Yglesias writes:
The new unemployment report highlights the fact that the economy remains lousy and John Boehner is going to be the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. Ironically, it also demonstrates the bankruptcy of Boehner’s way of thinking. The new conservative orthodoxy has been that somehow teachers, police officers, guys who repair street signs, bus drivers, librarians, etc. don’t have “real jobs” and that police departments, roads, trains, buses, libraries, etc. don’t contribute to economic growth. In those terms, the unemployment report was actually fine—the private sector added 71,000 jobs, which isn’t the greatest number in human history but it’s okay.
[…]Conservatives won’t admit it today, but what we’re looking at is a major breakdown of the logic of the American political system.
While it’s obviously just plain wrong to say that public sector jobs aren’t ‘real jobs’ there is another factor here which is equally important. Namely, a lot of the problems confronting public sector employment are due to impossible pension and benefits promises made in more optimistic times that nonetheless need to be fulfilled. As John noted earlier, you can’t just walk back on these contracts – but we do need to rethink the ones we’re making now.
In California, cops can retire at age 50 with 90% pay and full benefits. Prison guards often make six figures. That costs California taxpayers a lot of money, and puts a great deal of strain on public coffers. This obviously makes it harder to hire new policemen. Similar problems exist around the country with prison guards, teachers, and other public employees. Public sector employees in many states enjoy long and generous retirements, and more and more it becomes obvious that this is at the expense of potential new hires.
The big automakers made similarly impossible promises during the boom years. At some point this is going to lead to serious backlash and quite likely will result in the sort of harmful, draconian promise-breaking John describes. At that point nobody wins.
On a related note, I still think the best way (though certainly not the only way) to alleviate the short and long-term budget woes of the states is not more bailout money but a direct transfer of the administration of Medicaid from the states to the federal government. This would immediately free up state funds for other programs like education and other public services, while putting Medicaid on a much more even footing going forward.
Stefan
On a related note, I still think the best way (though certainly not the only way) to alleviate the short and long-term budget woes of the states is not more bailout money but a direct transfer of the administration of Medicaid from the states to the federal government.
Why not just ship us all to the gulag while you’re at it…comrade?
gene108
People pay into pensions. They are funded by workers earnings.
My issue with cutting pensions is people deferred their income until later. The problems with the stock market and other places, where states (and corporations) invested money and expected higher rates of returns on capital – thus underfunding the capital – is being taken out on the people, who paid into the system.
A lot of the assault comes from right-wing nuts, like Gov. Christie in NJ, who want to bust unions and turn the average working stiff state employee into the average working stiff private sector employee, who is constantly worried about the next lay off or having his job shipped overseas.
If they wanted to actually manage finances, I’d have a different opinion about pension cuts, but there are plenty of people who want to cut pensions so they can pass the “savings” to the wealthy and politically connected.
On your Medicaid suggestion, how would it be paid for? The funding is done mostly through taxes the state collects. Would states pay this to the federal government or would the feds have to off-set the extra cost of Medicaid by cutting in other areas or just keep adding to the deficit?
All in all federal control of Medicaid would even things out, but I see the same issues with federal control over state laws that came up in the HCR debate that led to state exchanges, opt out provisions for the public option, etc.
kindness
Am I alone in thinking that while Republicans will pick up some seats they won’t take the House or the Senate?
I don’t get some of the bloggers of record out there today. They seem to believe polls. I don’t trust a poll till the day before the election.
JGabriel
E.D. Kain:
Bull-fucking-shit.
As I said in response to John’s post below, these problems are due to the wealthiest of our citizens refusing to pony up their fair share, instead demanding ever lower taxes, even while our troops are engaged on two fronts, while the country has been hit with the worst recession since the GOP crashed the economy circa 1929-1932, and after an ongoing 30 year program, starting with Reagan, of transferring wealth from the poor and middle-classes to the already richest and most well-connected of citizens.
There is nothing wrong with our pension and benefits programs. What’s wrong is the system that rewards those who steal from those programs, those who refuse to fund them, and those who refuse to pay their fair share to maintain them.
Jesus Christ, it infuriates and enrages me to no end when the press blames people who have worked hard all their lives for their poverty and/or endangered pensions, instead of the politicians who gave out tax cuts rather than fund the government’s obligations, and the rich assholes who demanded the tax cuts and paid the campaign donation bribes to get them.
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wengler
It’s pretty funny that the logic on public vs. private jobs has been flipped on its head. It used to be that the public sector employees were looked down upon and mocked because any of them could be making twice as much for a private company. Now with 401ks imploding and the private sector containing the menial wage slave “service” jobs to cater to the managerial classes, they look on public sector employees as some sort of parasitical leech. Guaranteed pension benefits! Job security and union protection! Only CEOs deserve such things!
You know many if not most jobs funded by the taxpayers fall into the soul-crushing but necessary for a functional society. The fact that these people held onto their benefits while private sector employees bargained them away to gamble on the stock market should not be held against public-sector employees.
Incertus (Brian)
Kindness,
You’re not alone. Reduced margins, yes. Loss of control, no. Unless things continue to get worse, that is, and even then, the Senate is safe. No way the Republicans net nine or ten seats this cycle.
James Gary
I think I speak for many liberals when I say that reducing pension benefits for public employees might be an option I’d consider if Republicans are willing to raise taxes on rich people.
However, since Republicans have demonstrated time and again that they are not willing to raise taxes on rich people, I advise public employees to dig in and not give one fucking inch.
farmette
windshouter
While it is certainly true that the pension mess is soon to be a smoking hole in the ground, the recession is primarily responsible for the state budget mess and if the federal government did step in, the dollars we are talking about would only partially mitigate the effects of the recession and not make a dent in the pension issue. While it is annoying that prison guards in CA make 6 figures in retirement, I don’t think there are enough of them to account for anything other than rounding error in CA budget problems.
wengler
@kindness
You’re not alone. This dysfunctional economy is the result of the two institutional political parties in the US implementing a radical rightwing economic program in the last 30 years.
As far as I can tell, the Republicans can’t even figure out who is in control of their party and what platform to run on/run against. The Republicans are going to gain, but it will be much more because this is going to be an extremely low turnout election. People just don’t have faith in any of these people to do the things to turn around the economy.
Montysano
@gene108:
Yes, they did. But E.D.’s point is well taken: even in the most optimistic of scenarios, the promises that were made were unrealistic. It’s one thing to fund a 10-15 year retirement; it’s another thing entirely to fund a 20-30 year retirement. Take a trip to an online compound interest calculator and crunch some numbers. You might make it work out at 15% interest, but at 5% or less, the math just doesn’t work. The harsh truth is that we can’t afford for people with pensions to retire at 50 years old.
JGabriel
E.D. Kain @ Top:
Hmm. I think more stimulus money is still needed, but agree that greater federalization of Medicaid is a good idea.
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Ash Can
These are the hard questions way too few people want to confront these days. Either taxes have to go up or benefits have to be reduced, or both. And not nearly enough people, in government or in the electorate, want to address that. “Denial” is going to be this nation’s epitaph.
gene108
@wengler: I work in the private sector and I never bargained nothing away. I wasn’t given a choice. They said, ,”here’s your 401(k), have a nice day”, which I count my self as lucky to have because there are plenty of businesses, especially small businesses, which don’t even offer 401(k)’s.
Chuck Butcher
So, we’re supposed to kiss you and make nice while you propagate bullshit? There are a whole lot of reasons the auto industry crashed that your ilk love to ignore. You’ll just look right on past the state government subsidies of foreign manufacturers, their government’s subsidies of their “offshore” (US based) companies, the US “free market” approach to things that anything but that. What the fuck is it you think? You’re playing to your GOP stupid audience here?
dday
The prison guards union sucks in California. But make no mistake – they make six figures because the prisons are at 150% capacity, and they need more guards to work overtime to handle it because otherwise there would be non-stop daily riots. Lots of beds are in open areas, gyms, cafeterias. Somebody has to monitor that.
Stop locking up people for nonviolent offenses and suddenly the prison guards won’t make six figures anymore.
Amanda in the South Bay
I guess this is one of the few areas I see (somewhat) eye to eye with cons and libertards.
A couple of weeks ago the Mercury News had a front page story about the city of San Jose laying off workers. Granted, it sucks for them and shows just how far in the shitter the economy is, but seriously, after a couple years of a recession, the city of San Jose is just now getting around to laying workers off? I’m sure many in the private sector would love to have that kind of job security.
I guess it makes me frustrated, making my way in a shitty job in the private sector, always worried about how the economy will impact my job, and (for the most part) its something public employees don’t have to worry about, at least not nearly to the degree we peons who get pissed on everyday do.
Drive By Wisdom
When we told you what unions would do to this country, you did not listen.
When we told you that someone would have to pay for all your welfare programs, it did not interrupt your feeding at the trough.
When we told you the culture was changing for the worse, you laughed and thought letting more perversion become the norm would solve the problem.
You shall reap what you sow.
Stefan
In California, cops can retire at age 50 with 90% pay and full benefits.
What happens if the cop doesn’t retire? Then he stays on the job at full pay with benefits until 67 or so, which means (a) the job doesn’t open up for a younger man, and (b) you’ve got a 66 year old cop running around doing a job that’s far too physically and mentally taxing for him.
farmette
I’m not sure what happened to the rest of my post above.
Anyway, bad idea to let the states keep the funds allocated for Medicaid services and spend it at their discretion. Lot’s of state jobs tied to these programs as well as recipients. Also, where would the Feds get the money and who would manage it. And do you really think that a federally run Medicaid Services program would remain funded for long? The republicans would shut it down in a heartbeat and probably develop a poor peoples voucher program linked to community churches. Bad idea.
Stefan
While it is annoying that prison guards in CA make 6 figures in retirement,
Why “annoying”? Are you similarly annoyed when people in other jobs are able to have a comfortable and well-funded retirement?
Christ, you couldn’t pay me enough to be a prison guard.
Kiril
The automakers did not make their pension fund contributions when they were supposed to and assumed an endlessly growing market would enable them to wing it. The contributions they were supposed to make were refunded to shareholders as profits. The problem, such as it is, is due to malfeasance, not the size of the pensions.
Of course, the real budget buster is not pensions, but health care. Again, think of the money they would have saved by supporting the Clinton health care plan…
Many conservatives would have it that the main problem with corporations is that they are just too damn generous. And yet, despite all this profligate generosity, median incomes have stagnated for 40 years, and the people in control suck up every increase in GNP. To believe the world should be any different makes you a hippie communist.
silentbeep
As an aside, Yglesias is actually in favor of pension reform. He has written before in the past as something that needs reform, because pensions are unsustainable in many places.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/01/the-looming-public-pension-disaster/
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/01/the-other-public-sector-pension-problem/
As much as he is supportive of reform (as am I) It’s offensive when many conservatives come across as being very anti-public employees. Ygleasis has said:
“Conservatives have largely convinced themselves that public servants are such vile and overpaid monsters that anything that forces layoffs is a good thing and the moderates in Congress seem scared of their own shadows so nothing will be done.”
At the very least, some conservatives should stop demonizing teachers, librarians, firefighters, police officers, etc. ’cause it’s insensitive at best, and plain dumb at worse. These people do a public service that we all need and these public employees should be well compensated for it. However, you can be for pension reform (like Yglesias) and see the value of some government positions.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Stefan:
Would even moderate cuts that could save up across the board-say, reducing prison guard pensions to lets say 75K instead of 100K-be something you are against?
Again, as a lowly private sector peon, you would have to be batshit crazy to think that’s a bad deal.
Besides, if everyone here thinks its the birthright of cops, firefighters, etc to bring home 6 figure salaries, how about we do the same for the military, esp the enlisted ranks?
JGabriel
gene108:
Of course you did. You just fail to understand the modern process of bargaining and negotiation in America:
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Incertus (Brian)
@Montysano:
And I don’t know if this is true in this specific case, but in Florida, for example, there are all sorts of stories about people in public jobs “retiring” and getting their pensions, and then being rehired for the same job at the pay rate they “retired” at, effectively doubling the amount a municipality or the state has to pay for the same person to do one job.
Stefan
In California, cops can retire at age 50 with 90% pay and full benefits. Prison guards often make six figures. That costs California taxpayers a lot of money, and puts a great deal of strain on public coffers.
Most of these pension and benefit promises are deferred compensation — that is, the state told the union that it wouldn’t pay them much money upfront, but it would make it up to them on the back-end. This should have been a good deal for the state, if they hadn’t then taken those up-front savings and blown it at the track. Without that promise of pensions, however, the union members would have demanded a higher upfront salary, which would have cost California taxpayer even more money.
That costs California taxpayers a lot of money, and puts a great deal of strain on public coffers.
Yes, paying people the agreed-upon wage for the work you asked them to do for you does tend to cost money, doesn’t it?
patroclus
I don’t understand the first sentence. Why does the overall unemployment number (9.5%) mean that John Boehner is going to be Speaker? Doesn’t unemployment vary by state and region? Don’t voters base their decisions across a whole range of issues? Wasn’t the financial crisis started because of Republican policies? Don’t actual suggested policy solutions have a potential impact upon voters? Aren’t congressional districts gerrymanded? Doesn’t the amount of money available to the campaigns have an influence? Doesn’t actual turnout in individual Districts matter? Are all Republicans the same? Do voters view all Republicans as the same? Won’t unemployment figures be released again and again and again before the midterms?
The premise of the first sentence seems simplistically ludicrous. Is Mr. Yglesias really offering it as a serious analytical representation of reality? After reading that, why should we take anything else he says seriously?
Josh James
I find your premise to be a tad ridiculous, to be honest, that pension plans cost us public sector jobs … and let’s also state up front that we have two wars going on that are not paid for, not only were they not paid for, but the wealthiest members of this society were given a huge tax cut and our nation’s income cut as a result.
We have to pay for the war, and that means paying taxes, even raising taxes … that’s what happened in other wars, why not these two, if they both be worthy?
the wars crippled the economy.
If the people think their taxes shouldn’t be raised for war, then then perhaps we wouldn’t leap into combat so readily.
I have to be frank, I think it’s kinda low to be blaming our economical problems and public jobs loss on pension plans that people paid into for with their own money, and crying into milk because a police officer can retire at 50 … I really do. There are many, many factors, but the largest is a huge tax cut, and the fact that even though our taxes are lower now than they have been in fifty some years, conservatives scream like stuck pigs whenever the idea of a tax raise comes up. Our taxes are low, so the income of the state / nation is low, right?
Here’s how I’ve been thinking of it, correct me if I’m wrong.
States / nations need things.
Taxes buy things. Things cost money. Sometimes the cost of those things goes up (like, for example, gasoline) and you need more income to pay for it than years previous.
but if your income doesn’t go up to match the cost of things you need, you have a problem. So you cut out things you need … but there’s a limit to what you can cut before anarchy reigns.
In California, they keep demanding services necessary to run the state but won’t raise taxes to pay for them, so they have to shut off lights here and there, in the shape of public jobs loss, etc.
Eventually, unless you at some point raise the income of the state / nation so you can pay for things you need, all the lights will have to be turned off and it will all go dark.
I know some libertarians chortle at that, thinking that will somehow be cool, but the reality is roads won’t fix themselves, someone has to pay someone to do it, and to pay for it, you need income.
And as the cost of things (and pension plans are things you need to keep competent people doing valuable work you need) goes up, so must the income, right?
Or you have a problem.
So I don’t think it’s a pension plan problem, it’s a tax problem, in my opinion. People want to pay the same amount of taxes they did in the fifties while demanding 21st Century services, and the latter costs a lot more than the former can afford.
To me, that’s the problem. Am I wrong about that?
Montysano
@Stefan:
Agreed, but again: do the math. Will this cop make $80K in retirement? Let’s use that number. $80K x 30 years = $2.4M. How much did he pay in over his career? A small fraction of that, hoping that the Magic of the Market would do the rest. Well, it didn’t.
I’m a soshulist at heart. I think everyone should get 4 weeks paid vacation, their kids should go to college for free, and everyone should enjoy a reasonable retirement. To pay for this, we should tax accordingly. The Scandinavians do it; it works. We don’t, and so here we are….
ornery curmudgeon
Until a Conservative (any of you hypocrites, ANY of you) takes responsibility for their ‘serious, principled’ support of the policies which have destroyed the prosperity of our nation … I ain’t listening.
Liberal era = Boom Years
Conservative rule = Failure
Screw off E.D.
Chris
Don’t blame public pensions for the problems in California. Blame Prop 13.
Jay B.
@Drive By Wisdom:
Yes, after 30 years of conservative economics, safety net gutting, education defunding and union busting, it’s the liberals fault all along.
You can’t escape that logic.
jeff
E. K.–I am really enjoying your perspective, which I have long missed on the sites I tend to read (i.e., not conservative sites.) Almost nobody on the left wants to confront these problems, but they are real and they are hurting us all. (I’ve seen the use to which this issue has been made on the right, which is disgusting, but which doesn’t make the problem less real.)
JGabriel
E.D. Kain @ Top:
By the way, can we get a cite on this?
I’m pretty used to seeing conservatives and libertarians exaggerate, lie, or just be flat-out wrong when making factually verifiable statements like that. Where did you get this info?
I’m not saying you’re wrong; I’m just saying I don’t trust this statement without a link to verify it.
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Stefan
The harsh truth is that we can’t afford for people with pensions to retire at 50 years old.
OK, they don’t retire — but they won’t then magically disappear. So as I noted above, they’ll stay on the job until they’re old, tired and inefficient while getting 100% of pay and benefits and thus still costing the state money and also making that job unavailable for a younger worker. Now you have the younger worker who would have taken the job of the retiring cop or firefighter — what’s he going to do for work? The economy now has to produce a brand new job to support him.
Jay B.
@Amanda in the South Bay:
If you think prison guards get such a sweet deal, become one.
apocalipstick
My wife teaches in MO. She is beginning her 31st year. She could retire now. If so, she will:
*Have no health insurance. MO law will not allow teachers to be part of the program, and it is unclear if they have spousal benefits.
*No Social Security. When she began teaching, that was illegal. It was later amended to allow younger teachers to pay into SS if they wished, but they had to pay. This was not a granted benefit. Now the SS administration is saying that those teachers who paid into Social Security will have their benefit reduced because of their “lavish” pension.
*The state legislature continually tries to grab the teachers retirement fund. The MO teacher retirement plan (I don’t know about other states) is a private, self-funded entity. My wife has had 10% of her paycheck withheld since day 1. The legislature wants to grab that fund and fold it into gen rev to make the budget look better.
Municipal employees might be a different kettle of fish, but in Missouri teacher pensions are not part of the problem.
Corner Stone
@Kiril:
Feature…not bug.
Kiril
@Josh James:
“So I don’t think it’s a pension plan problem, it’s a tax problem, in my opinion. People want to pay the same amount of taxes they did in the fifties while demanding 21st Century services, and the latter costs a lot more than the former can afford.
To me, that’s the problem. Am I wrong about that?”
Actually, you are a little wrong. Income taxes are lower now than in the ’50s. If we paid the same taxes as then, the budget would be balanced.
geemoney
The pension thing is a symptom of poor management and misplaced priorities in other places. Prison guards getting six figure salaries? So what? From my perspective it begs the question of why we need so many prison guards. John beats this drum, but all the data suggest that counseling (Quel horreur! Soft libtards!) is cheaper and more effective than imprisonment, even if you keep our ridiculous drug laws.
We can’t pay for Medicaid (or most anything else) because we need to support our military expenditures. Remember when we felt we needed to invade Granada? That was sure a good investment.
There’s a mean streak in our priorities, and this is just part of it. There’s a large part of the population out there that will either cheer this on or just shrug their shoulders, and the money guys will win again.
Until we’re willing to Carter-up and pay for the sh!t we want, or go without, something has to give. The choices aren’t hard, they’re just distasteful and seemingly contrary to our natures.
wengler
@gene108
The generation before yours likely bargained guaranteed pensions away. And now you and I are going to have to fight the same fight that our grandparents and great-grandparents did because of myopic greed and stupidity.
401ks are not retirement plans. Guaranteed contribution plans never are unless you have a firm date in mind as to when you’d like to off yourself. When the money is gone, it’s gone, the baby boomers will thank their lucky stars they have Social Security.
Wannabe Speechwriter
@Drive By Wisdom:
This is what I will never understand about conservatives. One of the greatest victories of conservatism was the busting of unions. YOU DESTROYED THEM!!! Unions went from being 30% of the workforce to 7%. YOU WON!!! Yet we always hear about these big, bad unions that our destroying America. Talk about being sore winners.
This is you guys. We would love to raise taxes to pay for these services. It’s conservatives who won’t. Not even to pay for a war. In fact, you became only the second regime I know of in world history to cut taxes during wartime (the first was Czarist Russia at the start of World War I. Look at how that turned out). In the face of overwhelming debt, you’d rather the nation to default than for one billionaire to pay more in taxes.
Yep. The gays caused all of our problems. And rap music.
The last 30 years have been conservative dominance. Unions were busted, markets were deregulated, taxes were cut. All of the current economic problems are on you guys. Remember, the Reagan Revolution, The Gingrich Revolution (you guys have more revolutions than Mao and Che), the W. Administration? If you couldn’t get your shit together in 30 years, how can you be expected to get it together in another 2 or 4? God, when I hear a conservative act like the last couple of decades have been one giant left-wing dictatorship, I want to smash something!
EDIT-Looks like Jay B. beat me to the punch. I hope he wants to smash something as well!
georgia pig
That might be a way to get the wingers to support death panels. As John said, this government pension thing is the new hobbyhorse of the right, but it’s mostly about busting public employee unions. Your approach is classic, cite some anecdotal cases, lump shit together without thinking and default to the solution that fucks the little guy. For example, I doubt there are many teachers retiring at 50 with 90% pension and full benies. Cops get early retirement because, well, they tend to get shot at or otherwise end up physical or emotional wrecks. I’m sure being a prison guard is a real joy.
Maybe the problem isn’t the promises, but the corrupt management that turns these promises into clusterfucks. Corporations that were big on deferred benefit promises because the management knew they weren’t going to be around when the bill came due. The business interests in Congress that allowed corporations to have large unfunded pension liabilities and opened the door for corporate raiders to loot plans in leveraged buyouts and bankruptcy proceedings. Sure, maybe states and municipalities should rethink pension promises, but do you ever think first of taking something out of the ass of the guys who profited from the last 20 years of looting, instead of some cop or teacher who is just doing his or her relatively thankless job? Oh no, we can’t do that because they would go all Galt! How about a bailout for the pension funds, paid for by the investment bankers that fucked them up?
ksmiami
@Drive By Wisdom:
No – abandoning the employer-employee pacts that had been demanded by unions and incidentally built the middle class has been weakened by 30 years of railing against government, unions, overdone deregulation and a congress for sale. Not to mention a constant catering demand to lower the taxes on the wealthy that has driven up the incentive toward greed and malfeasance.
And even worse, our trade policies, our subsidization of globalization while not funding the infrastructure and training of our own people has made the average American completely unprepared for the reality of global competition. See Andy Grove’s article if you don’t believe me.
Finally, with the defunding and decline of public schools in exchange for more roads to the suburbs and a transfer of wealth from blue states to red, we have lost a lot of America’s class mobility. Most likely today, despite the Horatio Alger myths, if you are born poor, you will stay poor or at the lower edges of the middle class. Even worse, while CPI is at a manageable level, the privatization of everything has driven the costs of the important things like education and healthcare ever higher.
We are not on a sustainable course and now that the debt bubble has imploded, I foresee a lot of changes and it could go either way.
Jager
A friend of mine retired as a Battalion Chief of EMTs of a major metropolitan fire department. (at 54 after 30 years of service) At a golf tournament a couple of years ago he was getting a load of shit from “business types” about being retired “so young” he ‘splained it to them by asking them a few questions:
Do you have to report for work on a 48 on-48 off schedule?
Are you required, once you are in the office, to stay in the office at all times and eat and sleep there?
How many times have you just lifted a fork to your mouth to eat dinner and you were called back to work immediately, returning hours later to finish your meal?
Have you even go to bed at ten pm, had to get up at 11 and go back to work, hit the sack again at one, sleep for an hour and go back to work?
Have you ever had to take a competitive exam to get promoted, stay in shape just to keep your job or required to constantly upgrade your education and skills, on your own time, to keep your job?
Do you have to deal with tradgedy everytime you go to work, car accidents, dying children, gunshot victims, decomposed bodies, every nasty and evil thing that happens?
There was no response, my pal said, “I didn’t think so, so shut the fuck up”. Some guy, started to respond, my pal said to him, “one more thing, the first 20 years, I spent 16 Christmas Eves and days at work, how about you”?
The highest pay he acheived was 86k, he gets 65% as retirement pay.
agorabum
@Amanda in the South Bay: The problem is that the public sector still needs to do the same amount of work.
If a business has sales drop 50%, there is, acknowledging people involved in overhead, perhaps 40% less work to do. So the workforce needs to shrink by that much.
There are still the same number of children to teach and streets to police and sewage to process. The government still has a job to do. And it should be doing more of it, it’s called counter-cyclical investment.
But there are some serious flaws with some pension systems. There are employees retiring, getting 105% of their last salary (for the rest of their life), and then being hired by the same public agency as a private consultant. It too can be a waste of tax money. Disclaimer: everyone’s public employee system differs. But I’ll assume California’s is more screwy than most (where my example took place). And that person worked in an office; no crazy hours, nothing intrinsically or physically difficult in the job.
ksmiami
Oh and did I say that Conservative/Reichtard economics is built on fairy dust – unfortunately it’s infected our society and has been as dangerous as angel dust.
Sorry E.D – I hope your party rots in hell
les
@gene108:
Close. Generally, workers agree to a pension benefit, and agree to lower wages to get it. Then employers (public and private) turn around and, with the gleeful cooperation of FASB, the IRS and Dept. of Labor, agree that it’ll take a lot less than the workers gave up in wages, to secure the benefit they were promised. And they steal the difference for the top 1%, like 65% of all the other gains over the last couple of decades. And then weep crocodile tears when the bill comes due and it can’t be paid.
Greedy fucking conservative capitalist assholes.
PTirebiter
Of course, like the various govt. the promises, these weren’t impossible either, but they would have required responsible long term management. Instead, management opted for perverse incentives to boost short term profits and invested in voodoo. In the cities and states, Republicans traded tax cuts for offices and engaged in a 25 year long game of kick the can. This meme of about the impossible promises extorted by workers is insidious b.s.
JGabriel
@JGabriel:
Ah, here it is from The San Diego Union-Tribune, February 26, 2006:
So. The information is over 4 years old, and the income is coming from overtime. The prison guards aren’t getting six figure salaries; they’re getting hourly wages that push their income over 100k due to all the fucking overtime the state is demanding.
This is why I don’t trust info from conservatives or libertarians.
Thanks for confirming my opinion of right wing “fact” citations, Erik.
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kdaug
I’m begining to notice a pattern here – maybe it’s just me, so feel free to disagree. The steps are as follows:
1) EDK drops a little conserva-bomb
2) EDK runs away
I’m sure that I’m missing something… Like Cole says, EDK is a good guy, so he can back up his arguments.
Right?
Michael
Fuck you. Those were contracts for deferred compensation. I realize that the only people entitled to the material benefit of their bargains are the big money assholes that you fluff for, but sorry, these guys did real work – unlike the big money assholes you fluff for.
Bnut
So what if a cop retires at 50 with 90% salary? They haven’t earned it? Give me a list of jobs that are good enough to receive a high pension upon retirement then. I love this talk of ridiculous pensions and benefits. Police in this country are already terrible. Let’s make it even worse by reducing benefits….Oh wait, most cops vote Republican, so they shoot themselves in the foot (like 89 times, probably, they thought it was a wallet). And you think the bennies cops get are awesome? If it’s anything like the VA I would ask for a pass, no thanks. Endless bureaucracy, late payments and sniveling civilian employees hired by the lowest bidding contractor are the main things retirees get to play with. I’m only 27, but I can’t wait till I’m 70 so I too can enjoy getting turned over and run through by the happy GOP.
les
@Montysano:
I just don’t buy it. What was unrealistic, and continues to be so, is the collaboration of big business and bought government to allow employers to monstrously underfund pension funds, using grossly unrealistic assumptions and projections. Certainly not the assumptions made when negotiating payroll reductions to compensate for the “generous” pensions.
Cermet
@jeff: The problem is a war in iraq that wasted nearly a TRILLION dollars and thousands of amerikan lives and for what – a bunch of asswipe morons to coon like apes jumping up and down in some bad movie all acting tough. A tiny, tiny cost of a few pensions (where workers retire at 50 – police who get shot at and some lucky firefighters) does not make a logical argument. We have a half trilliuon dollar military thatr does jack-shit to protect us against a handfull of loosers that hid in caves. That is were all our money goes – until that waste is addressed, all the rest is really window dressing.
Texas Dem
A possible response would be: “Sucker! You didn’t actually believe all of those bullshit promises, did you?” I’d like to think that most decent people wouldn’t do that, but declining standards of living are not generally conducive to social tranquility. Demagogues will be able to use public employees as their scapegoats. And many voters, lacking the good health care benefits and pensions that most public employees enjoy, won’t lift a finger to stop them. As a matter of fact, they’ll probably enjoy watching the public employees suffer, because they’ve been suffering for a very long time. Welcome to twenty-first century America: in transition from first to third world country. Pleasant dreams.
Michael
@JGabriel:
And never forget – rich assholes get tax cuts and corporate officers get to raid corporate earnings immediately. They’re entitled to everything they want, right now. As for those poor proles with deferred earnings and who break their bodies down (without the possibility of recouping some stability), well, just too fucking bad about the deferred compensation of pensions. And too fucking bad about those crushed 401Ks as well.
The Koch brothers need to buy more bling for their mistresses and jets, so you proles are just going to have to suck it up.
ksmiami
@kdaug:
No – because being a conservative means you never have to take responsibility and if something went wrong in your policy, it is because you JUST WEREN’T CONSERVATIVE enough.
SATSQ.
birthmarker
My teacher pension take home is $1352 a month after I pay federal taxes of about $200 and $360 a month for family medical and dental insurance. This is after a full decades-long career.
I paid 5% of my gross salary into this pension fund throughout my career, in addition to paying my portion of social security. My pension is not
It was the offset for relatively low pay for a job that required a masters degree after so many years of employment. At my expense, of course.
I’m proud to have my degree and my pension. But a fortune it is not. Why quote the exception of a few municipalities in Cali and then extrapolate the data out to the rest of the country? Most pensioners are probably closer to me than to Cali.
This thinking is right up there with “GM Workers make $73 An Hour.” (Or whatever the number was..) If you didn’t get the debunking of that one, I will try to locate it for you. Just let me know. /snark
ksmiami
And yes, we need to stop being the world’s policeman. We do not have the money, nor the ability to be an empire. At least the Romans got free day spas and orgies.
Erik Vanderhoff
A further problem: Not all state and municipal employees pay in to Social Security; some pensions, as structured, replace Social Security. So, if you’ve spent your entire life paying your fair share into a pension plan that your employer agreed to and, as you’re about to retire, the employer decides to re-structure or welsh on the deal, you’re fucked. No Social Security for you, and too damn bad if your pension is now insufficient.
Michael
Of course, the executives got to take theirs as they went, as opposed to being expected to defer off until retirement. Will there be a concerted request for officers and shareholders to kick back a good chunk of money that they hoovered out of the company over the past 30 years?
Comrade Luke
Jesus christ, I feel like I’m 20min into class and someone new walked in, so now we have to start over again.
Causes of our problems:
1. Bush tax cuts
2. Endless wars
…
…
…
infinity. Everything else
Until 1&2 are fixed, STFU about everything else.
les
Well, at least we can be comforted in knowing we’ll soon see that companies are having troubles funding the tens of millions of dollars per year “deferred compensation” for the poor execs who couldn’t save enough from their hundreds of millions per year salaries. It’ll be enough to make the ruling class go galt, you betcha, also2.
debbie
@ Incertus:
Even worse: In Ohio, school administrators and teachers retire, get their pension, and then are rehired at a slightly lower salary. Under this arrangement, the local superintendent can then claim he’s saving the district money by not having to hire new people and pay them at the previous salary, the state gets socked with having to pay a pension to a working retiree, and the taxpayers get stuck with an even bigger deficit. And worst of all: They don’t even pretend to deny it!
I don’t begrudge public employees being guaranteed a pension, but this gaming the system ought to be called what it is: criminal.
Mnemosyne
@kindness:
In order to win the House, the Republicans will need to keep every seat they have now AND pick up an additional forty (40) seats.
Yeah, good luck with that, fellas. Boehner can stop measuring Pelosi’s office for new drapes.
Frank
@Cermet:
And not just the Iraq war; our entire military budget is as big the rest of the world’s military budget combined.
It has gotten to the point where it is impossible to cut it, since Congress people use these local military projects as pork to brag about come election time.
What’s the point of attacking Iran when we have seniors who are virtually starving?
birthmarker
@dday: Wait. This prison guard salary number is being bantered around and includes OVERTIME?? It is not a base salary? What a freaking incredible deceit. I am sick of spin from these people who use these half truths and falsifications to CHANGE PUBLIC POLICY.
Really, John Cole? Seriously? Please address.
My post above from a few minutes ago was written before I read anyone’s else’s comments. I am stunned.
Erik Vanderhoff
@Chris: Blame the portion of Prop. 13 that treats commercial property like its fucking sacrosanct.
ksmiami
@Comrade Luke:
I just voiced my displeasure to this same issue to Mr. Cole in the beer thread. It is how I feel about the nightmare of the Republican party because 1) They screw everything up 2)They then make it impossible for the Dems to fix it 3)People get impatient and then vote the idiots back in expecting a different result.
America in 2010 – The short bus to destruction.
Violet
@debbie:
Why is this criminal? If they retired and went to work at Wal-Mart or anywhere else they’d be working retirees. Why is it wrong that they go back to work at the school district? When those teachers and administrators leave, someone else has to take their place (or the positions would have to be eliminated), and the money would still be going out. Why is it a problem that the money going out is going to the person who left the job in the first place?
Is it written the contract that once they retire they can no longer work for the school district and collect their pension? Or that they aren’t allowed to work anywhere? If not, then they aren’t doing anything wrong, let along criminal.
Davis X. Machina
The police example from CA is an extreme one.
To earn 90% of my last three year’s average salary I would have to have 45 years of creditable service teaching.
That’s from 20, when I was still in college and hadn’t earned my degree yet, and therefore couldn’t teach, till the age of 65.
apocalipstick
@debbie:
But did the teachers force them to do that? I agree that the system as you describe it seems wacky, but I would ask for a cite. I would also ask this question: Is it teachers and administrators, or just administrators? One of the great scams in MO is retires superintendents who hire themselves out as “consultants” to their admin buddies. That’s the case in a district with which I’m familiar. The current superintendent hires a retired supe to draw up the budget. That’s crazy, but the admin pool is a very small one and they take care of their own. It’s really more like the executive suite.
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
one may therefore be forgiven for asking, why are so many on “our side” spreading this “Speaker Boehner” meme like it’s a done deal? And now Yglesias too. I really didn’t expect to have to add him to my “fuck you” list.
WTF is UP with this?? It is seriously making me furious.
I don’t think the words “Speaker Boehner” are to be uttered lightly. It’s not unlike saying the unemployment numbers just “highlight the fact” that there’s gonna be another Hiroshima.
Comrade Luke
@ksmiami:
I feel like I felt when The New York Times introduced Bill Kristol.
And I love how every time we talk about reducing things it’s always about fucking the middle class. Wouldn’t want to start with military spending. Oh no – let’s go after those pensions.
apocalipstick
@Violet:
Actually, in MO if you retire from teaching and then go to work as a greeter at Wal-Mart, you better watch your hours or they’ll cut your retirement benefit.
Districts have award-winning retirees who cannot substitute teach because of limits on the number of hours they can work without suffering a reduction in pension. Think Lloyd Blankfein has to worry about that?
Erik Vanderhoff
On a related note, I still think the best way (though certainly not the only way) to alleviate the short and long-term budget woes of the states is not more bailout money but a direct transfer of the administration of Medicaid from the states to the federal government.
This is a terrible idea, not necessarily (though possibly) in a monetary sense, because it completely defeats the idea of Medicaid, which allows states to target its most at-need populations. Medicaid is wonderfully tailorable to states’ needs. In California, for example, Medi-Cal (Medicaid) is run through the counties (this is also true of many Social Security Administration programs, like Supplemental Security Income for the permanently disabled). If the net users of Medicaid had to deal with a national call center and bureaucracy, you would have to have thousands of new federal employees just to man the call centers and case management for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid. Not only would care be compromised, but an already unwieldy bureaucracy becomes positively baroque, harming the program’s recipients. In addition, the states’ ability to tailor Medicaid programs for their particular needy populations would vanish in the blink of an eye.
Maybe on some pretend actuarial planet this looks like a great deal. But to those of us in public service, it’s inimical to actually serving the public.
Sloegin
This is the war versus the Kulaks, updated for the 21st century. Target a group that is temporarily doing ever so slightly better than some (and honestly, it’s only been the last couple of years that it’s been the case)…
A group that pays into it’s own retirement plans as part of a defined and deferred system of benefits, and they’re a problem? Fuck you.
How about we raise up folks who don’t have instead of tearing down ones that do?
Cassidy
While working a great deal of overtime, sure. Prisons, regardless of your belief on who should be there, don’t get to say “oh man, we’re shorthanded today”. They have to be staffed. Period.
And just think, less than 10 years ago, Republicans were lauding the heroism of police and firefighters. I’d think they’d have waited at least a generation before flip-flopping.
ksmiami
@Comrade Luke: Because we have one political party made up of amoral but loud sociopaths and another party of wusses who do not know how to articulate.
And now the political class is all running around trying to pin blame, trying to make excuses for the fact that we have “mortgaged” our nation’s future and wealth when we could be a more socially and economically balanced nation like Germany with a better safety net and great GDP – At the same time.
JGabriel
@Bnut:
I can’t find information to verify that, but I’d bet it’s about as accurate as the claim that “Prison guards often make six figures.” Yeah, if often means less than 10% and is due to overtime.
Some cops can retire at 50 in CA, though I haven’t found yet whether that’s for state police or depends on municipality. And while I wouldn’t be surprised if some officers get a 90% pension, I really doubt it’s common to get it at 50.
Frankly, it sounds like the kind of bogus “fact” conservatives and libertarians typically traffic in.
.
birthmarker
@debbie: Why is this worse? You are getting an experienced employee for a beginner’s price. My state doesn’t do this, but if they did the beginner salary would probably be closer to 50% of experieced salary, if I had to guess, not slightly less. My guess is you are also freezing your pension at the current level.
The states must allow this because there is some benefit to the state to do it.
birthmarker
@apocalipstick: In my state public education pensioners can work any job they want–unless it pays into the teacher retirement fund. In that case it is limited to some amount like $20,000 which is based on some factor in social security. (It is just a number the state pulls to be fair and non political.) So teachers can only be aides, in essence. We live near two state lines, and some cross over to other states to work after they retire, at beginner’s salary of course.
apocalipstick
@birthmarker:
I know that happens (or at least used to) up in Kansas City. MO retirees would move to Kansas and begin teaching. MPSRS (the teachers retirement system) put a stop to that (or at least tried to).
Although, when a corporate exec figures out a way to do this, righties applaud them as geniuses. Why the double standard?
debbie
Maybe using the word “criminal” was a bit strong, but it’s certainly dishonest and is not how the system was intended to work. Retiring, getting a pension, and then getting a job somewhere else is one thing; I see this as something very different. (And if it were okay, wouldn’t people have been doing this for years?)
The specific instance: http://www.thisweeknews.com/live/content/bexley/stories/2010/07/07/2-administrators-retire-are-rehired.html
The two administrators are only taking a 10% cut in salary. (I’m not a numbers person, but while they’re still working and getting both salary and pension, aren’t they basically getting a 90% raise?) Besides, I’m sure with the unemployment around here, qualified substitutes could have been found.
The taxpayers in the school district certainly aren’t saving any money; in fact, because they’re also the ones funding pensions, then they’re paying more (salary plus pension).
The superintendent crows about saving money, but really, the only savings is on paper.
HyperIon
@Amanda in the South Bay:
My father retired after 20 years in the Air Force in 1967. He’s been getting a pension since then…no waiting for vets! He also gets a very generous health benefit: drugs cost < $10.
The federal gov has lost a lot of money on him and will continue to. And he never served a day in a war zone. He just showed up for 20 years and followed orders. And now he's pretty much set until he dies.
Mil pensions are part of the problem, granted mostly due to the higher officer pensions, but the idea of a non-contributory pension starting to payout when you stop serving is sheer madness.
The party is winding down. I hope everybody had a good time because reality is about to click in. My parents had great timing. They are working class people who did what they were told to do and reaped the benefits of a post-ww2 economy. But that time is over.
Violet
@debbie:
So if these administrators had retired and then gone to work somewhere other than the school district you’d be okay with that?
And if the school district hired two other people at the same salaries they are paying these two people, you’d be okay with that?
The money out is the same as if it’s these two administrators doing the job. The administrators retire, collect pensions, and someone takes the open jobs at a certain salary. Why does it matter who collects the salary? Why is it “criminal” or “dishonest”?
Jager
@JGabriel:
When we lived in Boston there was a big up roar over State Cops making over 100k (one actually was well over 150k) by working details. (sitting in a car at a construction site, etc.) The ratio was less than one in ten who did it and the details were vouluntary, some of these guys worked 100 plus hours a week. The detail work doesn’t figure into the pension calculation. I’m not real comfortable with a cop in a cruiser on the Mass Pike with a 75 hour work week under his belt by Thursday, he can’t be at the top of his game.
debbie
Violet, both administrators were long-term employees. Their replacements wouldn’t get the same salary.
Your example was Walmart. I was thinking they could start some new venture and consult. Either of those instances would be fine with me. But yes, if they got a job as an administrator in another district (and then get a state pension there too), I would think that would be wrong.
This is really not so different from cops putting in tons of overtime their final year of employment in order to inflate their salaries and get bigger pension payouts.
apocalipstick
@debbie:
In education, consultants get paid way more on a per-hour basis than employees. One of the real scandals of education is that the further away you get from the actual work (teaching), the more money you make.
numbskull
I’m wondering if John is getting that autumy-sad feeling one sometimes has when one sees a formerly-respected friend in a new setting, a setting that suddenly shows the friend as being unexpectedly limited. I mean, the friend is still nice and all, and one wouldn’t abandon a friend just because he is found to be lacking in once-presumed intelligence and competency. But still, some drifting of attention, at first noted and regretted, but soon becoming the norm. Then one day, after months of somehow not keeping up, John reads something that Eric has written in another venue and is saddened when he can’t stop the thought “Man, that’s naive/uniformed/adolescent. Ah well.”
Jager
@HyperIon:
Military pensions are 50% of highest pay after 20 years, 75% after 30. The military pays better than it did in the past, it still isn’t great:
E-8 Master Sgt with 20 years service $55,512, the retirement at 20 years $21,156, at 30 the pay is $64,036, retirement is $48,027.
Not many lifers reach E-8…an E-8 is one valuable individual whether in the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines, they have massive skill sets, management ability and responsibility and they’d be cheap at twice the price. The old stereotype of the Top Kick doesn’t play anymore
A man or woman who gives the best years of their life to the military for 20 or 30 years deserves the benefits, whether they are in combat or spend their career in a support capacity. Now the Catfood Commission thinks they make too much money!
Egilsson
The “problem” with our pension / retirement system isn’t that some people have too much, it’s that not enough people have enough of those benefits. The answer is not to stick it to people with more pension / benefit security, but increase those benefits and other measures of labor security for the rest of us. What is the glamor of sticking it to middle class (at best…) people?
Even Henry Ford understood that his workers had to make enough money to buy his cars in order for him to sell more cars. This logic is no longer accepted by conservatives.
This country needs an ass-kicking labor movement because that’s the only way wages and retirement and a better form of security will occur. I predict that will come, but apparently things are going to have to get worse for more people.
I’m pretty pessimistic actually.
schrodinger's cat
This blog was my oasis from insanity, what happened? If policemen’s pensions are too much, what about the bonuses on Wall Street why do they still deserve that after plunging us into an economic catastrophy?
kevina
Look, I think SOME states have real pension problems. I think we can agree on that.
Were the unions being unreasonable in their negotiating these pensions? Probably a case-by-case basis (some yes, some no). Doesn’t matter, though, since nothing changes the gravity of the problem in SOME states.
Like it or not, something’s gonna have to give. Now, my first preference to solve revenue/deficit problems is higher taxes/closing loopholes on the rich. BUTTTT…
That alone WILL NOT solve every related deficit/pension/revenue problem. Reading The Guardian, much of the British Left seems to think EVERY issue can be solved by this strategy.
It cannot. Like it or not, we as liberals, if we truly give a shit about governing, are going to have to do at least a few things we don’t WANT to do. Some benefits will have to be cut (while also raising taxes), we’ll have to get used to “means-testing,” and cut some initiatives/programs we’d rather not (BUTTTT Defense must be dealt with, above all, righties).
I don’t like it, and the biggest problem is the American electorate won’t like ANY hard choice. “Raise taxes?! Fuck you, you commie!” “Cut MY benefits?! Fucking fascist!”
But those hard choices, for everyone, are coming. Buckle up.
John S.
Nope. I made the same observation yesterday. I haven’t even seen the guy make a stab at responding to the rabble.
Bnut
@schrodinger’s cat:
You went insane.
numbskull
@schrodinger’s cat:
What happened is that John’s on vacation and gave the keys to a drinking buddy. The blog is now being driven off the cliff.
Nylund
Although I’m not accusing this post of doing it, there seems to be a concerted effort amongst many conservatives to conflate the budgetary practices of different levels of government.
I saw this happen in CNBC the other day when a guest was proving how wasteful D.C. was because a city in southern california paid workers 20% more than the going rate.
In this era of the talk of Federal debts and Ryan’s roadmap, it seems that conservatives tend to love to point out how teachers, guards, transportation, and road workers all are overpaid with too many benefits. The vast vast majority of such people are not even part of the Federal budget.
One could argue that since the Federal gov’t often sends aid to cover state shortfalls, it is a federal issue in an indirect way. Or, one could argue that what cities and states do is representative of what happens on the Federal level, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone make that case. Its always, “Do you want to know why the Gov’t is so in debt? Its because gov’t workers like my local bus driver have big pensions.”
We’re left to infer that its overpaid gov’t workers that have led to our huge national debt when the examples people use are from different governments with different debts and different sources of revenue.
The federal budget dedicated to the equivalents of these examples is pretty inconsequential with regard to our long term national fiscal situation. Cutting benefits for the guards at federal prisons, or those that work for NASA or the EPA isn’t going to amount to all that much compared to the costs of medicare, medicaid, social security, and national defense.
So, I would just like to remind people that the issue being discussed here really has very little to do with the trillions we owe on a Federal level.
schrodinger's cat
@Bnut: I guess I did, I even spelled catastrophe wrong.
Zuzu's Petals
@Montysano:
But an employee in the CalPERS system retiring at that age would typically only be collecting 1.1% of his or her final pay rate per year of service. For a long-time employee, that would be less than one third of his or her regular paycheck (plus benefits). The prospect of a longer retirement is calculated right in along with the amount of money the employee and state employer contributed over the years he or she worked.
birthmarker
@apocalipstick: Why would the state of Missouri have any business monitoring what type of employment a retiree does in another state?
numbskull
@kevina:
That’s right, something’s got to give. That’s an obvious statement.
The semi-interesting thing is, why have you so internalized the right’s take on austerity for thee but not for me stance? Why should the proles give any more? They’ve been giving and giving.
Something’s gonna have to give? Yep, the top 1% is gonna have to give if we’re really going to fix the mess.
Zuzu's Petals
@Violet:
Exactly. The retired annuitant program in California is popular with state employers because,among other things, they get an experienced worker without having to pay benefits.
I am a CalPERS retiree. I went back as a retired annuitant for few months to help after an employee quit during the busy season…it was in an area that I had particular expertise in. Even if I wasn’t doing it temporarily, I would only be allowed to work for 6 months out of the year. Certain other restrictions apply as well, but it is a win-win in a lot of cases.
birthmarker
@Nylund: I guess the repubs smell blood in the water so they are starting the final phase of the drowning in the bathtub. As I said above, how can we make public policy on falsehoods and deceptions? I mean we can (we do), but it just seems so wrong.
Zuzu's Petals
@apocalipstick:
Interesting. In California, you are only restricted from working more than half time in CalPERS-covered employment. Which makes sense…hard to understand why they would apply it to private employment.
apocalipstick
@birthmarker:
MSPRS is not a state agency. It is the private, self-funded pension system of Missouri teachers.
apocalipstick
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Y’know, as I read my own posts, I’m gonna back off that assertion a little. I can’t be 100% sure that it applies to all private employment (I would rather stipulate a caveat than take an ill-informed stand.
dday
@JGabriel: Yes, and the overtime comes necessarily from right-wing law and order ideas about sentencing. In the last 30 years, California has had 1,000 changes to their sentencing laws, and all of them increased sentences. Every single one.
apocalipstick
Yeah, private employment is not prohibited. Working for any PSRS-covered employer is regulated. My snafu.
jman
Using the city of Fresno’s retirement calculator for a Tier 1 retirement, a police officer with 25 years of service retiring at 50 of age with a final salary of $5,000 per month would get a monthly retirement benefit of $2,750. A yearly salary, not counting overtime, of $60,000 for a police officer is not out of reason. The annual retirement benefit for this police officer would be $33,000 per year. Google California Police oofficer retirement.
Holy Shit Mr. E.D. Kain, you are a friggen runaway failure to stand and defend the crap you say. That police officer’s retirement is going to bankrupt the shit out of poor old Fresno! You are incorrect to scapegoat police officers. You.Ungrateful.Shit.
Zuzu's Petals
@apocalipstick:
Makes sense.
Beej
Just exactly where do prison guards make 6-figure salaries? And do you mean to say that teachers make the same? Where? Where? Where? I’ll be moving there and applying for a teaching certificate just as soon as I can. Hey, maybe they have reciprocity with my state and I can automatically get a certificate! Oh, happy day! Cause I’ve got to tell you, here in my city in my state, beginning teachers make $32,000 per year and those with 10 years of experience and a doctoral degree make $52,000. My husband taught for 33 years. His teacher’s retirement is just slightly over $2000/mo.
apocalipstick
With a Master’s degree and 30 years of experience, my wife makes $44,000 per year. The good news is that we live in an area where that’s actually not a bad salary. The bad news is that, well, it’s an area where that’s not a bad salary.
What this really highlights to me is the elevation of Al Bundy to the status of iconic male. Stupid, angry and mean is the new paradigm.
JGabriel
@dday:
And labor. Instead of hiring more guards, they bitch about the overtime.
.
E.D. Kain
@gene108: Pensions are only partially funded by contributions from workers. If you make 50,000/year how could you possibly contribute enough of that to fully fund your pension? Even 401k’s aren’t entirely based on worker’s contributions.
E.D. Kain
@JGabriel: I was riffing off this article though I should probably dig deeper.
debbie
Does any state pension program state that it’s okay to receive benefits while working and drawing a salary in the same system? If not, then the program’s being abused.
Of course, the bennies on Wall Street are obscene. But that’s a separate issue.
What bothers me is that taxpayers are being asked to support these very generous payouts, just as most of these taxpayers’ pensions have been greatly reduced.