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A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

nytimes.com

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Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#101

Post by mhneu »

rayiner wrote: post #99
mhneu wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

No, that's not right. Less skilled employees often get paid peanuts, and so it's hard for govt to retain people. Title 5 (GS) employees have gotten squeezed over past 15 years, so much so that agencies have tried to push people up the pay scale. But that is at best an incomplete solution; it distorts the GS levels and it cannot completely compensate for low pay.

If you said that there are problems with federal recruitment, retention, and removal of poor employees, that would be a largely true statement. But a large number of fed employees are underpaid.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#102

Post by randyrand »

bannedaccount wrote: post #93
nodesocket wrote: post #72

It'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.

private sector is not paid from public tax dollars.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#103

Post by cc439 »

ams6110 wrote: post #65
jinfiesto wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why this is so heavily down-voted. Pensions are surely a problem, but they are clearly a drop in the bucket compared to the revenue that states miss out on when they let corporations pit them against each other in race to the bottom behavior.

A state that lets a potentially large employer go elsewhere also misses out on the revenue. So there's no reason not to compete for them, since most states will get income tax revenue from the employees if nothing else, along with general economic benefits of lower unemployment.

That and practically every economist agrees that taxes on businesses are pointless. Tax the people working for said business and then you won't have the cost of taxation merely passed on to the consumer. You'd also likely be able to pass par higher tax rates on the highest levels of executives that way.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#104

Post by [deleted] »

cma wrote: post #81
mythrwy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 million people. How many working people with enough income to pay tax? Half? Less? So maybe ~13K per tax paying person in outstanding pension obligations alone? That is a big deal.

> So maybe ~13K per tax paying person in outstanding pension obligations alone? Then that would be an obligation of about $300 per tax paying worker per year over their working lifetime. The average yearly salary in Oregon is $50,000. The article makes it out through anecdote that this is why they didn't have gas to send trucks out for a road repair. In the last 20 years Oregon has had near 1% per year population gro…

[deleted]

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#105

Post by kartan »

dasil003 wrote: post #4

Without 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.

> Without actually showing some statistics on the pension payments and how the overall budget breaks down, I can't help but feel manipulated.

The article links the lack of public services to high pensions. It´s painted as if there were no other options but to cut on pensions.

"In the meantime, mounting pension costs mean that a generation of schoolchildren is growing up in the area with no theater program, no orchestra, no wood shop and minimal sports, chorus and art."

Because pensions are the only reason. Maybe increased inequality, the lack of taxing of the top 1%, money wasted on lobbying, are also causes. But we are not offered any data.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#106

Post by colemannugent »

bannedaccount wrote: post #93
nodesocket wrote: post #72

It'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.

>If the government just capped their incomes at 100K a month we could pay off all national debt in months.

The government would be quickly replaced with one who would undo this change. Nobody would support it. This is so ridiculous I think you're trolling.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#107

Post by mhneu »

ekianjo wrote: post #60
blitmap wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolutely true. I have several members of my family who work in the gov, and I have witnessed years of inadequate inflation raises - nothing else. The "trade" was a nicer retirement and better health benefits.

> "nicer" That does not even start to describe it fairly. "Extremely sweet" would be more accurate since civil servants and the like get to retire with almost their best pay ever, while the rest of us get something averaged over dozens of years. > and I have witnessed years of inadequate inflation raises So you think the private sector gets "adequate" inflation raises? Not everyone works in tech.

civil servants and the like get to retire with almost their best pay ever

That system changed in 1984. Now the FERS annuity is (for most people) about half of their highest pay. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Employees_Retirement_S...

(It's still a decent deal, but it's not a defined benefit plan based on your highest pay)

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#108

Post by bannedaccount »

randyrand wrote: post #102
bannedaccount wrote: post #93

Earlier 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.

private sector is not paid from public tax dollars.

Actually you are 100% wrong, Defense is funded with taxpayer dollars. The internet was invented and maintained with taxpayer dollars, the whole private sector is feeding off free goods created by the government. Why shouldn't the government negotiate? That only seems fair.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#109

Post by DoreenMichele »

Re the ongoing debate here about government pay (and whether it's high or low):

I'm not super familiar with city and state government jobs, but I do know something about military and federal compensation. They frequently pay less in salary, but have better benefits. This makes it an apples to oranges comparison when trying to talk about what they pay in comparison to non government jobs.

I was a military wife for a lot of years and I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to convey this. At one time, my army spouse was nominally making about half the income of someone else close to me, but take home pay for my spouse and this other person was nearly identical and I never spent a dime on doctor's visits or prescription medication. The primary difference in our quality of life was that my husband's income supported a family of four and this other individual was single and childless at the time.

So it gets really confusing because sometimes the take home pay for government jobs is less, but the total compensation package can be better. This means that two people arguing about it can both be right and unable to see the other point of view.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#110

Post by rayiner »

mhneu wrote: post #101
rayiner wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

No, that's not right. Less skilled employees often get paid peanuts, and so it's hard for govt to retain people. Title 5 (GS) employees have gotten squeezed over past 15 years, so much so that agencies have tried to push people up the pay scale. But that is at best an incomplete solution; it distorts the GS levels and it cannot completely compensate for low pay. If you said that there are problems with federal recrui…

Besides the fact that the CBO disagrees. Take an entry level job requiring a bachelors degree. That’ll be GS5 or 7. That’s $35-43k in Atlanta (a city right at the median cost of living index). That’s also right around the average starting salary for all majors (41,000). https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-10-05/hiring-start...
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