To Hell With Pensions: Let Them Eat Dog Food

[marmar]

from the Working Life blog:



To Hell With Pensions: Let Them Eat Dog Food
by Jonathan Tasini

Tuesday 23 of June, 2009


The other day, I saw an amazing spectacle: a firefighter responded to a call to a burning building in New York City and, as he was dragging the fire hose to the fire, a crowd of angry people stopped him and said, "Stop. Your pension is too generous so don't you dare put that fire out". Absurd, you say? Well, yes--if you mean the intensifying attacks against the pensions people earn.

Yesterday, there was an attack against firefighters' pensions in the pages of the Daily News:

Even in the midst of a deep economic downturn, New York City taxpayers are paying billions every year to provide city workers with retirement benefits that are extraordinarily generous by any standard.

Since fiscal year 2003, the taxpayer contribution to municipal workers' pensions has more than tripled - to $6.4 billion in fiscal year 2009. At this rate, in four years, every working-age New Yorker will be putting an average of $1,250 a year into the pension funds of municipal workers.

We cannot keep giving new workers retirement benefits at the current levels.

Take current city firefighters, for example. They are entitled to retire after 20 years of service at half pay, with their overtime included in that calculation. In 2006, the last year for which data are available, the pension benefit for a newly retired firefighter averaged just under $73,000 annually. On top of that, many get another $12,000 every December as a "Christmas bonus" to bring the annual cash total to $85,000 - all of which is exempt from state and local income taxes.

That attack came from someone from the "Citizens Budget Commission", a self-perpetuating organization which has zero grassroots links and is simply a front run primarily by corporate leaders in New York.

Today, The New York Times carries another attack:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is sounding the alarm over New York City’s pension system these days, calling it "out of control."

Costs have ballooned, he says, threatening to bankrupt the city. Municipal unions and lawmakers in Albany created the crisis, he suggests, and left the city holding the bag.

But interviews and budget records show that the Bloomberg administration itself is responsible for much of the growth in city pension costs over the last eight years, and has repeatedly missed opportunities to rein in the spending.

Since Mr. Bloomberg took office, city contributions to the pension system have jumped nearly five-fold to $6.3 billion, from $1.4 billion, and they now account for one out of every 10 dollars in the city’s budget.

A major reason: the mayor has given the city’s 300,000 workers generous pay increases, guaranteeing that they retire with bigger pensions, which are typically 50 percent of salary. Such raises force the city to make heftier payments to the pension system now.

So, let's talk about the real world. The average pension for a transit worker in New York is about $20,000-a year--after a job that very few of the people who attack transit workers' "generous benefits" would ever take. Other city workers' pensions are in the low 30s. And firefighters' pensions average around $70,000.

If you think for a moment about what the cost of living is in New York, that isn't a lot of money even at the "high" end.

So, what is going on here? In the public sector, the hue and cry over "generous pensions" obscures a major point: the reason city and state governments are facing budget deficits is not because of "generous" pensions. Putting aside the most recent budget shortfalls made worse by the economic crisis, the real problem is that in New York--and in virtually every other state in the country--we've allowed the richest people in society to escape paying their fair share. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=14084

[ejpoeta]

1. the only pensions people should be complaining about is that of congress

and CEOs. what the hell is wrong with people that would say anything about people who friggin risk their lives everyday fighting fires!! give me a damned break.

[Hannah Bell]

2. kick for the asset stripping of the US working class