State Employees

[mass88]

With all the talk recently about the bloated pension system for city and state workers, I thought I would pose the question to the members of this board.

In short, can someone explain how the benefits package (health, pension, etc) work for state and city workers? Do other states have similar problems as Massachusetts?

 

[Lurker]

It's a national problem that makes the sub-prime housing problem look like a pittance.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/12/25/mass_pension_fund_off_161b/
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/12/11/pensions_to_strain_city_town_finances/
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08340/932967-53.stm
http://www.startribune.com/business...UoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUnciatkEP7DhUsr
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/07/MN1314IRLO.DTL
http://www.newgeography.com/content/00572-public-pension-troubles-loom-state-and-local-governments
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0216/078.html
http://sbj.net/main.asp?SectionID=18&SubSectionID=23&ArticleID=84103&TM=38685.53
http://seekingalpha.com/article/114700-public-pensions-rotting-from-within
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/nyregion/09salaries.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/1518469.html
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14343
http://briansullivan.blogs.foxbusin...king-later-retirement-for-government-workers/
http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=28406
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2008/09/05/UPI_NewsTrack_Business/UPI-84831220628600/
http://www.lvbusinesspress.com/articles/2008/12/30/news/iq_25729736.txt
http://www.newsday.com/services/new.../news/ny-enpens305981832dec30,0,6684496.story
http://orangejuiceblog.com/2008/12/santa-anas-pension-spike-now-bearing-bitter-fruit/
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6181115.html
http://blog.nj.com/njv_johnbury/2008/12/nj_government_fails_at_all_lev.html
http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/loc...g/2008/12/new_pension_tier_for_the_nyc_u.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/nyregion/13about.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Yeah, it's that bad....
http://www.pensiontsunami.com/
For a state by state by state breakdown

 

[Oakley]

They need to move to 401ks and end lavish retirement health care coverage for government employees. Why should taxpayers have to pay for it? Private industry doesn't have those perks.

 

[Lurker]

All that would do is take all the problems with funding public employees' healthcare and expand it to the entire public.

Look what happened with TENNcare, Germany's healthcare system, what's going on in Canada, and many of the other systems within the EU right now. It boils down to the same issues which plague social security and any other government sponsored enterprise. If the demographics don't provide enough people paying in versus being paid out and all incentives to keep costs down or innovate are lost, the result isn't pretty.

As with everything in life, there is no free lunch and eventually those who have a lunch get tired of being extorted to share.