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I can remember when publ;ic eector were treated like servants compared to private sector. But I do npot agree that all of them are makig out like an dits. As far as being fire that depedns on the state itselfas to right to weork which is vter based. In Texas the law requires public sector job to be based on priavte sector jobs. One area that has increased is police here but that is because of deamnd and the licensing etc now required. Strill I do not begudge them good pay ;earlier retiremnt because of the nature of the job.Who wants a bunch of over 55 year old police out there. Your sister sound slike a federal employeee;but it doesn't look at good for them goig forward really.
The problem with municipality’s budgets is one that will grow considerably in the next decade due to pension obligations for workers due to retire.
Many municipalities have agreed to lavish pensions and benefits based on over optimistic portfolio projections for their retirement funds.
The shortfalls are going to be huge, and in many cases, the taxpayers are going to be on the hook for the difference.
Politicians are in a position of either facing the wrath of voters if they try to raise taxes, or filing bankruptcy and reneging on their obligations to retired workers.
Very ugly situation.
That's not the situation in Harrisburg, their leaders decided to go into hock for a boondoggle of a project. Another reason municipalities will face hardship moving forward is because states facing constraints of their own will cut back on funding.
MrRatiional"In lieu of the higher wages their qualifications could have gotten them in private sector jobs"
LOL! Baloney, we'll never know, for gov pensions were so LAVISH (and job cuts until 2009 in gov't did NOT exist), voluntary attrition was next to squat. It was not due to loyalty, it was due to the fact private sector would not hire most of them.
What yo0u are looking at is the end game of moving our manufacturing base to china with it gone we done have the tax base that came with it. The federal government is borrowing 45% of the money it spends. Now if it looked like things were going to improve any time soon that wouldn't so bad, but... Housing is expected to be in a major slump for the next decade at least. This means no home equity loans to pump the economy up with.
If you want a bailout then look to the minimum wage. We can get a lot more taxes if we up them minimum wage to $30hr. Bailout main street. Print a bunch of money and give it to everyone.
Raising the minimum wage to $10 hr would be an improvement. The "Job Creators" would fight in the streets to prevent even that. Well maybe hire some thugs to fight in the streets
No, they were lavish. Many of them are getting 80% of their pay at the time they retired, they paid absolutely nothing toward their pensions, and they get free health care, meaning the city pays their monthly/annual premiums, and often there are other perks that people aren't aware of (like free round-trip tickets and hotel rooms annually to some union convention or some other professional career convention).
Quote:
Originally Posted by newenglandgirl
You can say that again. It's a divided retirement world: the fortunate with pensions and the less fortunate without. The fortunate would say they planned things that way. The others would just say they worked their butts off all their lives with what they could do well, and they just missed the gravy boat.
My sister retired with 80% pay and full health insurance for her and her husband. Not a college grad, she somehow got into civil service and could not get laid off due to incompetence. Her superiors tried to get rid of her for not doing her job, but she was protected and went on taking those two-hour lunch breaks....she was also in like flint with the city insiders. In the meantime the city she worked in has been falling apart and went into receivership...which tried to weed out the "fat" but couldn't touch people like her. This is not to say that all those receiving pensions do not deserve them, it's just an example of where the system fails.
Here we go again with the "lavish" anecdotes. Sure, these lavish situations get our attention and they are irritating as hell, not to mention unfair to the general taxpayer. But I'll counter with my own anecdote, but it is a much larger and hence more meaningful one. The second largest public pension system in the United States is the one for California teachers. By law, all California public school teachers from Kindergarten through junior college are covered under this system; their actual employers (the individual school districts) have no choice of opting out, nor does an individual teacher. I want to discuss two examples of provisions that are often thrown up (and correctly so, when they apply) as being lavish but which give a distorted view of the typical public employee pension.
1. Employees not contributing to their own pensions All California teachers have 8% of their salary deducted right from day one of their employment which is credited to the retirement system, and the employers (school districts) are required to match it. It is somewhat analogous to the Social Security tax for non-public sector workers except that the rate is slightly higher. The result is that the California system comes close to a "pay as you go" situation and the taxpayers don't get stuck down the road as things get out of hand financially. My own personal opinion is that all employees everywhere who receive pensions should be contributing to them.
2. Retirees getting medical benefits The California teachers' retirement system doesn't pay any health insurance or medical benefits. Individual school districts are allowed to pay these, but most do not. This is huge because the costs of medical care have been going up much faster than inflation, so this is an open-ended commitment which just grows and grows, as opposed to a defined benefit formula by which the exact cost of providing the pension is known in advance subject to actuarial application of longevity data.
When everybody piles on with stories about how unsustainable and lavish public pensions are, it results in a skewed view of the over-all situation, even if every individual story is true as presented.
I'm not gonna argue specific percentages with you but that was the deal.
In lieu of the higher wages their qualifications could have gotten them in private sector jobs
the deal with government employment was stability and good pensions.
That adjustments may be needed now and for all sorts of reasons are a different set of discussion
(with varying degrees of merit in the different instances)...
but don't try to muddy the water about what the deal was to begin with.
this is true for some people
there are some smart people that with in govt jobs because they like the security of it
there are also tons of idiots who are making double or triple what they would make in the private sector who cant get fired
Raising the minimum wage to $10 hr would be an improvement. The "Job Creators" would fight in the streets to prevent even that. Well maybe hire some thugs to fight in the streets
You are correct I think. Do you think anyone will do anything about the train wreck that is coming our way until it happens? Or will someone make a stand and get changes made now when the cost is lower?
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Counter anecdote
