When I looked at local government down here, I already decided that if I got the job I would continue paying the Social Security rather than the government pension, because there were already indications that the local Republican politicians were underfunding the pensions and it probably wouldn’t be there when I retired.
Jeb Bush did some serious damage to Florida’s retirement fund by pushing investing with Lehman Brothers. The state fund lost billions on that deal and the underfunding is starting to be noticed as state and local governments get squeezed.
]]>As far as the “gold plated pension” is concerned: 1) When paying into the state pension fund you’re not paying into Social Security. Combined with the 40% lower salary, the state pension ends up being around the same as Social Security would be. And California has “generous” state pension benefits. 2) Social Security has a “double dipper” provision that reduces your Social Security benefits if you’re getting a state pension, I ran the numbers and found that adding this up compared to staying private and paying Social Security taxes would be an awesome $220/month difference in retirement.
So yes, the total pension plus Social Security double dip would put me slightly ahead in retirement, by $220/month. Or if I live 20 years as a retiree (average for men), I can save roughly $50,000 and be in the same place — a $50,000 that’s a lot easier to save with the much higher private salary.
]]>They are going to move Britain back to the recession with their cutting, but you can’t explain it to them.
]]>Which is why I’m writing this post at 0947! I thought better to go with a moderate settlement than be turfed out with a crap one in a couple of years time
]]>Yes, you have to be up-to-date on taxes, and they check for a criminal record, and they look at credit reports. You have to jump through all kinds of hoops and have absurd qualifications and then they don’t pay worth talking about.
One of the big draws was that you had job security, but that isn’t true anymore. You are just as apt to be laid off working for the government, as working for anyone else.
]]>It turns out that the pensions are “goldish”, and spray painted, not plated, if you can hang on long enough to get one. The pens tend to be used for suicide or homicide when the individual has had enough.
“Going postal” is an Americanism for workplace violence, after a number of postal service employees snapped and shot up their work sites. The post office is constantly under attack for being inefficient and wasteful, which is not supported by any facts, just opinions.
There is a widely held belief that you can’t fire people on civil service. Having personally fired a number of people, I know that to be untrue. The procedure to fire someone is just as plodding and mind-numbing as most government personnel regulations, but it is in the manual and if you follow it the results aren’t even in question. All you really need is cause, the individual must have done something in violation of the rules, or not done something that is required by their job. No, you can’t fire them because you don’t like them, which is what the Republicans don’t like. The biggest problem is that the political appointees promote incompetents to supervisory positions and they can’t understand the regulations, or are too lazy to do the necessary work. “You can’t fire people on civil service” is an excuse not a reality.
Public employees are used as scapegoats by politicians to avoid having to admit that they caused the problems.
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