October 12, 2010
According to the David Brooks methodology both are. Brooks points out that public sector workers get higher pay than the economy-wide average, which is the basis for his argument that they are overpaid. By this methodology, if Brooks get more than $22.67 an hour, the economy-wide average, then he is overpaid.
Economists usually approach this issue somewhat differently. They consider workers’ education and experience. If we adjust for education and experience then we find that public sector workers get paid somewhat less on average than private sector workers. This is partially, but not completely, offset by the higher pensions that upset Brooks so much.
It is likely the case that many state and local governments did not adequately budget for workers’ pensions, but this is more an issue of failed accounting and incompetent reporting (newspapers are supposed to be covering such issues) than excessive pensions. Brooks highlights an estimate that the amount of the average unfunded pension for all public sector workers is $87,000.
This does not seem particularly large. If we assume an average retirement of 20 years, this comes to $4,350 per worker pension year. Since many public sector workers do not have Social Security this hardly seems an excessive amount on the workers’ part.
Brooks also complains that AFSCME, the public employee’s union, was the largest single contributor to political campaigns between 1989 and 2004. While this may be true in the sense that AFSCME gave more money than Robert Rubin or Rupert Murdoch, AFSCME represents more than a million workers. Certainly the million richest Wall Streeters, oil tycoons, or tech entrepreneurs gave far more money to candidates than AFSCME. It is likely that politicians responded to their concerns roughly in proportion to their contributions.
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