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The alternative interpretation is that politicians and the people who elect them (meaning all of us) tend to be short sighted and underfund pensions for public

by neaden 10y ago

The alternative interpretation is that politicians and the people who elect them (meaning all of us) tend to be short sighted and underfund pensions for public workers. Many of those public workers are willing to work for less pay because of the pension, so in effect we are defrauding them. Detroit is an odd example to use as there we are dealing with a severe population crash, that's not the situation in California.

seibelj 10y ago
Public workers don't settle for less pay than private sector workers, that is an often repeated talking point that simply isn't true.[0] A garbage man, janitor, administrator, etc. working for the government isn't going to magically make more salary by quitting and going to the private sector. Top level employees can make more in the private sector, but the average worker cannot. Public employees make more money, are very difficult to fire, and have far more benefits than most workers. [0] https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay
- neaden 10y ago
  "Other studies based on comparisons between similar federal and private workers find either no wage gap or a federal wage advantage. A 2012 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study found that, for comparable workers, federal wages were similar to private wages overall, with just a small two percent advantage for federal workers" Looking at that report it looks like from a bachelors on up public sector workers get less compensation then private.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Public workers don't settle for less pay than private sector workers That's...Complicated. In unskilled labor and skilled trades positions, it's often the case that public salaries are competitive, or at least that total compensation (including benefits) is. In most general analytical/management positions, it's not close, public employees get paid far less. In IT and some other fields the gap is even greater.
- jhayward 10y ago
  They absolutely do settle for less. I moved from public sector to private sector and tripled my total compensation. I did go to a lot more meetings, though. :-) At lower skill and compensation levels public sector jobs do have a pay advantage. At much past high school graduate levels of skill the advantage shifts to private pay, and that shift goes exponential for any skill that is in demand.
MarkPNeyer 10y ago
When boomers retire and aren't given the pensions they promised, they'll be pissed off. Maybe it wasn't so smart to tell the millenials "yeah, we promised you'd get a job after going to college, but, eh, tough luck things have changed." I doubt there'll be much sympathy.
- jhayward 10y ago
  Who promised anyone a job? How is it that someone interprets "you need a college education to get a good job" as some kind of guarantee? On the other hand folks nearing retirement today had actual promises in hand, on paper, "work at this pay for this period and you will receive a deferred benefit of X". Much harder to make a case that anyone was bamboozling anyone in that transaction. By the way, this generational warfare theme is extremely destructive and does its proponents no good. It doesn't help when proponents exhibit the kind of thinking that asserts someone was guaranteed a job.
  - MarkPNeyer 10y ago
    Go to college and you'll be fine was the implicit contract made over and over to kids growing up. "Just go to college, it doesn't matter what you study." People my age were told this, over and over and over. Ad naseum. Of course, the people saying it probably believed it. Now you're right that there was no paper on hand. There was no explicit written agreement between adults - just an implicit one between adults and children. When this agreement wasn't upheld because of the housing crises and a change in the economy, there was nobody to sue; no agreement to say "this was violated" other than the implicit social contract between the new adults and those who raised and guided then through an often inane, ridiculous system. I know people paying over a thousand bucks a month in student loans, and they aren't making much money because they studied digital/graphic design instead of computer programming. This guy would love to start a company, but a 1k/month loan payment puts a bit of a dent in his budget. I didn't have that problem. I studied computer science and physics and never had an issue. The people i've seen struggle with this were people who were a) good and b) wanted to do something good for the word. People who haven't struggled were those who just wanted to get money and didn't really care a bout their impact on the world, and then those who went into certain classes of sciences - i.e. not biology. I agree that the generational warfare is destructive. I've seen so much shade thrown at millennials by the people who raised them, but you're right that it does no good to play that same game. I think you're right if you say that college students should be self-aware enough to know that studying a major not tied to a career will make it harder to earn a good living. By the same token, I think it's also accurate to say "if you wanted your pension paid, you should have ensured that the government would remain solvent."

by neaden 10y ago

seibelj 10y ago

Public workers don't settle for less pay than private sector workers, that is an often repeated talking point that simply isn't true.[0] A garbage man, janitor, administrator, etc. working for the government isn't going to magically make more salary by quitting and going to the private sector. Top level employees can make more in the private sector, but the average worker cannot. Public employees make more money, are very difficult to fire, and have far more benefits than most workers. [0] https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/federal-worker-pay

neaden 10y ago
"Other studies based on comparisons between similar federal and private workers find either no wage gap or a federal wage advantage. A 2012 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study found that, for comparable workers, federal wages were similar to private wages overall, with just a small two percent advantage for federal workers" Looking at that report it looks like from a bachelors on up public sector workers get less compensation then private.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Public workers don't settle for less pay than private sector workers That's...Complicated. In unskilled labor and skilled trades positions, it's often the case that public salaries are competitive, or at least that total compensation (including benefits) is. In most general analytical/management positions, it's not close, public employees get paid far less. In IT and some other fields the gap is even greater.
jhayward 10y ago
They absolutely do settle for less. I moved from public sector to private sector and tripled my total compensation. I did go to a lot more meetings, though. :-) At lower skill and compensation levels public sector jobs do have a pay advantage. At much past high school graduate levels of skill the advantage shifts to private pay, and that shift goes exponential for any skill that is in demand.

MarkPNeyer 10y ago

When boomers retire and aren't given the pensions they promised, they'll be pissed off. Maybe it wasn't so smart to tell the millenials "yeah, we promised you'd get a job after going to college, but, eh, tough luck things have changed." I doubt there'll be much sympathy.

jhayward 10y ago
Who promised anyone a job? How is it that someone interprets "you need a college education to get a good job" as some kind of guarantee? On the other hand folks nearing retirement today had actual promises in hand, on paper, "work at this pay for this period and you will receive a deferred benefit of X". Much harder to make a case that anyone was bamboozling anyone in that transaction. By the way, this generational warfare theme is extremely destructive and does its proponents no good. It doesn't help when proponents exhibit the kind of thinking that asserts someone was guaranteed a job.
- MarkPNeyer 10y ago
  Go to college and you'll be fine was the implicit contract made over and over to kids growing up. "Just go to college, it doesn't matter what you study." People my age were told this, over and over and over. Ad naseum. Of course, the people saying it probably believed it. Now you're right that there was no paper on hand. There was no explicit written agreement between adults - just an implicit one between adults and children. When this agreement wasn't upheld because of the housing crises and a change in the economy, there was nobody to sue; no agreement to say "this was violated" other than the implicit social contract between the new adults and those who raised and guided then through an often inane, ridiculous system. I know people paying over a thousand bucks a month in student loans, and they aren't making much money because they studied digital/graphic design instead of computer programming. This guy would love to start a company, but a 1k/month loan payment puts a bit of a dent in his budget. I didn't have that problem. I studied computer science and physics and never had an issue. The people i've seen struggle with this were people who were a) good and b) wanted to do something good for the word. People who haven't struggled were those who just wanted to get money and didn't really care a bout their impact on the world, and then those who went into certain classes of sciences - i.e. not biology. I agree that the generational warfare is destructive. I've seen so much shade thrown at millennials by the people who raised them, but you're right that it does no good to play that same game. I think you're right if you say that college students should be self-aware enough to know that studying a major not tied to a career will make it harder to earn a good living. By the same token, I think it's also accurate to say "if you wanted your pension paid, you should have ensured that the government would remain solvent."