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That 60K benefit is triple the national average for public employee pensions.
As with other things pensions and benefits are local, local and specific and not a broad national composite for the recipients. The post I was responding to was California which would probably be higher than the norm and I was thinking of a specific poster who was a California teacher in I believe Los Angeles and their compensation would be the same as others fitting their profile. So who gives a functional rats tail when talking about specific circumstances. Mine is what it is and is the same as others in my profile and my wife's the same as others in her profile. Also I believe the post I was referring to was saying retirement income which in Calif in most cases does not include SS but in our cases it does and that family 120K is not unusual for the region. Elsewhere very unusual perhaps. However in terms of our individual realities it will vary higher and lower. With two income earners with pensions and SS the difference between combined couple income taking just SS at 62 v 70 can and will yield different results especially at higher benefits.
Lots of places. You seem like you know the drill and the way we got to the level of pensions we have is that when there is a shortage of needed employees especially teachers we increase long term benefits. Why? Because when we are in a recession or a difficult economy the number of teachers in the pipeline reflects a previous economic time point. With current tax receipts low government commits future dollars to attract current employees and pensions have historically been a perfect way to defer cost forward and thus we are now sorta back to the future and the millennials are saying nah nah, I am not falling for the bait and switch. I have read a number of younger public employees argue they would rather do away with their pension and be on their own because they know what they are doing and have the focus and discipline to save and invest and have ownership of their retirement.
Could you give some examples of 'inflated public compensation'? And I am not talking about law enforcement or prison guards which are outliers in terms of compensation. Oh and by the way regarding this: "every dollar in inflated public employee compensation is a dollar unavailable to spend on the poor" That's pure nonsense because for the most part about City and County employees, and neither spend very much if anything on services to the poor, and if you ever worked for a public agency or even went to council meetings you would realize that the money not spent on employee salaries usually goes towards some needless project that was lobbied for by a rich developer friend of the mayor or county supervisor.
BINGO! And people around here think that this only happens in New York State!
Lots of places. You seem like you know the drill and the way we got to the level of pensions we have is that when there is a shortage of needed employees especially teachers we increase long term benefits. Why? Because when we are in a recession or a difficult economy the number of teachers in the pipeline reflects a previous economic time point. With current tax receipts low government commits future dollars to attract current employees and pensions have historically been a perfect way to defer cost forward
I agree with all this.
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and thus we are now sorta back to the future and the millennials are saying nah nah, I am not falling for the bait and switch.
I have read a number of younger public employees argue they would rather do away with their pension and be on their own because they know what they are doing and have the focus and discipline to save and invest and have ownership of their retirement.
I don't know if that is what they're saying, but I think that would be foolish.
I say this as a 32 year old who just left a public sector job that would've enabled me to retire at age 55 with full pension.
I didn't leave because I thought pensions were bait-and-switch -- I left because the base compensation was inadequate. I need to earn enough to have a life while I'm young -- buy a house, have children, etc., and working in the public sector was not facilitating that, especially when it comes to property ownership.
That 60K benefit is triple the national average for public employee pensions.
As with other things pensions and benefits are local, local and specific and not a broad national composite for the recipients. The post I was responding to was California which would probably be higher than the norm and I was thinking of a specific poster who was a California teacher in I believe Los Angeles and their compensation would be the same as others fitting their profile. So who gives a functional rats tail when talking about specific circumstances. Mine is what it is and is the same as others in my profile and my wife's the same as others in her profile. Also I believe the post I was referring to was saying retirement income which in Calif in most cases does not include SS but in our cases it does and that family 120K is not unusual for the region. Elsewhere very unusual perhaps. However in terms of our individual realities it will vary higher and lower. With two income earners with pensions and SS the difference between combined couple income taking just SS at 62 v 70 can and will yield different results especially at higher benefits.
California is not an exception to the national figure, despite the higher cost of living.
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Let’s take a look at the numbers cited from CalSTRS’ 2013 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. In 2012-13, 11,645 teachers entered into retirement. The statistical average, or mean, annual teacher pension in California in 2013 was roughly $47,000. This number takes the total sum payout in retirement benefits divided by the total number of retirees receiving a benefit.
Furthermore, we need to consider CalPERS, which is the retirement system for NON teachers.
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The attack on public employee pensions has been fueled by a public misled about the level of compensation afforded by state pensions such as CalPERS. Fed an almost daily diet of media reports of outliers who receive six-figure pensions, the California public has been misled to believe that such examples are the norm—this despite the fact that the mean CalPERS pension is $26,000 per year and the median CalPERS pension is only $18,000 per year. The rank-and-file workers—the vast majority of CalPERS retirees, be they clerical workers or CSU faculty—are not the ones pulling in six-figure pensions.
You and your wife have high pensions of 60K? Congratulations! you are outliers! The vast majority of California public pensions are nowhere near this high, for the exact same reasons I cited.
I'm an HR manager for my state, and as such all compensation here is public. There are about 1200 employees in this facility- a retirement benefit of $60K (meaning a salary at least in the 90K range) would be reserved almost exclusively for degreed professionals with 30+ years of service, or senior officers racking up ungodly amounts of overtime. Neither example is typical and there couldn't be more than a dozen or two individuals that qualify for that here. Many employees are hired at 45+ years of age and never have the opportunity to build up that much time in the system before retirement. Plenty more leave for other opportunities outside of the state system, are terminated for cause, are injured or have health issues that cut their career short etc etc.
It's a rare employee that comes in young enough, puts in 30+ years of hard work and gets promoted internally consistently enough to hit that level.
Exactly this. Most of the employees who get to 30 years are in the lower pay ranks in my state or they're teachers who got lucky to get a job in a rural or inner city school right out of college (NYS has long had a teacher surplus but that seems to be ending, especially in the bigger metros) or they're corrections officers who started years ago before the almost universal requirement of a college degree.
A lot of professionals/technical positions get filled by older workers in their 30s or 40s who are willing to trade bigger salaries for better security and pensions.
In fairness, the teacher pay is still above what most college graduates in those rural communities could hope to achieve in the private sector.
Which is why rural communities -- and even small metros -- bleed young people like terminal wounds. Except for the school systems, many rural communities or small cities in predominantly rural areas don't offer many jobs for college educated professionals, and many of those don't pay all that well. So, the kids graduate and head for the nearest big city, and maybe later, they move on to an even bigger city further away.
It's not a problem reserved for the Carolinas; it's all over the country -- and it's been happening for a century or more, too. Ambitious young people tend to leave Small Town America.
What is a "public sector family"???? Most public sector pensions are 1.5% or 2% at 60 or 65. The average California public sector retirement is 2014 was $2,784 a month, so I guess your 120k figure would be correct if there were four family members drawing public sector pensions, huh?
In Alaska, a husband and wife who worked in the public sector can easily make that amount in retirement.
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