Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the most part, government work does not pay poorly.[1] For example federal employees without advanced degrees earn a lot more in government than in the private sector: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... [1] I’m willing to entertain the idea our economic system as a whole undercompensates secretaries and overcompensates executives. That’s a different issue.
Mentioning federal employees in a discussion of state/local employees is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Please provide sources to counter the assertion that state/local employees often get large pensions in lieu of salary.
A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
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Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#92Without actually showing some statistics on the pension payments and how the overall budget breaks down, I can't help but feel manipulated. Yes it's easy to paint an ugly picture of the privileged outliers, but I suspect the correlation between school and infrastructure cuts and money going straight into rich pensioners pockets is not quite as cut and dried as NYT would have us believe.
The numbers I found: Oregon population: 4,000,000 Pension deficit 2017: $25,000,000,000 Per-capita share: $6,250 Assuming a large portion of the pensions will get spent on goods, services, and donations in state, it doesn't seem like a huge disaster, depending on how it grows.
A dollar can only change hands so many times before it's worthless unless it's going towards actual value-adding goods/services. Considering how deprived the general population is for funds to spend on value-added goods, I don't think taking $6,250 from every person in the state just to support a tiny, tiny fraction of the population is doing much good.
That and a large portion of pensioners flee to states without an income tax or at least states with a better climate and lower cost of living. The statistics of state employees leaving my home state for such states alone are shocking.
Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#93It's seems like there should be a cap on state pensions of $20,000 a month. $20k a month should be plenty to support a family even in ridiculous California and New York.
I think a cap on private sector workers income would save more money, there are many more of them and many of them have unimportant jobs. If the government just capped their incomes at 100K a month we could pay off all national debt in months.
Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#94It's seems like there should be a cap on state pensions of $20,000 a month. $20k a month should be plenty to support a family even in ridiculous California and New York.
I think a cap on private sector workers income would save more money, there are many more of them and many of them have unimportant jobs. If the government just capped their incomes at 100K a month we could pay off all national debt in months.
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Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#95My mom is a PERS retiree. Not one of the rich ones, though she did retire at the perfect moment and she has a livable retirement income. One thing a lot of people (who do not work in gov't) don't recall is that while the economy was roaring back then, Oregonians working for the gov't went for years without so much as a cost of living adjustment. Some of the perks they got from PERS were in lieu of getting a raise. So…
For the most part, government work does not pay poorly.[1] For example federal employees without advanced degrees earn a lot more in government than in the private sector: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... [1] I’m willing to entertain the idea our economic system as a whole undercompensates secretaries and overcompensates executives. That’s a different issue.
False. Government employees are paid poorly. (edit: and that's bad for the country: govt does a lot of important things - FDA, science support, health stuff - and good people are essential.)
First, any senior skilled tech employee takes a big pay cut to work in government. Programmers, doctors, scientists, engineers.
Second, the bulk of the federal workforce has been squeezed down on pay over the past 15 years. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/01/05/...
federal unions and their Democratic supporters point to data released by the Federal Salary Council. In 2016, the council, using Labor Department surveys, determined that federal employees are paid 34 percent less on average than private-sector counterparts — a finding in line with previous annual reports.
Note that Republicans argue with the above quote, of course -- we know that Republicans argue in bad faith (aka they lie) on any issue relating to their main goal - tax cuts for the rich. See (amongst many stories)
http://theweek.com/articles/766632/liar-paul-ryan
Paul Ryan cruised to national prominence on the realization that there was no longer any immediate penalty for a Republican lying constantly, about everything. (Donald Trump would later take advantage of this fact.)
Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the most part, government work does not pay poorly.[1] For example federal employees without advanced degrees earn a lot more in government than in the private sector: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... [1] I’m willing to entertain the idea our economic system as a whole undercompensates secretaries and overcompensates executives. That’s a different issue.
Mentioning federal employees in a discussion of state/local employees is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Please provide sources to counter the assertion that state/local employees often get large pensions in lieu of salary.
Here are the top government earners in SF county:
https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2017/san-francisc...
I don't immediately see examples of 'pensions in lieu of salary', but those are some pretty substantial total packages, with benefits alone reaching ~$60k+/yr for many public officials.
Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Borrowing from the future is not a good strategy.
Much of western civilization is built on borrowing from the future. Actually I believe that the words “credit”,”mortgage”, “financing”, and actually “borrowing” are all synonyms for “borrowing from the future.”
Money too!
Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s impossible to reform pensions without reducing government union power in states like California and Illinois.
It's impossible to reform pensions without paying private-sector market rate to state and local employees. "Unsustainable" pensions are a politician's way of punting the issue -- rather than hit the budget today by paying market rate, they promise far above market rate later on when some other sucker is in office. And everybody -- including the people whose taxes will end up paying for it -- falls for this over and o…
Compensation is a vector. Government employees are much more difficult to terminate than their counterparts in the private sector. That is, government employees are compensated in part in strong job security.
Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the most part, government work does not pay poorly.[1] For example federal employees without advanced degrees earn a lot more in government than in the private sector: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/... [1] I’m willing to entertain the idea our economic system as a whole undercompensates secretaries and overcompensates executives. That’s a different issue.
False. Government employees are paid poorly. (edit: and that's bad for the country: govt does a lot of important things - FDA, science support, health stuff - and good people are essential.) First, any senior skilled tech employee takes a big pay cut to work in government. Programmers, doctors, scientists, engineers. Second, the bulk of the federal workforce has been squeezed down on pay over the past 15 years. https…
Yes, professionals take big pay cuts to work for the federal government. The exact opposite is true for less skilled employees (the ones most likely to be lifers who draw a pension).
Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a cap on private sector workers income would save more money, there are many more of them and many of them have unimportant jobs. If the government just capped their incomes at 100K a month we could pay off all national debt in months.
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Provide an argument about why government workers are worth less then private workers? Defense is taxpayer funded should we cap pensions at Boeing? They make much more then government workers too, why aren't you suggesting that? I think it's just simple realism, not ideologically driven.