[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/business/dealbook/study-fi...
At lower skill and compensation levels public sector jobs do have a pay advantage. At much past high school graduate levels of skill the advantage shifts to private pay, and that shift goes exponential for any skill that is in demand.
That's...Complicated. In unskilled labor and skilled trades positions, it's often the case that public salaries are competitive, or at least that total compensation (including benefits) is.
In most general analytical/management positions, it's not close, public employees get paid far less.
In IT and some other fields the gap is even greater.
Maybe it wasn't so smart to tell the millenials "yeah, we promised you'd get a job after going to college, but, eh, tough luck things have changed."
I doubt there'll be much sympathy.
On the other hand folks nearing retirement today had actual promises in hand, on paper, "work at this pay for this period and you will receive a deferred benefit of X". Much harder to make a case that anyone was bamboozling anyone in that transaction.
By the way, this generational warfare theme is extremely destructive and does its proponents no good. It doesn't help when proponents exhibit the kind of thinking that asserts someone was guaranteed a job.
Now you're right that there was no paper on hand. There was no explicit written agreement between adults - just an implicit one between adults and children. When this agreement wasn't upheld because of the housing crises and a change in the economy, there was nobody to sue; no agreement to say "this was violated" other than the implicit social contract between the new adults and those who raised and guided then through an often inane, ridiculous system.
I know people paying over a thousand bucks a month in student loans, and they aren't making much money because they studied digital/graphic design instead of computer programming. This guy would love to start a company, but a 1k/month loan payment puts a bit of a dent in his budget.
I didn't have that problem. I studied computer science and physics and never had an issue. The people i've seen struggle with this were people who were a) good and b) wanted to do something good for the word. People who haven't struggled were those who just wanted to get money and didn't really care a bout their impact on the world, and then those who went into certain classes of sciences - i.e. not biology.
I agree that the generational warfare is destructive. I've seen so much shade thrown at millennials by the people who raised them, but you're right that it does no good to play that same game.
I think you're right if you say that college students should be self-aware enough to know that studying a major not tied to a career will make it harder to earn a good living. By the same token, I think it's also accurate to say "if you wanted your pension paid, you should have ensured that the government would remain solvent."
Public and private pensions are going away, most are underfunded, 401ks are dramatically underfunded, and there are constant calls to cut social security to save it.
Instead of making private retirement benefits competitive we're looking at cutting everyone back.
I don't know where we're going but it doesn't look good.
These folks took jobs with pensions as one of the understood, agreed-upon benefits, and likely made their retirement and investment decisions accordingly.