“Q. The average public employee pension is less than $30,000 a year. So aren’t critics only “scapegoating” public employees because of the current tough times?
These averages are misleading given that they include all the many people who have worked in the public employee system over the years, many of whom worked for short periods of time. The massive pension increases have taken place over the last decade, so that amount is higher for newer employees. The average new CHP employee has a pension of almost $90,000 a year. Even the lowest number is far higher than the average pension for private-sector workers. And the number of $100,000 Pension Club members in California is at 15,000 and growing by 40 percent a year. The formulas are the formulas. If a person starts work in an agency that offers “2.7 percent at 55,” that person will retire with 81 percent of their final year’s pay after 30 years, period. That’s far more generous than what’s available to most private-sector workers. Reporters need to do more comparisons between private-sector and public-sector benefits.”
The average pension formula is highly misleading as the article indicates. The average pension formula is designed to be highly misleading to confuse the public about the level of surplus deferred compensation provided by these pensions. I have calculated surplus deferred compensation amoong recent Colorado retirees. The levels are staggering. Colorado has a 2.5% at 30 benefit rate although this rate has been modified somewhat for new hires. My calculations indicate average surplus deferred compensation of more than $500,000 per retiree with professionals and administrators making much more. In one extreme case, a financial administrator walked away with a pension with more than $5,000,000 of surplus deferred compensation (retirement at age 50 with 30 years). She is now working for the university again in a part-time status. If you are interested in my pension studies, you can see summarized versions on the Independence Institute website under Mannino.