California Is in Trouble – 340k Public Employees with $100k Paychecks
forbes.com
forbes.com
Deeply red Georgia is also facing a major budget shortfall but you don't see article like this from right-wing commentors lamenting the series of tax cuts passed in recent years.
Insofar as not actively and often illegally shipping them out is a progressive policy (and considering what lots of other cities do, it is), they do exactly for that reason, since it results in them having an unbalanced inflow from places that do engage in such practices.
Even beyond that, insofar as SF’s progressive policies toward the homelessness increase the survivability of homelessness more than they get people out of it, they probably, simply by that means, increase aggregation of the homeless in the city. A less progressive policy aimed at maximizing homeless misery and reducing survivability of homelessness would reduce the aggregation of homeless in the city.
It’s honest but disingenuous journalism.
Government work was supposed to be fairly compensated with pension and benefits, while avoiding the instability risks of the private sector. Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous.
It reveals the obscene corruption of our political class runs through the entire system.
Well, considering that most private sector workers don’t have pensions anymore, it probably would make them jealous. In the private sector they’ve all been replaced with 401ks and maybe a feeble matching of a few thousand dollars from your employer.
The way I look at it is, public sector jobs are probably what private sector jobs in America would look like if employee compensation didn’t divorce productivity gains starting in the 1980s. Which is why they look so generous by comparison.
No, because it is, in fact, a hit piece. Were it, instead, an attempt to provide a useful picture on which people could form an informed understanding, here are things it would provide information on that it does not:
* What proportion of the surveyed workforce does this over-$100k population represent,
* How does the pay of the highlighted population compare to that of private sector and/or other-state employees doing similar work with similar qualifications.
This doesn't even rise to the level of cherry picking facts to paint a biased narrative, since there isn't even a narrative here. It's cherry-picking decontextualized factoids to provoke a emotional reaction.
> Now we are told it has all the stability plus super generous pensions and salary that would make the best workers in the private sector jealous.
$100k salary plus public sector benefits wouldn't make the best workers in the private sector jealous.
A lot for this is public agency CEOs and other executives making quite a lot for generic “workers” but much less than private sector executives,and public sector workforces being management heavy because a lot of the operations are contracted out.
And the isolated unique individuals which are pointed to, there's consistently no analysis or explanation of the specific circumstances producing the unusually high compensation. And that's because if they did that, it would undercut the emotional response the entire piece is careful geared to provoke by avoiding context.
Truck driver and lifeguard are low skill occupations. These individuals could easily be replaced by someone just as competent for a third of the cost. Nursing is not low skill, but 500k is more than most software engineers, other engineers, bankers, and white collar professionals make. It's completely excessive.
If we could see what they actually do, day-to-day, then I think I can understand better what's going on. I don't see these details here.
I have a feeling that if you dig into it, there's nothing here. Otherwise I think we would see the article actually dig into it.
- 109,627 teachers and school administrators.
- 66,403 college and university employees.
- 62,204 State of California employees – including a nurse.
- 45,718 city and town employees: including 1,420 municipal administrators and employees who out-earned the California governor – the highest paid state governor ($202,000).
Notably we have teachers, college and uni employees (not sure of the % of admin vs educators here), and state employees (not sure of the admin vs essential workers here as well, whatever the definition of essential)
And they name-and-shame some of these employees as well.
What's the matter here? Bloated admin costing money? or competition costing money? The article attributes it to both.
So why shouldn't the gov. workers get paid? Singapore does that (but they actually have a functional gov.).
But paying gov/school/college workers well has got to be a good thing! Incentivizing them/others to strive to do a better job/game whatever metric to get that job, which cannot be entirely corrupt.
There's a nurse in there well.
California does not seem to be in trouble because of these people who are highly paid.
California is grasping to find a patsy to blame.
From my point of view, this guy is basically paid to support the Republican party by attacking the incomes of public servants who largely donate to Democratic candidates. Hence the absense of any real analysis of what drives costs and a focus on 'unfunded pension liabilities' and big numbers designed to incite rather than inform.
Well the author here is using decontextualized factoids to paint a politically-motivated emotional picture of what to blame. I don't see a lot of evidence that California is grasping to find a patsy, either in this direction or any other.
Not joking -- about the Bay Area at least. I used to make $140k/year there as a single father of 2, and was barely making ends meet.
Something else that annoys me in media in general is hyperfocusing on government liabilities (pensions, projects where existing bonds aren't sufficient, etc) as unfunded, while ignoring unpaid individual liabilities (credit card debt, car loans, student loans, mortgages, etc), that are also unfunded. I think we should start referring to all future financial obligations as unfunded liabilities, unless there's already a framework in place to ensure future funds are available for them.
I especially look forward to Tom Selleck saying that reverse mortgages aren't a way for the bank to take your house, they're just a way for the bank to make your unfunded liabilities worse. :)
This strikes me as an attempt to nationalize the issue, since these numbers are more eye-popping in the rest of the country.
It is difficult to even imagine there is a place like this that exists, all on borrowed money.
Over 166k Gov Employees making at least 6 figures and beyond.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/public-sector-salary-disclosure-...
Some other stats while dated still extraordinary.
https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/ontario-government-em...
California is not even close to in Trouble......
P.S. I got to learn his income because I am on the board of a co-op where he tried to buy an apartment (his secondary dwelling) at and we run his background check and income/finance capability.
130k in Fremont doesn’t actually go very far. You can’t buy a house, and are at the bounds for an entry level engineer.
300k for a high level manager in most of these areas is low. Especially if comparing to private industry.
The pension question is concerning long term since private industry doesn’t offer this.
On the other hand, if all the city staff people had to live on $67k/yr (the median household income in CA), then perhaps we would make more progress addressing the cost of living.