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I have relatives who work for a police department. There are some people who have put in their 30 years (or whatever it is) and are entitled to collect most of

I have relatives who work for a police department. There are some people who have put in their 30 years (or whatever it is) and are entitled to collect most of their salary for the rest of their lives once they retire. But they don’t want to retire, so they continue to work basically for free. If they retired, somebody new would be hired to take their position. For jobs like that, it’s a zero-sum game.

aww_dang 4y ago
Public or government managed positions are a bit of an exception. For the sake of illustration, I'll make an attempt. Of course this is strictly hypothetical. The increased public safety from your experienced relative could create other opportunities in the city, such as a thriving retail sector. Whereas without that standard of public safety, shoplifting or other petty criminal activity might drive retailers away. You can claim that the overall demand for police officers would be one less in this scenario. However the demand for retail employment and the demand for those goods sold by retail shops might increase. Therefore, the overall size of the pie has increased. We can extrapolate a few levels from this point. A growing retail sector might necessitate further public or private security roles. Of course as with any example, there are probably several approaches to produce gotcha counter arguments. This is only meant to illustrate the larger point and not argue the specifics of the example.
layer8 4y ago
If they effectively work for free, it's the employers fault they don't hire someone in addition. It's not like there isn't enough useful work to do.
- criddell 4y ago
  I don’t think I explained it well. The employee is working for free from their perspective, not the county’s. The employee could retire and collect 100% pension or they can continue to work and collect around the same amount of money as salary. If they don’t retire, then the budget hasn’t been freed up to hire the new person.
  - layer8 4y ago
    It’s different budgets, but it’s the same amount of tax money either way, so arguably it shouldn’t make a difference from the employer’s side as well. The budgets just would need to be organized differently.

aww_dang 4y ago

Public or government managed positions are a bit of an exception. For the sake of illustration, I'll make an attempt. Of course this is strictly hypothetical. The increased public safety from your experienced relative could create other opportunities in the city, such as a thriving retail sector. Whereas without that standard of public safety, shoplifting or other petty criminal activity might drive retailers away. You can claim that the overall demand for police officers would be one less in this scenario. However the demand for retail employment and the demand for those goods sold by retail shops might increase. Therefore, the overall size of the pie has increased. We can extrapolate a few levels from this point. A growing retail sector might necessitate further public or private security roles. Of course as with any example, there are probably several approaches to produce gotcha counter arguments. This is only meant to illustrate the larger point and not argue the specifics of the example.

layer8 4y ago

If they effectively work for free, it's the employers fault they don't hire someone in addition. It's not like there isn't enough useful work to do.

criddell 4y ago
I don’t think I explained it well. The employee is working for free from their perspective, not the county’s. The employee could retire and collect 100% pension or they can continue to work and collect around the same amount of money as salary. If they don’t retire, then the budget hasn’t been freed up to hire the new person.
- layer8 4y ago
  It’s different budgets, but it’s the same amount of tax money either way, so arguably it shouldn’t make a difference from the employer’s side as well. The budgets just would need to be organized differently.