When a public employee is working, he and his family spend most of their income in the local community, at shops, stores, gas stations, restaurants, etc. When they get laid off or furloughed, local merchants lose that money because the family no longer has it to spend.

As usual, you only think of yourself. The minute amount of money the taxpayer saves by throwing a public employee out of work will hardly pay for a burger at a fast food joint. But you don’t mind screwing a public employee and his family so you can get that extra burger. That’s the definition of greedy.

I however appreciate the post and the knowledge it contains. 🙂

(A) —- The State should do a side-by-side comparison of the pensions promised these SEIU workers and those of typical Private sector workers assuming the SAME pay, the SAME years of service and the SAME age at retirement. Then deduct the accumulated value (with investment earnings) of any REAL employee contributions for both the Public and Private Sector worker to get he net EMPLOYER-PAID pension cost.

When one realizes the VERY high cost of

(a) the much richer formula,
(b) the MUCH younger full (unreduced) retirement age,
(c) the inclusion of post retirement COLA increases,
(d) the MUCH more liberal definition of “pensionable compensation”,
(e) etc. etc, etc

it’s not hare to see how the Public Sector worker’s pension ALWAYS comes out 2-4 times (5+ times for safety workers) greater in value at retirement than that of the comparable Private Sector worker.

(B) — Next, we should do a similar analysis for any Retire heathcare subsidies promised the Public and Private Sector workers, noting that

(a) While such subsidies are virtually universal, and often a high (even 100% in some cases) percentage of the total cost in the Public Sector, VERY few Private Sector employers subsidize retiree healthcare any longer, and of the diminishing number that still do, most often, they pay a very modest share of the costs.
(b) Healthcare costs grow rapidly with attained age, and 55-64 year olds use MUCH more healthcare services than say 30-39 year olds. Therefore, pre-age-65 (and not Medicare-eligible) retirees have VERY high costs. Since it is VERY common for Public Sector workers to retire in the 50’s, their pre-Medicare health costs are very expensive ….. and typically hundreds of thousands of dollars (and often doubling it if other family members are covered as well) … vs almost ZERO for the Private sector worker (who rarely gets any employer subsidy).

(C) — Next we should determine the value of any miscellaneous benefits, life insurance subsidies, disability insurance subsidies, transportation allowances, etc.

(D) — Next we should determine “cash pay.”

(E) — Next, we should (separately for the Public and Private worker) express each of the pensions/benefits in (A), (B), and (C) as a level annual percentage of “cash pay” (the item in (D)) sufficient to fund that pension/benefit over the working career of the employee, using reasonable but conservative assumptions (so as to have a high probability that the pension/benefit is FULLY funded by the time that employee retires).

(F) — Since a reasonable (i.e., intelligent, non-greedy) person should agree that EQUAL Public and Private Sector “Total Compensation” (“cash pay”, plus pensions, plus benefits) in comparable jobs (or jobs with comparable risks, educational requirements, knowledge, and skill sets if not directly comparable) is a fair and appropriate goal, we should …. separately for the Public and Private Sector worker ….. add to “cash pay” from item (D), the level annual % of pay values for pensions and benefits from item (E). The result is “Total Compensation” separately, for the comparable Public and Private Sector worker.

(G) —- If the SEIU worker’s “Total Compensation” from (F) is lower than that of comparable Private Sector workers, it should indeed be raised to that level. Under the same (very FAIR) logic, If the SEIU worker’s “Total Compensation” from (F) is greater than that of comparable Private Sector workers, it should be lowered to that level. In the latter case, it’s clear that doing so (actually LOWERING their compensation) is, shall we say “complicated”. In that situation the Public Sector worker’s “cash pay” should be frozen until (with the expected growth in Private Sector “Total Compensation” over time) the Public Sector “Total Compensation” equals that of the comparable Private Sector worker.

Readers …… For WHICH (the Public or Private Sector) worker do you think “Total Compensation” (as determined by my above-outlined steps) will come out higher, and by how much (expressed as a level % of “cash pay”) ?

The sheer ignorance of the Left on basic economic principles is staggering (recall the former House Speaker’s comment on unemployment). Maybe it’s because so few of you took any economics in college but instead immersed yourselves in the “therapy curriculum” as Victor Davis Hanson puts it (After all…..math is hard…..lol).

Forget about beating you people over the head with a 2×4 to pound some sense into you……we need a sledgehammer.

Maybe you can explain to me how not giving rank-and-file state workers a raise in more than a decade, forcing them to take furloughs and cutting their benefits “helps” children, especially their own.

The sad thing is that you righties refuse to acknowledge that public employees are “real” people with real families to support; that they pay taxes like the rest of us and support their local economies. You would have us believe that when a public employee loses his or her job, it doesn’t add to the numbers of unemployed and doesn’t hurt the local economy.