Federal, City or State Government: Which Has the Better Benefits Package? (employees, highest)
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Here in Virginia it is FedGov first, followed by the localities, with the State a distant third. I worked for the Federal government.
This, of course, could all change with the current political climate. I'm retired now, but for many years, my private sector peers told me what a sucker I was to work for Uncle. Now that a lot of them have "aged out", been offshored, outsourced, or had their pensions stolen....now, all of a sudden, they're telling me I'm a "fat cat". LOL
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by clb10
I guess I wasn't clear with my original post.
I am looking for some examples, not a comprehensive list of every local government agency in the U.S.
I listed some fed benefits it would be nice to see some local comparisons to.
For example, NYPD can retire with 50% of salary after 25 years of service.
A utility district where I used to work had a pension plan that paid 70% of highest salary after 30 years, and people retiring that were old enough to get SS were making more than when they worked. It varies greatly depending on the public agency and their union negotiations. That same agency has since changed retirement systems twice but always allowed the people in the older plans the option of staying in it. That same place offered great medical, dental, sick leave and vacation, 13 paid holidays and more. Where I am now is a public agency that's county based and is very similar in benefits but with the WA state retirement system which is more like 60% after 30 years. And we are non-union except for the crafts. First responders typically have strong unions and get great benefits but are not always the best. When considering city vs state vs county vs Federal keep in mind that anything can happen. States like Michigan have lost much of their benefits due to the state budget collapse, same for some cities in California and other states. The federal government employees are more affected by changes in the administration/congress/senate and programs being reduced or cut.
San Francisco city/county as the best pay/benefits. Federal pay scale vastly favors smaller areas since they use a base salary + locality which is supposed to account for cost of living. Base is $74k, DC is $80k, Manhattan $83k, San Francisco $87k. Part of the problem is they look at the entire metro when assigning the locality pay. So you make the same working in Manhattan as Buffalo. Then there's the Carolinas, Arizona, and a handful of other states that have never stopped hiring since they pay about half of what the federal government does so nobody will work for them.
a fair amount of local can be found by reading some of the collective bargaining agreements.
In Mass I think most local and states tend to pay 75% of medical insurance.
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