A more elaborate comparison (p. 10), which controlled for age, gender, race, and region, found that Massachusetts workers whose highest educational achievement was a high school diploma did very slightly (1.6%) better in the public sector, whereas those whose highest achievement was a bachelor’s degree did 6.4% worse in the public sector.
Overall, when you crunch the numbers while controlling for age and education, you find (p. 8) that there is actually an overall “wage penalty” for public sector workers in Massachusetts of about 3.7%. If you further control for gender, race, and region, the penalty decreases to about 2.3%.
But wait, I hear our differently-winged colleagues cry! What about those insane benefits that public sector workers get? Surely that will prove our talking points!
Sadly, no. From what I’ve read, it’s very difficult to do apples-to-apples comparisons for benefits because the necessary data are not readily available. But using what’s around, the studies I found conclude that while public sector workers do on average get better benefits than their private-sector counterparts, the benefits either do not, or (using different assumptions) just barely do, compensate for the wage penalty.
The benefits comparison is complicated by the fact that large private-sector firms generally offer better benefits than do smaller firms. State and local governments are large employers, so it seems logical to compare large-firm private-sector benefits to public-sector benefits. When you do that:
even after inflating state and local wages by a factor designed to capture the higher benefits in the public sector, state and local government workers continue to face a penalty in total compensation after we control for workers’ formal education and their age. Using private sector firms with 100 or more workers as the benchmark for the benefits differential, we estimate that the average state and local government worker in New England still receives four percent less in total compensation than an equivalently well-educated and experienced worker in the private sector (Table 3, Column 1). Taking additional demographic factors into account (gender, race, and state controls), the total compensation penalty for state and local workers in New England remains 1.4 percent (Column 2).
However, if you instead compare public-sector benefits to an average of benefits available in all sizes of private-sector firms, you find that the benefits just barely compensate for the wage penalty.
If we adjust the estimated wage differential instead using the benefits differential between the state-and local sector and private firms of all sizes, then the total compensation differential falls to 1.2 percent nationally and 0.2 percent in New England when controlling for age and education. When also controlling for race, gender and region, the total compensation differential turns positive, 1.7 percent nationally and 2.0 percent in New England.
So what’s the bottom line here? It seems to me that (1) it’s quite difficult to make these comparisons, for a variety of reasons, but (2) education is clearly a very important determinant in how much a worker is paid (in both the private and public sectors), and (3) when you compare compensation based on education level, you find that public sector workers on average make less than their private sector counterparts – less-educated workers make a bit more in the public sector, while highly-educated workers make a lot less. Furthermore, the public sector generally offers better benefits, and those benefits narrow the total compensation gap somewhat, but they either don’t or just barely (depending on how you do the comparison) eliminate the gap.
So when the Herald tells you that public-sector employees actually are earning a 5% premium over the private sector, don’t believe it, because it’s not true. The guy making that claim is a corporate shill – a D.C. lobbyist who also has set up a bunch of front groups (at least 23 of them, including the hilariously-entitled Center for Union Facts that the Herald foolishly quoted) that put out “information” that is highly dubious at best. The Herald never should have talked to him, much less used him as a source for its calculations about how to save the state money.
Finally, this is a topic for another post, but I just wanted to flag an interesting read also released by the MBPC today: a primer on how the MA pension system actually works. Give it a read – it’s short, and you might learn something.
study that does much the same. Except it includes total compensation (i.e. wages plus beneifts, bonuses, etc.).
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p>The key to the analysis, as David and the MBPC point out, is comparing apples to apples. That means comparing similar jobs and education levels when possible.
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p>One comparison problem is that some professions lack a private equivalent. Police men and women and firefighters lack a comparison. The difference in working conditions between public and private school teachers is also different. Prep school people, for example, make less, but they generally get free room and board. Other schools can get rid of kids they don’t like.
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p>One drawback of the EPI study is that it looks at the nation as a whole; because standards of living vary nationally, comparing public and private workers within a state is more informative.
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p>Nonetheless, the findings are the similar.
BTW, Wisconsin workers make less on the average too.
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Equating a MEd with a MS Eng or MBA is really a stretch.
Just because someone decided to get a Master’s degree in a field you chose not to enter doesn’t mean it’s not a Master’s degree. This is a pointless criticism of the study.
are mostly products of diploma mills. They are part and parcel of contracted increased wages to workers. The courses are structured to get people out quickly.
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p>So no it is not a pointless criticism of the study.
to back that up. I mean, I know that Harvard is famously a diploma mill, but what else you got?
Yes, anecdote!
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p>I have known several people who got MBAs that were clearly paper for its own sake, and did nothing to enhance their abilities. In fact, most of the people I know who have that degree got it because they needed it to advance through whatever compensation/job-level matrix they were trapped in. If you don’t think there are MBA diploma mills, I suggest you’re being naive.
Yes, there is a definite economic incentive to get these degrees, and there is definitely a legitimate criticism of whether this is worth it. And yes many of these programs schedule classes so that working people can get a degree without having to take a sabbatical to do so. But you still have to do real work to get these degrees, at least at any reputable program.
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p>Perhaps there are lesser programs worthy of the name “diploma mill” but painting all programs that offer these degrees as such is lazy of you.
So what? Also, in many cases it can take less work to get a MS degree than a MEd. It depends on the program.
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p>2. Why?
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p>3. How are you going to control for different levels of “worker productivity”? What does that even mean, and how would you measure it across different kinds of jobs?
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p>4. If you read the study, you would see that comprehensive benefits data are very difficult to come by, and are virtually impossible to find for small employers. That’s why the data aren’t included.
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p>5. Why? That sounds like double-counting – pension is already included in the compensation calculations.
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p>6. Are you sure about that? Read the study more carefully.
1) Not all advanced degrees are of equal difficulty, demand, or most importantly have a market for equivalent pay between the public and private sectors. The government doesn’t employ nearly the percentage of highly compensated professionals as does industry, individual practice, or partnerships. Yes, there are AGs, DAs, town managers, etc., but they make up a minuscule proportion of the government workforce in comparison to the multitudes of teachers. I don’t see the disparity in average salaries in the “highly educated” group to be surprising, unexplainable, or unjustified at all.
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p>2) Averages tend to allow extreme income outliers to skew results (especially within the higher income classification).
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p>3) We can start by considering hours worked per year (particularly relevant for teachers). Also, there have been numerous studies estimating the degree to which productivity and productivity improvement lags the private sector.
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p>4) Fair enough, without benefit data over a broader segment of private employment, I consider the study nearly worthless and grossly misleading.
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p>5) Only funded contribution amounts were counted, funding of currently unfunded liabilities were not. To the degree eventual funding of those liabilities occurs, this will be effectively become additional compensation to government pensioners from the taxpaying public.
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p>6) Yep, read it. If anything, the authors’ attempt to portray the government pension position as disadvantaged vs. Social Security participants. For the typical wage earner participating in Social Security with no defined benefit pension this is decidedly false. Yes, a small minority of private employees participate(d) in a defined benefit pension plan–but it is far from typical. Significant employer funding of defined contribution pensions and 401k is similarly in sharp decline and yet this trend was not mentioned nor seemingly controlled for by the authors. Similarly, the poor effective rate of return that Social Security provides to above median wage earners was not accounted for.
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p>2. I’d be interested in the mean v. median comparison.
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p>3. Hours per year? I figure any teacher will but their 185 9.5-hour days up against the typical 240 7-hour days in the private sector.
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p>4. It’s easy to find an excuse to reject a study whose results you don’t like.
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p>5. What do taxpayer contributions toward private-sector subsidies count for? As for pensions, they’re not really liabilities. What they are is politicians who’ve already borrowed more from the fund that they can afford. I pay 105% of my pension — that’s not an unfunded liability, but me making up for theft by politician eager to cut private-sector tax rates.
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p>6. Retirees on Social Security? Guaranteed way to bankrupt town budgets.
that is a salary employee that works 7 hours a day? Cause I don’t know many. Most of the ones I know work at least 10 if not 11-12 hours a day, and the work never really ends, with connective technology.
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p>Really I’d like to know where you came up with that number. Because the Bureau of labor statitstics says
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Please explain how face time is the same as productivity.
If you and your colleagues are working 10-11 hours a day (really? 9am to 9pm with an hour lunch?) then you’re working for free. No wonder you hate union types, insisting that work has intrinsic value and the person doing it should be compensated.
most days I and my colleagues eat lunch at our desks.
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p>And yes I work on average from 8 amd to about 6-7pm every day. As do a fair amount of my colleagues, and other people I know.
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p>It’s called an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
Personally I’m a fan of “8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, and 8 hours for what we will”.
Working 10, 11 hours days because you have to? Fine, working them because it’s an ‘honest days labor’ well…
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What you’re telling me is that you value your work so little you think it’s not worth paying for. Oh, and unions bad and stuff.
Wow, can I touch the hemof your robe or maybe kiss your ring?
Think about the social impact of 12 hour workdays. That means that your kids will get to see you for about 1 hour per day if they’re lucky. If your wife works, then your kids are completely being raised by strangers. Aren’t conservatives supposed to be “pro family”?
If you are an “exempt” employee (not paid overtime), and in particular if you are salaried, then your employer and you have already agreed that you have value to your employer when you are not in your workplace. This is particularly true if you are one of the many employees who have signed over ownership of their work-related intellectual property to their employer
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p>An idea that occurs to you in the shower or while watching porno some evening and is relevant to your employer belongs to your employer. Any work that you do to develop that idea — thinking about it, doodling it on a napkin, talking about it with friends — is valuable to your employer and any of your work products belong to your employer.
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p>That’s why you receive something called “salary” and that’s why you do not receive overtime and holiday pay. You are called “exempt” because you are exempt from the overtime rules, as a result of the above agreement.
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p>A salaried programmer who comes in at 9:00a, leaves for lunch at 12:15, returns from lunch at 2:00, and leaves the office at 4:30p — and who every few weeks wakes up at 2:00a, codes an astonishingly fresh, exciting, and clean enhancement to your employer’s offerings, so that your employer’s company is known for and growing because of its seemingly endless supply of innovation — is providing just as much “honest” value for your employer in exchange for her pay as you.
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p>Parenthetically, my experience in the technology world has been that shops where managers and especially coworkers have enough time and attention to even notice, never mind care about, when other employees are at their desk are invariably dead or dying carcasses.
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p>Employees at healthy growing companies have far too much work to do to worry about such trivia.
Instead we have a teaching system designed by Francis Taylor.
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p>BTW, one of my first jobs interviews out of college was with an engineering organization that made you punch in and out, I was disgusted and never went back – and the company went out of business.
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p>The classes I took at Bristol Community College were WAY harder than the classes I took at UMass Dartmouth.
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p>So, how do you calibrate your difficulty statement?
It’s almost impossible to compare programs in a meaningful way. A course hard for Person A would be a breeze for Person B. I was responding to the original claim that preferred degree A is harder to get than degree I don’t have A.
1.While it may be true that the local portion of the public sector “beyond college” population includes many teachers, the wage data do not change significantly when local employees are removed from the analysis and we look just at state employees (the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll reports that almost all teachers are local employees). For example, in 2009 average hourly wages for state workers with beyond college education was $1,325 compared to $1,315 when both state and local workers are included. Thus, the issue of teachers making up a significant portion of the public sector “beyond college” population does not skew the results. Furthermore, this would also not affect the pattern we see with those workers with just a college degree. The wage gap for those with just a college degree is nearly as large, and this would not include teachers.
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p>2.Other reports address your concern that using averages may make it appear that wages are higher and that using a median may be a better indicator since it isn’t affected by the extreme top and bottom of the spectrum. A similar analysis of public and private sector wages in New England used average wages but also included a regression analysis of wages to test whether the results would differ for workers at the top and bottom of the wage spectrum. The findings of this study, which included looking at the 50th percentile (the median) are consistent with the findings of our report, suggesting that the extreme ends of the wage spectrum do not affect the results significantly. This report also controlled for other factors, including race, age, and gender. It states: “Controlling for age, gender, race, and region, state and local government workers in New England with lower levels of education receive a small wage premium relative to those in the private sector, while highly educated workers face a sizable wage penalty.”
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p>For the full discussion, see Jeffrey Thompson and John Schmitt, “The Wage Penalty for State and Local Government Employees in New England,” September 2010. http://www.peri.umass.edu/file…
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p>3.As I mentioned in response to your first comment, removing teachers from the analysis does not significantly alter the results.
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p>4.As stated in the report, we would ideally compare public employees with college degrees to private sector employees with college degrees. However, those data do not exist. As the best available proxy, we compared public sector employees with college degrees to that sector of the private labor market (large employers) that has a larger share or workers with college degrees. Census data show that of firms with less than 100 employees, 46 percent have a high school degree or less, compared to 35 percent of firms with more than 100 employees. Also, 35 percent of workers in firms with over 100 employees have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 26 percent of workers in firms of fewer than 100 workers (U.S. Census, Current Population Survey. March Supplement, 2009). As we note in the paper, total compensation for less educated workers is likely higher in the public sector than in the private sector. But in the end, this type of analysis in which the characteristics of each sector are taken into account is far better than comparisons that do not take any other factors into account. Yes, it is imperfect, but it is still provides an instructive and useful comparison.
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p>5.There are two reports that were released. The report, “Demystifying the Public Pension System” actually does address the issue of the unfunded liability. Though this is a significant cost to the state, it is inaccurate to include it in an analysis of the cost of current public sector workers. The unfunded liability is the cost of formerly promised pension benefits that the state had not been pre-funding prior to the 1992. The state is actually setting aside funding for the pension benefit accrued by current employees, and is also making annual payments to fund the unfunded liability. It would be inaccurate to say that the state is not funding those liabilities. In addition, current employees almost entirely fund their pension benefits through their own contributions. The cost of current employee pensions has remained close to 1% of the entire state budget over the past decade. The cost, including the unfunded liability, is about 4% of the state budget.
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p>”Demystifying the Public Pension System” can be found here: http://www.massbudget.org/docu…
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p>6.These reports are not about the value of the benefits earned; rather, they examine the cost to the Commonwealth for providing these benefits. The cost of these benefits is the important issue when considering the fiscal impact to our state. Again, the report mentioned above (“Demystifying the Public Pension System”) provides an explanation of employee contributions to their pensions and the reasons why the state is able to achieve a higher investment return, and thus provide a relatively good pension benefit to employees with a low state cost. First, employee contributions begin at 9 percent of employees’ salary, plus an additional 2 percent for salary above $30,000. On average, employee contributions are 9.1 percent of pay, while the state contributes only 2.6 percent of pay. Thus, most current employees are almost entirely funding the cost of their own pension benefits. And, as stated in this paper, “Public employees in Massachusetts receive reasonably good pension benefits. This is primarily the result of two factors: the very large contributions made by state employees into the pension fund, and the ability of the pension fund to achieve high rates of return because it is a very large and diversified fund that can invest for the long term. Because the state pension fund does not face the risk of being liquidated at a particular moment in time, it can invest to receive the highest long-term returns rather than accepting lower returns to achieve greater short term stability – as individual investors often must.” These papers do not argue that the value of public sector pensions is less than Social Security – they show instead that the state cost of providing public sector pensions is less than the cost of participating in Social Security.
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p>– Sadaf Knight, Policy Analyst, MassBduget
Three cheers to the MBPC for bringing some much needed reality to this difficult issue.
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p>I don’t the think the criticism was leveled at local teachers but rather at educators in general. That is, teachers K-12 as well as post high school. After all, higher ed headcount makes up close to 1/4 of total state employee headcount.
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p>Therefore, pulling out local employees from the analysis, completely ignores the potential skew of having higher ed in the data and ignores the situation, for example, of a college economics professor earning less than the chief economist at a financial corporation; a professor of accounting earning less than a private sector accountant. So forth.
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p>
…
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p>Game over I guess, because we can all agree that $1,315 per hour isn’t excessive.
The first “point,” as I read it, is essentially: “Because most private sector employees with ‘beyond college’ education are in jobs that pay more than teaching, it’s totally unfair to point out that those job categories pay more than teaching.”
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p>Your follow-up comment confirms it really means: “It’s just and appropriate that these people are paid more than teachers. Private sector employees with ‘beyond college’ education are important and deservedly well-paid; public sector employees with ‘beyond college’ education are mostly teachers, who obviously don’t deserve comparable pay. They’re only preparing the next generation of Americans. Not important work like suing each other or tanking the global economy.”
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p>Who told you teachers work fewer hours per week? My fiancee is a teacher. For her amazing $43,000 she’s at the school by 7:45 every morning and oversees extracurricular activities every day until 5. Then while I’m watching the Celtics she’s grading homework and looking over tomorrow’s lesson plans. Every Sunday she’s grading. When the kids are off for a week, she’s in meetings and continuing ed. And I’d love to know on what basis you conclude she offers inferior productivity.
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p>For non-teacher professionals, there’s no comparison. I worked as an attorney at a large law firm and it would have been a 70% pay cut for me to go to the DA or AG offices.
Wow, some pretty extensive strawman arguing there. Counselor, I’ll thank you to refrain from putting words in my mouth (you should know better).
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p>
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p>No, but when comparing apples with oranges, it’s not surprising that you see a justifiable difference. It certainly doesn’t mean that government employees or teachers are “under-compensated”. Frankly, being “beyond college” in and of itself doesn’t make you deserve anything.
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p>
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p>Do you seriously believe the typical “beyond college” employee/principal in the private sector is somehow any more responsible for the state of the legal profession or the global economy than the typical public sector teacher? True, I don’t generally subscribe to the teacher as the noblest profession propaganda.
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p>
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p>Actually, I’m closely acquainted with quite a few teachers (family, personal, and professional). Not one of them worked even close to a typical private sector 1920-2000hrs/year.
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p>
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p>Exactly! You exercised personal choice. That doesn’t mean the those who choose public sector employment are under-compensated.
The original post addressed the now-common argument that public sector employees are over-compensated, or better compensated than private sector employees. Now the argument is different. It’s, sure, teachers are paid less than corporate lawyers and MBA’s, but that does not mean teachers are under-compensated. The difference is justifiable.
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p>I’m a bit puzzled by the argument that nobody “deserves” anything simply for having post-college education. I ask because your position that the difference is “justifiable” seems to rest on an assumption that private sector employees with “beyond college” education “deserve” higher salaries. On what basis? Do people “deserve” what they happen to command in the market? That’s a premise I can’t agree with.
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p>Beyond the hours worked argument, which does not comport with my experience, I still don’t see how the salary difference is “justifiable” absent a value judgment about what various jobs “deserve.”
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p>Frankly, I do believe the typical “beyond college” employee in the private sector has some responsibility for the state of the world. Obviously the typical employee isn’t calling the shots, but such a person is devoting his/her abilities to that system. What contribution is being made to the society? The cumulative
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p>I did make a choice to work at a big law firm. I didn’t like it so I also made a choice to leave. Those choices aren’t really relevant, though, to the argument that public sector workers are over-compensated. There’s not much more apples-to-apples comparison than two people, with the same education and same experience doing the same job. And the public sector lawyer will make far less than the law firm lawyer. That’s my only point. I really don’t see how it’s relevant, in addressing a contention that the public sector worker is OVER-paid, or BETTER paid, that the public sector worker could have chosen private sector work instead.
Public employees shouldn’t be in the business of making more money than private sector employees. They generally don’t operate on the kinds of businesses that are fast-growth and high income producing. This is because government takes into account the interests of present companies rather than future companies.
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p>Sometimes government employees can act along with companies, but that is when you get collusion and corruption.
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p>Government employees are the highest-income in countries of Africa where the taxes and regulations stifle private business development. Is that what we want?
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p>Attacks on the income and benefits of public sector workers are a symptom of the failure of the economy to advance private sector income. Part of this is due to the heavy tax and regulatory burden in our state. Government and its minions have always looked for more ways to tax us and regulate us, without any concern that somebody has to make money to pay for all this.
For the most part, they don’t. Did you not read the post?
That’s a very interesting take on Africa you have. Do you have any evidence to back that up? And can you supply any evidence about how we might end up in a similar situation as those African countries?
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p>I suspect that you don’t, and I think it is an absurd and overly simplistic point that’s irrelevant to this discussion. The reasons for weak business development in many African countries has to do with many factors (infrastructure, lingering colonial exploitation, education, industrial diversity, climate, etc.), not primarily government employee salaries.
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p>Any evidence for this?
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p>If that’s true, then states with high tax and regulatory environments should be worse places in which to do business, right? If higher taxes stifle growth, high tax states (and countries) should be worse off?
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p>The Tax Foundation ranks states by their business tax climate. The lower the business taxes, the higher the ranking.
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p>http://www.taxfoundation.org/f…
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p>South Dakota has the best business tax climate followed by Alaska, Wyoming, and Nevada. New York, California, and New Jersey have the worst business tax climates. (The organization only ranks the tax environment, but I would wager that the lower tax states also have much more lax regulatory environments as well.)
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p>If what you say is true about a high tax burden stifling private sector growth, shouldn’t these rankings be reversed? Shouldn’t the states with the highest taxes have trouble attracting, growing, and sustaining businesses?
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p>Many people on the right think lower taxes are a panacea, but they aren’t. There are myriad reasons why certain states and countries perform better than others and trying to claim that lower taxes are the answer is just not supported by the evidence or by reason.
…want the best and brightest serving the public, so I’m more than fine with public sector making more to attract said B&B. I agree with your premise of the last paragraph, but not your conclusion.
But I think it would be stronger if we held civil service exams.
Because there’s obviously no history in this country of private sector income, for the bottom 80% at least, lagging in recent years because of private sector greed. It’s all because of the “tax and regulatory burden.”
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p>No matter that private sector wages and benefits for the average worker were BETTER (acounting for inflation and productivity) during an era of HIGHER taxes on the wealthiest and MORE regulation of business.
Wages are determined by competition, even when the bosses are greedy. Public sector wages will fall because private sector wages have fallen so far. It’s just happening later because of the unions.
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p>I’m not happy that public employees are in the metaphorical gunsights of the budget cutters. If you’re not happy with it then the best thing for you to do would be to encourage a scarcity of labor by faster growth.
would seem to be consistent with what we (at the Mass. Coalition of Families and Advocates) have seen of the employment situation in the human services sector in Massachusetts. In general, direct-care workers in state-run facilities tend to be paid more and have better benefits than their counterparts in private or nonprofit firms that provide similar services.
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p>In other words, these relatively low-level jobs, which require a relatively low level of education, pay better in the public sector. However, administrators in government, who have higher levels of education, are paid considerably less on average than their counterparts in the private and nonprofit sectors, i.e., the executives who manage the nonprofit firms that contract with the state.
… to kill the other half.”
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p>– Jay Gould, Archetypal Robber Baron.
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p>The vehemence with which private sector workers these days are attacking public sector workers, sadly, proves the truth of Gould’s comment.
adjusting for hours worked? It might be that in the private sector the more highly educated works are in salaried positions and don’t receive overtime.
in the public sector.
“for actually critiquing/criticizing the research. We may disagree, but at least he’s open to going beyond anecdote and an irrational dislike of public workers.
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p>There is more than the MBPC study, however. Debunking the Myth of the Overcompensated Public Employee uses a different data set and compares state & local employees with private employees of the same education level.
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p>Comparing public and private sector workers has been well-studied. There are TWO basic approaches: 1) the people approach compares workers on set characteristics, ex. education 2) the position approach compares similar positions or jobs, ex. secretaries. The second approach is complicated by trying to match jobs in the public sector that don’t have equivalents in the private sector, like cops and firemen. The people approach has drawbacks, but it is the better of the two.
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p>Education.If I’m not mistaken, the MBPC study couldn’t disaggregate the college degree information because of the particular data set it used. So they don’t control for education. “Debunking” controls for education, but not at the state level (again due to the data set): on average, it finds that a Bachelor’s degree pays 25% less in the state and local sector than it does in the public sector. There’s 31% penalty for a Master’s degree in the private sector.
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p>Hours Worked. “Debunking” also controls for hours worked. I’m not surprised to learn that Rob “Honest Day’s Work for an Honest Day’s Pay” Eno puts in more hours than a public employee. As a private employee with a Bachelor’s degree, he would on the average work 4% more hours than a similar public employee. If he had a professional degree, he would on the average work 7% more hours. If he were a blue collar worker, he would still work more hours, but only about 2% or 3% more.
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p>The important point, however, is that once you factor in education AND benefits and fewer hours, public employees still come with a slight penalty for working in the public sector.
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p>I don’t think the MBPC study is misleading at all. Like all studies, it gives an incomplete picture. When added together with “Debunking” and Out of Balance? Comparing Public and Private Sector Compensation Over 20 Years, it suggests that Massachusetts state and local workers are compensated (that’s including wages) slightly less than private sector workers. The study reiterates other studies,tending to strengthen
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p>When we come to unfunded liabilities, it is important not to lump Massachusetts in with California. Our pension funds have been switched from “pay as you go” to be fully funded. There’s a schedule for it. The Massachusetts teachers pension fund is already over 90% funded. And yes, we have a defined pension benefit package, but it’s all of our money! The state administers the fund, but it’s our money. No matching funds from our employers.
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p>Social security, as most Republicans will tell you when it suits their purposes, is not a pension fund. It’s supposed to be a form of insurance. It’s too bad we don’t have a state or national pensions that all workers can pay into like they do in Europe(in England, retirees are called “pensioners”), but hey we don’t want socialism.
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p>