Illinois, of course, has skipped its own pension payments multiple times in the past.

Nonetheless, the state will begin garnishing sales tax revenue from North Riverside in 2016 if it doesn’t catch up on pension debt. The state can withhold all of that revenue in 2018, says Burt Odelson, North Riverside’s attorney. “When that happens,” he said, “North Riverside will no longer be able to pay their bills.”

A new poll shows Illinoisans remain overwhelmingly opposed to an extension to the temporary increase in the state income tax.

The temporary increase is set to end on Dec. 31, leaving state lawmakers with decisions to make as they prepare to gather for their fall session. Will they extend the tax in some form? Will they replace the revenue with some other tax or fee? Or will they make difficult cuts to state services?

The poll conducted by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University shows that a solid majority of Illinois voters (56.1 percent) oppose or strongly extending the income tax rate of 5 percent.