1st*toright
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2017
the trade off though is public service employment generally pays much less than the private sector for the identical job. in dh's division IT folks were making a fraction of what the going rate was in the industry. my line of worked required very specialized degrees and licensing to so much as sign certain documents. the same credentials in a private practice paid such that the turn over was tremendous (why public sector tried to get people within to do the education on their dime and commit to so many years of employment otherwise it was very quick turnover). if benefits don't offset the pay then paying the prevailing wage for a given job will end up costing the tax payers as well so i think to some extent they look to the numbers and crunch how long a retiree tends to live post retirement and the cost of those benefit expenses vs decades and decades of much higher pay (and there are careers in public service where people retire in their early 60's and the norm is death w/in 5 years b/c of the nature of their prior jobs-my dad used to read his retiree newsletter and attested to it, and i read mine and can see it month to month for certain classifications).
the county i worked for began to renege on some agreements with retirees back in 2002 but the capper was when they said the were going to cancel all health coverage for retirees now none of us get it for free but back in the day we got to pay at active employee rates, then it was capped years later so retirees pay the difference (no incentive for them to find cheaper coverage). the retirees had to launch a lawsuit to keep our benefits. crazy amounts of money for legal fees on both sides-what a waste.
According to a Pew Study, on average a public sector job pays 25% MORE than the same job in the private sector. My son went from private sector IT to public sector and DOUBLED his salary. And the benefits are amazing.
A former co-worker of mine took a California State Public Information Officer job. She is 10 years younger than me, and has 10 years less experience. Pay is public record here. Her pay in 2018 $141,633. That is more than my wife and I make COMBINED. And this is a job that we are over qualified for.
My point was not whether public employees should or should not receive benefits, or what their payscale ought to be, merely that years of not accounting for the cost of future benefits is currently bankrupting many state/local jurisdictions, creating many of the tax increases and modifications to promised benefits that are such a headache. It's what just about did in the auto industry, and many states still haven't hit bottom.
Again, if we could tackle the overall cost of healthcare issue, it would benefit states and cities who are on the hook for such a large portion of healthcare costs for employees/retired employees. Transparency, consistent pricing and everyone participating in the system are the only ways that I see healthcare costs getting fixed. As long as there is such huge uncertainty about whether bills will get paid (ie lots of uninsured people's costs to cover), hospitals and insurance companies are going to continue to jack up prices in any way they can to make sure that they aren't the ones left holding the bag.