8 ms·

Without actually showing some statistics on the pension payments and how the overall budget breaks down, I can't help but feel manipulated. Yes it's easy to pa

Without actually showing some statistics on the pension payments and how the overall budget breaks down, I can't help but feel manipulated. Yes it's easy to paint an ugly picture of the privileged outliers, but I suspect the correlation between school and infrastructure cuts and money going straight into rich pensioners pockets is not quite as cut and dried as NYT would have us believe.

cma 9y ago
The numbers I found: Oregon population: 4,000,000 Pension deficit 2017: $25,000,000,000 Per-capita share: $6,250 Assuming a large portion of the pensions will get spent on goods, services, and donations in state, it doesn't seem like a huge disaster, depending on how it grows.
- Scoundreller 9y ago
  Assuming the pensioners stay. Why stay completely when you can spend change your domicile to a zero-tax sunshine state or WA?
  - cma 9y ago
    Family and friend networks.
- mythrwy 9y ago
  4 million people. How many working people with enough income to pay tax? Half? Less? So maybe ~13K per tax paying person in outstanding pension obligations alone? That is a big deal.
  - cma 9y ago
    > So maybe ~13K per tax paying person in outstanding pension obligations alone? Then that would be an obligation of about $300 per tax paying worker per year over their working lifetime. The average yearly salary in Oregon is $50,000. The article makes it out through anecdote that this is why they didn't have gas to send trucks out for a road repair. In the last 20 years Oregon has had near 1% per year population growth as well. The article is focused on outlier pensions for a collegiate athletic director paid partly out of sports merchandising and a medical school head who was an eye surgeon.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      If the average person makes 50K a year then the average person in Oregon takes home about 35K per year. So you say it's "only" 300 extra dollars a year they have to pay. In other words, this person now owes nearly 1% of their disposable income for life to cover _currently_ unfunded pensions with no corresponding increase in goods or service levels. To put it another way, this person will work ~1/3 of a year out of their career to pay for unfunded pensions.
      - cma 9y ago
        Why would you look at their after tax income when this comes out of their taxes? (But I can't remember the deductibility rules under the new tax code, maybe they can't deduct state tax payments from federal now). (Also, I made a mistake, that number was household income)
        mythrwy 9y ago
        Because unless you can figure out how to get the government to count tax twice that's where the money is going to come from... disposable income now going to tax. Otherwise now the government now has less money to spend. Aka the "no fuel for trucks" you mention.
        cma 9y ago
        >Because unless you can figure out how to get the government to count tax twice that's where the money is going to come from... disposable income now going to tax. State tax is deductible from federal taxes up to $10,000. So you can pay that $300 without it all coming out of after tax income. Most people may not go over standard deduction, but dollar wise state tax is probably paid by high earners who will, since there is a graduated income tax in Oregon.
- cc439 9y ago
  A dollar can only change hands so many times before it's worthless unless it's going towards actual value-adding goods/services. Considering how deprived the general population is for funds to spend on value-added goods, I don't think taking $6,250 from every person in the state just to support a tiny, tiny fraction of the population is doing much good. That and a large portion of pensioners flee to states without an income tax or at least states with a better climate and lower cost of living. The statistics of state employees leaving my home state for such states alone are shocking.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    >I don't think taking $6,250 from every person in the state just to support a tiny, tiny fraction of the population is doing much good. The government paying its debts and not committing wage theft is a public good. It's a pivotal decision point in whether we are a functioning civilization with a rule of law or a third-world regime on its way down. It may be convenient in this one isolated instance to renege, but the knock-on effects of the message it sends - that public servants will be paid only when convenient - will be huge. Although that may be just as well, if you hope to minimize the role of government going forward.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > It may be convenient in this one isolated instance to renege, but the knock-on effects of the message it sends - that public servants will be paid only when convenient - will be huge. Although that may be just as well, if you hope to minimize the role of government going forward. If you want to reduce the role of government to only a narrow core of tasks for which there is no alternative, you probably still don't want to send the message that workers in government will be arbitrarily deprived of the compensation for which they've agreed to labor, since presumably in that case it's even more essential that the set of tasks to which government is reduced is done by people who are competent and motivated.
    - saosebastiao 9y ago
      The rule of law should also have something to say about making promises on other people's backs. Why should my generation have to pay just because some previous generation made a promise against my generation's earnings without my generation's consent?
- ww520 9y ago
  I assume that's over many years of the pension payment. Assuming average of 20 years of pension payment, that's about $300 per year per person.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  You are going to charge babies 6 grand to pay public pensions?
bartart 9y ago
In California "More than 200,000 civil servants became eligible to retire at 55 — and in many cases collect more than half their highest salary for life. California Highway Patrol officers could retire at 50 and receive as much as 90% of their peak pay for as long as they lived." http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-deal/ http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-d... This seems like a pretty big budget item, especially since most CA government pension funds haven't achieved their expected 7.5% return consistently for years if not decades. Eventually the money to pay for these large pensions comes from money that would have been spent on other things.
- acdha 9y ago
  > This seems like a pretty big budget item, especially since most CA government pension funds haven't achieved their expected 7.5% return consistently for years if not decades. That seems like the big story: making plans assuming such a high average is simply malpractice. There are employee behaviors worth changing (e.g. the common problem of juicing final salary using overtime) but most of the blame should go to the people who signed off on that plan.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    They’re the same people. These policies were heavily lobbied for by public unions.
    - acdha 9y ago
      That leaves out the other side: who agreed to the deal and dishonestly pretended magic free money would pay for it? The unions didn’t force the state to make tax cuts below fiscally prudent levels.
      - paleotrope 9y ago
        When one party is funded by the public service unions, and they are in power, what do you think is going to happen.
noobermin 9y ago
If you click around on the author's publications, a theme is government pensions and government spending in general.
kartan 9y ago
> Without actually showing some statistics on the pension payments and how the overall budget breaks down, I can't help but feel manipulated. The article links the lack of public services to high pensions. It´s painted as if there were no other options but to cut on pensions. "In the meantime, mounting pension costs mean that a generation of schoolchildren is growing up in the area with no theater program, no orchestra, no wood shop and minimal sports, chorus and art." Because pensions are the only reason. Maybe increased inequality, the lack of taxing of the top 1%, money wasted on lobbying, are also causes. But we are not offered any data.
IIAOPSW 9y ago
To generalize, all news is anecdotes and never data and its all manipulating scare mongering (except fivethrityeight and perhaps the economist). Problem is with the human wetware. People want to read a story.
mirimir 9y ago
Yeah, the focus on a few outliers is strange. The bigger issue, from what I've read, is that governments agreed to huge pensions in contracts with public employee unions. In exchange for lower salaries. Because pensions were deferred costs.

cma 9y ago

The numbers I found: Oregon population: 4,000,000 Pension deficit 2017: $25,000,000,000 Per-capita share: $6,250 Assuming a large portion of the pensions will get spent on goods, services, and donations in state, it doesn't seem like a huge disaster, depending on how it grows.

Scoundreller 9y ago
Assuming the pensioners stay. Why stay completely when you can spend change your domicile to a zero-tax sunshine state or WA?
- cma 9y ago
  Family and friend networks.
mythrwy 9y ago
4 million people. How many working people with enough income to pay tax? Half? Less? So maybe ~13K per tax paying person in outstanding pension obligations alone? That is a big deal.
- cma 9y ago
  > So maybe ~13K per tax paying person in outstanding pension obligations alone? Then that would be an obligation of about $300 per tax paying worker per year over their working lifetime. The average yearly salary in Oregon is $50,000. The article makes it out through anecdote that this is why they didn't have gas to send trucks out for a road repair. In the last 20 years Oregon has had near 1% per year population growth as well. The article is focused on outlier pensions for a collegiate athletic director paid partly out of sports merchandising and a medical school head who was an eye surgeon.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    If the average person makes 50K a year then the average person in Oregon takes home about 35K per year. So you say it's "only" 300 extra dollars a year they have to pay. In other words, this person now owes nearly 1% of their disposable income for life to cover _currently_ unfunded pensions with no corresponding increase in goods or service levels. To put it another way, this person will work ~1/3 of a year out of their career to pay for unfunded pensions.
    - cma 9y ago
      Why would you look at their after tax income when this comes out of their taxes? (But I can't remember the deductibility rules under the new tax code, maybe they can't deduct state tax payments from federal now). (Also, I made a mistake, that number was household income)
      - mythrwy 9y ago
        Because unless you can figure out how to get the government to count tax twice that's where the money is going to come from... disposable income now going to tax. Otherwise now the government now has less money to spend. Aka the "no fuel for trucks" you mention.
        cma 9y ago
        >Because unless you can figure out how to get the government to count tax twice that's where the money is going to come from... disposable income now going to tax. State tax is deductible from federal taxes up to $10,000. So you can pay that $300 without it all coming out of after tax income. Most people may not go over standard deduction, but dollar wise state tax is probably paid by high earners who will, since there is a graduated income tax in Oregon.
cc439 9y ago
A dollar can only change hands so many times before it's worthless unless it's going towards actual value-adding goods/services. Considering how deprived the general population is for funds to spend on value-added goods, I don't think taking $6,250 from every person in the state just to support a tiny, tiny fraction of the population is doing much good. That and a large portion of pensioners flee to states without an income tax or at least states with a better climate and lower cost of living. The statistics of state employees leaving my home state for such states alone are shocking.
- closeparen 9y ago
  >I don't think taking $6,250 from every person in the state just to support a tiny, tiny fraction of the population is doing much good. The government paying its debts and not committing wage theft is a public good. It's a pivotal decision point in whether we are a functioning civilization with a rule of law or a third-world regime on its way down. It may be convenient in this one isolated instance to renege, but the knock-on effects of the message it sends - that public servants will be paid only when convenient - will be huge. Although that may be just as well, if you hope to minimize the role of government going forward.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > It may be convenient in this one isolated instance to renege, but the knock-on effects of the message it sends - that public servants will be paid only when convenient - will be huge. Although that may be just as well, if you hope to minimize the role of government going forward. If you want to reduce the role of government to only a narrow core of tasks for which there is no alternative, you probably still don't want to send the message that workers in government will be arbitrarily deprived of the compensation for which they've agreed to labor, since presumably in that case it's even more essential that the set of tasks to which government is reduced is done by people who are competent and motivated.
  - saosebastiao 9y ago
    The rule of law should also have something to say about making promises on other people's backs. Why should my generation have to pay just because some previous generation made a promise against my generation's earnings without my generation's consent?
ww520 9y ago
I assume that's over many years of the pension payment. Assuming average of 20 years of pension payment, that's about $300 per year per person.
conanbatt 9y ago
You are going to charge babies 6 grand to pay public pensions?

bartart 9y ago

In California "More than 200,000 civil servants became eligible to retire at 55 — and in many cases collect more than half their highest salary for life. California Highway Patrol officers could retire at 50 and receive as much as 90% of their peak pay for as long as they lived." http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-deal/ http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-pension-crisis-davis-d... This seems like a pretty big budget item, especially since most CA government pension funds haven't achieved their expected 7.5% return consistently for years if not decades. Eventually the money to pay for these large pensions comes from money that would have been spent on other things.

acdha 9y ago
> This seems like a pretty big budget item, especially since most CA government pension funds haven't achieved their expected 7.5% return consistently for years if not decades. That seems like the big story: making plans assuming such a high average is simply malpractice. There are employee behaviors worth changing (e.g. the common problem of juicing final salary using overtime) but most of the blame should go to the people who signed off on that plan.
- rayiner 9y ago
  They’re the same people. These policies were heavily lobbied for by public unions.
  - acdha 9y ago
    That leaves out the other side: who agreed to the deal and dishonestly pretended magic free money would pay for it? The unions didn’t force the state to make tax cuts below fiscally prudent levels.
    - paleotrope 9y ago
      When one party is funded by the public service unions, and they are in power, what do you think is going to happen.

noobermin 9y ago

If you click around on the author's publications, a theme is government pensions and government spending in general.

kartan 9y ago

> Without actually showing some statistics on the pension payments and how the overall budget breaks down, I can't help but feel manipulated. The article links the lack of public services to high pensions. It´s painted as if there were no other options but to cut on pensions. "In the meantime, mounting pension costs mean that a generation of schoolchildren is growing up in the area with no theater program, no orchestra, no wood shop and minimal sports, chorus and art." Because pensions are the only reason. Maybe increased inequality, the lack of taxing of the top 1%, money wasted on lobbying, are also causes. But we are not offered any data.

IIAOPSW 9y ago

To generalize, all news is anecdotes and never data and its all manipulating scare mongering (except fivethrityeight and perhaps the economist). Problem is with the human wetware. People want to read a story.

mirimir 9y ago

Yeah, the focus on a few outliers is strange. The bigger issue, from what I've read, is that governments agreed to huge pensions in contracts with public employee unions. In exchange for lower salaries. Because pensions were deferred costs.