Posted on 09/30/2010 10:06:01 PM PDT by SeattleBruce
FORTUNE -- In these dog days of our Great Recession, no one is feeling especially lenient toward taxpayer-funded fat cats. But what if that "fat cat" isn't some Wall Street banker (most of whom have paid back government loans with interest) but rather the retired small-town city manager in Northern California living on $261,000 or the 40-year-old former New York City cop who gets to collect $100,000 a year for the rest of his life?
Even as we watch a populist revolt against the risk-taking rich continue to play out this election season, there are seeds of a new rebellion forming -- against the generous pensions guaranteed to state and local workers.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
‘The story will only get worse because pensions nationwide are underfunded. Earlier this year the Pew Center on the States calculated a $1 trillion shortfall between the $2.35 trillion states set aside in 2008 for employee retirement benefits and the $3.35 trillion committed. Economists like Biggs say the gap is far bigger because the states use overly optimistic projections on investment returns. “If you calculate public pensions by private standards, it would be a disaster,” he says.’
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I don’t understand why city managers, etc. should get to retire with a cushy pension after 20 years, but what are you going to do with the cops? They can’t be running after criminals well into their sixties, and they have always been cops, so what else are they going to do? People who worked horrible hours in all kinds of weather and on holidays, and risked their lives to protect people, should not just be let go with a gold watch.
That's for the youngster in uniform. The investigators/detectives spend most all their time at a computer and telephone obtaining needed information, tracking down bad guys etc....The can easily do that into their 70s.
Yes, but how many detectives does a department need? They cannot all be promoted to detective. You would still have the problem of paying all of them, plus the new crop of street cops. There must be a better way.
It’s about proportion and the municipalities got sloppy.
no nurse in the average hospital gets to retire in 20 yrs....often they work up to 65 or even beyond....
now I ask you...you feel particularly safe having a 65 yro drawing up Digoxin thru her glasses and injecting it into your veins?....probably not....but firemen and policemen, who have sporadic physical activity...they can't make it over 20 yrs?
Big and moderate sized cities? Hundreds...Fewer for smaller.
My small city does not have any defined benefit pensions even for law enforcement. Give them a 401K and Social Security just like everyone else. We do not need to guarantee them a retirement lifestyle to have a competent law enforcement staff. Why should law enforcement be entitled to a retirement of luxury? If law enforcement are injured on the job, they can apply for disability.
Nurses get paid a ton more than a street cop.
Did over 20 years in the military and I don't even get a quarter the retirement pay of that NYC cop.
Sounds like you’ve never been in a fight,,, utterly and finally alone,, with people watching paralyzed in fear,,,the kind where if you lose, you or innocent others will die.
Yeah, being a cop is just like being a nurse./
but i guess thats only “sporadic”.
Lets not forget that the Insurance companies come into play also on these pensions. I think Obama’s Healthcare plan might very well also force the Insurance companies down finacially...then a short trip to put healthcare under the Government control entirely...as well as the Insurance Industry. It’s all about the cash flow to the coffers....who has them...where they are at...and how to get control of it all without stirring the beehive too much. The American people being the Bees.
The ImF is meeting this month...would be especially interesting to be a fly on the wall of those three day meetings in Washington. October surprises are being lined up. IMO
There is no reason a cop can’t do just about any job well into his late 50s or 60s.
Sorry but that is a poor comparison Cherry. My daughter-in-law is a ER Trauma nurse...I know what she endures...and yes they are on the frontlines...but rare there is a gun to their head...kids in high school have a greater risk of injury than a nurse.
That’s not to playdown a nurse...they take a different kind of beating altogether..but it is generally not life threatening to them.
I love our policeforce...have dated a couple even...it’s a brutal life and they see things we never could imagine. Furthermore their hands are often tied when they know they could help in any given situation but by laws governing them they can’t budge. A nurse on the other hand does not have those constraints for the most part. Addditionally their homes and families are constantly at risk.
No a nurse cannot be compared....it is vastly a different story altogether.
Firemen, if they are busy, die young. Smoke inhalation over twenty plus years means that most firemen die ten years earlier than civilians.
The top two causes of early death for policemen are suicide and heartbreak. Divorce more than doubles a man’s chances of dying, each and every year he’s divorced. Police have higher rates of divorce than civilians. But most police live long enough to enjoy many years of retirement. They die about two years before men and women in similar social/financial conditions.
Other government employees live longer than private employees, due to job security, medical benefits and decreased stress from higher pay. I haven’t seen any studies to hang hard numbers, though.
Some nurses get paid very well vs. comparable college degreed employees, but overall, having to work nights and weekends explains most of that. Job security (ever hear of a hospital where nurses were underworked) and fair benefits and first-hand knowledge of what happens when one ignores health means nurses live longer than comparable men and women.
And many of us in the private sector make less than we did ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago. Jobs with no security and minimal benefits are common. So there is justified anger when a weak state legislature, city council or school board pays twice as much in benefits as the taxpayers receive. School janitors retiring on $105,000, lawyers at $150,000 etc. make regular guys and gals see red.
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