The Worcester Telegram and Gazette reported this week the numbers by which public employee union pension and healthcare benefits are weighing down taxpayers.
A typical homeowner in Worcester may have to come up with as much as $50,000 over the next 30 years to support city obligations for city worker retirement health care benefits, while the burden on Boston homeowners over the same period could be $100,000, according to a study highlighting growing unfunded liabilities from municipal retirement benefits.
The study by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Association, a Boston-based business group, warns that the state’s 50 largest communities face a $20 billion liability in the coming decades to fund lifetime health care benefits already earned by 150,000 current employees and retirees in those cities and towns.
The report, which only analyzed the larger cities and towns in the state, said the health care benefits liabilities currently are two and a half time larger than the unfunded pension liabilities for retirees.
That means that over the next thirty years an average of $1,667 per home is going directly to fund pensions in Worcester. In Boston it is well over $3,000. The median property tax in Worcester is about $3000 per housing unit. That means the pension and retiree healthcare liability eats up well over half of the property taxes collected in Worcester.
Remember these numbers the next time the left tries to tell you that people like Governor Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) are attacking the middle class. It is not we who are attacking and sucking dry the middle class, it is the gimme guys and gals in the public employee unions.
Yes. In fact, it was arguably even more of an issue in 2008 and 2009 when the financial crisis hit while Republicans held the White Houe.
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p>The sudden national rush of concern about public employee benefits is the national GOP campaign of the moment. It is motivated by politics, first, and a reality-based interest in economic performance second, or third, if at all.
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p>An underlying concern is to shift public attention away from the huge tax cuts being given to the richest elites and large corporations.
What about the famous ‘Office of the President-Elect’, complete with faux seal, founded in November of 2008?
The MTF (hardly an unbiased org) report, which makes a lot of assumptions, is a great document to support concessions from public employee unions. Too bad that’s not what Gov. Walker is seeking. The Wisconsin unions are willing to make concessions, Walker wants to end their existence. So, yes, he is attacking the middle class.
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p>The MTF report also provides many reasons for supporting things like PPACA and Deval Patrick’s health cost control plans to help reduce the growth rate of health care costs.
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p>Question: how do you feel about police and firefighter unions? Would you be willing to post on RedMassGroup calling them “gimme guys and girls”? And do we know what % of the numbers from the MTF report relate to police and fire (they have no break out)?
for instituting single-payer health care.
How about a real dose of reality? A study of done on the wage and benefits of public employees reveals that public employees make less….not more than employees in the private sector.
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p>http://www.gazettenet.com/2010…
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p>So what is it that you want, Eabo? Free fire, police and teachers?
and people who actually know how to do the job. Now, it usually makes sense to have a mix of ages when hiring for big pools of people, but don’t pretend as if older workers, with more years of experience, aren’t going to get paid more (perhaps a lot more) be it in the private or public sector.. and as Justice just referenced, in the public they get paid less than in the private sector.
These are just a part of one’s total compensation package. This study finds that when benefits and other aspects of total compensation is included in the comparison, public sector employees are ahead of those in the private sector. Certainly you’d agree total compensation is what should be compared, not simply wages and salary rates.
as was pointed out, when you factor in experience and things like degrees, public sector employees make less in total compensation, significantly so for people with advanced degrees (lawyers, doctors, etc.). You don’t get to just ignore that.
Respond to my point, not your perception of my perspicacity. I linked to the results of a study which included all the factors you’ve mentioned, unless you assume the sample only included inexperienced and uneducated workers in the comparison.
My point was that total compensation is more relevant to the discussion than just wage and salary rates. Agree or disagree?
Why don’t you respond to the point in question: that once you take things like degrees into factor, the private sector earns more in total compensation, significantly more as the degrees become more advanced.
In 2000, under the Clinton economic plan, America was on track to pay off the national debt by 2013. But then the conservatives took the White House, and gave tax breaks to the wealthiest that they didn’t need. The Republicans said hedge fund gurus making hundreds of millions of dollars could pay in at the 15% rate that the low wage people pay, not the 35% rate that any other successful person might pay. The conservatives’ PR machine spun America into an expensive war in Iraq. The debt racked up.
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p>Then, when Democrats brought forward a sane plan (with Republican ideas) to control healthcare costs (like incentivizing hospitals to reduce infections, or tracking which procedures actually improve lives), Republican PR schemers sent loud obnoxious people to shout down and intimidate Congressmen at town hall meetings.
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p>In short, Republicans are doing everything to keep healthcare costs rising–as part of their scheme to win power–and they want us to believe their PR that unions are to blame for high healthcare costs?
…more private sector workers were unionized and able to take advantage of such benefits we would be closer to where we need to be.
I saw the MTF report and read it last week. I haven’t read any opposing analysis. As a union guy, I was ready to be pissed. As a selectman, I have to look at what’s best for my town. The issue, as always, is health care, and the problem is the amount of unfunded liability. There is no way cities and towns can raise all the money necessary to fund the liability.
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p>The MTF may have a business agenda, but the $20 billion unfunded liability is a reality and the concern is what are called “Other Post-Employment Benefits,” which include employer-provided retiree health care and spouses having lifetime healthcare through a deceased spouse’s employer.
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p>The report suggests it wasn’t until Governmental Accounting and Standards Board were instituted in 2004, which had a three-year phase to implement them that OPEB’s became an issue. FY 2009 was the first year all Massachusetts communities were required to disclose what are called “Other Post-Employment Benefits.” All but 2 have done so.
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p>When characterizing governmental spending these days, the Republican sentences include a noun, a verb, and unions. The fact is, that if health care costs weren’t skyrocketing, employee benefits wouldn’t be an issue. Health care is the problem.
We have a town manager who handles most stuff, and a finance committee that transcends some of the more obvious limitations of our town (a PhD in Math, a graduate from Wharton, and an Econ professor).
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p>I’m still in my first term, and I don’t want to throw out half-assed numbers. I was talking with our treasurer Friday about retiree benefits. I think we’re better off than some larger towns because we have fewer people, and also fewer people who get vested.
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p>Teachers make up our largest group of employees; you know how they’re taken care of, though it should be said, our retired teachers are in the GIC.
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p>Police must come second. We have full and part-time employees, but I’m not sure how many. I’d guess we have no more than 4 or 5 per shift. Some part-timers stay in Granby, but many move on and so we don’t finance their pensions because they aren’t vested. We don’t have huge Quinn bill problems. Only 2 or 3 people covered by it.
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p>The fire department–being largely volunteer–doesn’t have a lot of full or part-time staff.
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p>Do your teachers get Mass Teacher Retirement? From an economic standpoint, it’s the benefits that make teaching worthwhile. I don’t complain about my salary, but if I didn’t have good health and retirement, I would have looked into something more lucrative.
many of our teachers are younger and don’t play on a lifetime of teaching.
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p>as a result, they’ll likely pay in more than they get out, subsidizing teachers who do stay in.
around “reality.”
as a state which opts out on Social Security for public employees who get pensions, I’m sure charity will fill in the gap, right?
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p>I think your ginned up ire at ensuring our public employees are able to retire with dignity in their old age is complete and utter horse shit. Public employees pay a lot of money into the system, it is not their fault if the other side of things isn’t putting in their fair share of the funds now, when they’re supposed to… take any problems in affording that up with the fatcat banksters and wealthy elite in this state who don’t pay anywhere near their fair share.
It would eliminate the offset, workers would have to pay a smaller percentage to SS than they do to the MA pension system, and so on.
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p>We cannot unilaterally strip pensions, as those workers were DENIED the ability to contribute to Social Security for those earning years. But we CAN join going forward, and for all non-vested employees replace the defined benefit plan with a 401(k) style voluntary pension going forward, and let the current system die by attrition. The actual contibutions, plus interest, can be returned to the non-vested employees just like they are if they leave the system as a foundation for the 401(k).
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p>Predictable cries of the system being unsustainable without more contributions will be made. But it’s unsustainable now – we’re better off replacing those contributions through appropriation, since someday we’re going to ahve to appropriate that money anyway to pay the 89% of benefit that workers DON’T pay, and stop the entry of new retirees into the system.
So health care for public workers is expensive, so should be cut. Using this logic we should eliminate as too expensive prisons, police forces, the military, transitional assistance, roads….
fair share of the costs of both their pensions and their health care. what percentage of HC costs do you pay? I pay 50% with every check. That’s pretty normal for most non government employees.
I’ll pay the percentage health care costs you pay, and I get the same salary commensurate with my education and experience as done in the private sector. If you want to give me more money, I won’t say no.