March 09, 2011
That was not the way that the Post framed the issue, but this is the implication of an article on public sector pensions in California that began with a discussion of the $520,000 a year pension received by the former administrator of a small city. The article cites the claim by the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility that more than 15,000 retired state employees receive pensions of more than $100,000 a year. It then cites a spokesperson for the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees saying that the average pension is just $19,000.
If both numbers are accurate, then this means that roughly 3 percent of retirees account for almost 20 percent of total benefits (assuming an average pension for the over $100k group of $110k), which means that the average pension for the bottom 97 percent is a bit over $16,000 a year.
The article includes a statement from an economist blaming the public sector employees for not better policing their pension system. While this is a reasonable point, it is also reasonable to ask why the people supervising the pension systems, who are paid six figure salaries for this work, have not called attention to abuses like the one highlighted at the beginning of this article.
Comments