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A lot of good points on the last page or two, from both sides.
However, I increasingly get the impression that many public employees, don't understand how far ahead they moved compared to the average private worker. There are far more working class private workers in usually lower paid jobs like stores, supermarkets, malls, gas stations, restaurants etc than there are wealthy doctors or lawyers.
But even middle clas jobs have not always kept up. I work with retirement accounts in a local bank and I make less than the $100k mentioned above. Most of my fellow bank employees; Managers, Asst Managers, tellers, CSRs etc. may make even less. We have to pay for a large part of our health benefits, we lost our pensions a few years ago and they even match less of our 401k then they used too. In order to save jobs, we have not received a raise in two years.
Personally, although it a bad idea, my contribution to my 401k is down to 5% a year now, because I cannot afford any higher right now. Some of my fellow employees (especially the tellers), are contributing nothing because they simply don't make enough to make ends meet.
That is why, I and many other people you talk to, cannot understand why we have to keep paying more and more taxes for people who make more than us, have better benefits, have better retirement accounts and can even retire in some cases 10 to 20 years before we can.
I know you know EVERYTHING but child care really is expensive on LI. I left my job because child care for 2 children under 2 was almost as much as my take home. Now I realize that is "my own fault" if I want to "sit around with my kids" but if you want to talk facts, then let's do that. If I hired someone (possibly illegal) off the books, surely I could find some cheap childcare. If I paid to have them cared for in a center it would be $1,050 for my younger child and roughly $950 for my older. That would only cover them 5 days a week from 8-4. It would be an extra $160 per child to send them from 7am-6pm, which are the hours I'd need. So that's $2,300 a month.
Now that is a choice every family has to make. As for "sitting around not working" please take a look at my post count and compare it to the other people who post here.
Kids are an expense. Some people can afford them better than others.
So? You could be playing Farmville or one of the other thousands of games on Facebook for most of the day on the internet instead of posting on C-D regularly.
The home we currently live in is owned by a family memeber and we pay EXACTLY what the current costs are for the mortgage, taxes and homeowners insurance. The house was purchased in 2008 and the costs to pay all of that is $2300 a month. We have two small children, which obviously you do not .....so you have no idea how much childcare costs are. Many two income households have family members (grandma and grandpa) babysitting for free so the parents can work - this is not our situation. I would gladly work, I did it for years but we would barely break even. My husband is buying his first home this year and is very excited to be doing so after working for 20 years and being debt free for the last five. We are buying in a neighborhood/school district that gets bashed on here all the time. I previously owned my own home for years and it was sold in my divorce a while ago making no profit as this was all prior to the housing price increases, and it was located in another one of those neighborhoods that the people on here badmouth with a vengance.
Again my point was that teachers with masters degrees have been working for over 15 years and are making under 100k while everyone seems to think they all make 120k plus after working for a few years. There may be tons of people working on LI that are making 50k a year but most of them do not have masters degrees. I have a few friends who have no college at all working as retail store managers making over 75k a year. Also someone mentioned LIRR workers making 100k + to punch tickets.....yes that is true and they own homes in towns I could never afford to live in next door to the 30 year old police officers making 160k.
So in your previous post you act like your family "can only dream" of buying a home and now it's your husband is buying one on his sole income as a teacher. So please stop complaining about your family's rough life with only having a public school teacher to provide the income. You seem to think that ALL public sector union workers should be making six figures and cite some blue collar ones that do as proof of that. Well did you ever think that it has been a BIG MISTAKE to allow public sector union workers, who do not get their pay from PROFITS, but from the taxpayers, to demand such wages? It is unsustainable for the taxpayers to keep giving more, more, more. Maybe once your family has owned the home for a couple of years you are buying and has to dig deeper each and every year for the ever-increasing property taxes, which are overwhelmingly tied to your school district costs above all other taxing districts, which costs are mostly tied to raises, perks, benefits, and pensions for the teachers, administrators, and superintendants, you will have some mercy on the rest of the taxpayers.
I can't believe that the teacher's motives are for "the good of the community."
Yeah..They are all EvIL
Quote:
Originally Posted by redrunner+2
I know you know EVERYTHING but child care really is expensive on LI. .
Dude your referring to a population that still lives in their parents basement, doesn't have a mortgage, doesn't know what it takes to be committed to earning a college education let alone graduating from high school by continuously obsessing on what other peoples salaries are that made good choices in their lives.
Children are the last expense they would ever worry about.
Last edited by LongIslandCitizen; 03-20-2011 at 01:50 PM..
No one has a problem paying a teacher, people have a problem overpaying while at the same time footing the bill for pensions, healthcare, dental, etc.
I hear you, and maybe things are very different out here in terms of pensions so maybe someone can explain this fully. In NYC, teachers pay in to our pensions and the pensions are paid out from the accrued interest. So it is not the taxpayers money that pays pensions. Is that not the case here in Long Island?
As for healthcare and dental, in NYC the only "free" option is basic GHI any other plan above the basic, we pay in for. Dental is paid through part of our union dues. Again, is this different on Long Island?
If so, I can understand why some people feel this is unfair, however if it is done in the same way that it is handled in NYC then there is a misconception about how the tax $$ are used.
There's misconceptions in NYC, too. For example, there was something recently in the news about Bloomberg wanting to do away with the FDNY Christmas bonuses - which was not in fact a Christmas bonus but rather a payback of the interest on money that the city borrowed from the FDNY pensions which they invested and made a bundle on.
That's why it would be good to get a clarification on the pension system here. I suspect that it is similar to NYC but I can't say for sure since I'm not a part of it.
My concern here is this: do we really want a race to the bottom in terms of our schools? I'm not saying that we can't do things better in some places but let me give you an example. IT- a few years ago it was outsource everything. It's cheap! Now many companies are realizing that in many cases the quality sucks.
I am both a taxpayer and a parent. So I can see both sides of the argument, unlike some people on these forums. I have worked at a private company that didn't pay well. Talented people left and the ones who stayed... let's just say that they stayed. Because they didn't have other options.
Teaching is not exactly like working in the private sector. Do you want to have teachers jumping around every other year, midyear, for a better deal elsewhere?
A lot of good points on the last page or two, from both sides.
However, I increasingly get the impression that many public employees, don't understand how far ahead they moved compared to the average private worker. There are far more working class private workers in usually lower paid jobs like stores, supermarkets, malls, gas stations, restaurants etc than there are wealthy doctors or lawyers.
But even middle clas jobs have not always kept up. I work with retirement accounts in a local bank and I make less than the $100k mentioned above. Most of my fellow bank employees; Managers, Asst Managers, tellers, CSRs etc. may make even less. We have to pay for a large part of our health benefits, we lost our pensions a few years ago and they even match less of our 401k then they used too. In order to save jobs, we have not received a raise in two years.
Personally, although it a bad idea, my contribution to my 401k is down to 5% a year now, because I cannot afford any higher right now. Some of my fellow employees (especially the tellers), are contributing nothing because they simply don't make enough to make ends meet.
That is why, I and many other people you talk to, cannot understand why we have to keep paying more and more taxes for people who make more than us, have better benefits, have better retirement accounts and can even retire in some cases 10 to 20 years before we can.
Kids are an expense. Some people can afford them better than others.
So? You could be playing Farmville or one of the other thousands of games on Facebook for most of the day on the internet instead of posting on C-D regularly.
You asked how expensive can childcare be. I gave you actual facts to support that. I suppose I should just hire an illegal nanny to pay a sub-standard wage and then hire some more illegals to mow my lawn and clean my house! Instead of taking the lazy way out and raising my kids, mowing my lawn and cleaning my own house!
Status:
"Let this year be over..."
(set 22 days ago)
Location: Where my bills arrive
19,219 posts, read 17,091,524 times
Reputation: 15538
Quote:
Originally Posted by redrunner+2
My concern here is this: do we really want a race to the bottom in terms of our schools? I'm not saying that we can't do things better in some places but let me give you an example. IT- a few years ago it was outsource everything. It's cheap! Now many companies are realizing that in many cases the quality sucks.
I am both a taxpayer and a parent. So I can see both sides of the argument, unlike some people on these forums. I have worked at a private company that didn't pay well. Talented people left and the ones who stayed... let's just say that they stayed. Because they didn't have other options.
Teaching is not exactly like working in the private sector. Do you want to have teachers jumping around every other year, midyear, for a better deal elsewhere?
FYI I'm not a teacher and neither is my husband.
IT is a good example but as an industry it was quite bloated and over priced making the "outsource" appear to be a more cost efficent option. Now as stated "quality sucks" but in many ways so did the original system that was in place. During the IT boom many people would jump ship after several months because of a better offer, it didn't improve customer service just added to the bubble.....which collapsed. Now the industry has adjusted, costs are down and outsourcing is not such a good option anymore. Those that are still in the industry are more realistic on what to expect with their jobs.
That said teaching is not going to be outsourced. I don't believe that giving some conscessions with your pay/benefits is going to cause a mass exodus of teachers or a diminishment of quality. Teachers in our region have experienced pay freezes, pay cuts, furlows and no one left. They are dedicated and realize that all sectors are being affected. If opportunities were better in the private sector than many would have left allready for greener pastures. Teaching contracts normally prohibit leaving during the contract period for another job unless a release is obtained.
I am not a teacher but work for a school district in a none teaching role..
Teaching special education and behavior problem children in an economically challenged school district is as rewarding as it is exhausting, but you will NEVER hear him ***** or complain. He loves the kids and his job.
If it's not the teachers it's their family members
Obviously he's capable of doing something else, since he did. If it was so much better and lucrative doing that maybe he should go back.
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