CATO Journal: “Public Sector Unions and the Rising Costs of Employee Compensation”
“The public sector pay advantage is most pronounced in benefits. Bureau of Economic Analysis data show that average compensation in the private sector was $59,909 in 2008, including $50,028 in wages and $9,881 in benefits. Average compensation in the public sector was $67,812, including $52,051 in wages and $15,761 in benefits.” Continue reading
Chris Edwards, CATO Journal: Public Sector Unions and the Rising Costs of Employee Compensation
The public sector pay advantage is most pronounced in benefits. Bureau of Economic Analysis data show that average compensation in the private sector was $59,909 in 2008, including $50,028 in wages and $9,881 in benefits. Average compensation in the public … Continue reading
Joe Nation, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research: The Funding Status of Independent Public Employee Pension Systems in California
“The unfunded liability for all (local) independent systems is $175 billion. At a 4 percent risk-free discount rate the total increases to $195.2 billion. When including market performance over the past 2 years it is estimated these systems have roughly $200 billion in unfunded liabilities. “ Continue reading
Alicia H. Munnell, Jean-Pierre Aubry, and Laura Quinby, The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College: The Impact of Public Pensions on State and Local Budgets
“Whereas public plans are substantially underfunded, in the aggregate they currently account only for 3.8 percent of state and local spending. Assuming 30-year amortization beginning in 2014, this share would rise to only 5 percent, and even assuming a 5 percent discount rate, to only 9.1 percent… Continue reading
Robert Novy-Marx and Joshua Raugh, University of Rochester and Kellogg School of Management and NBER: The Crisis in Local Government Pensions in the U.S.
“Using local government accounting methods, the total unfunded liability in local governments is $190 billion or over $7,000 per municipal household…When government accounting is corrected by discounting already-promised benefits at zero-coupon Treasury yields, the total unfunded obligation is $383 billion or over $14,000 per local household… Continue reading
Dr. Stuart Buck, The Foundation for Educational Choice: Trouble Brewing: The Disaster of California State Pensions
“If these obligations are re-calculated using a discount rate approximating what private pensions are allowed to use, liabilities reach $282.2 billion, a figure that rises to $326.6 billion when current market values are taken into account… Continue reading
Milken Institute: Addressing California’s Pension Shortfalls: The Role of Demographics in Designing Solutions
“If no action is taken, the combined liability of the three major state pension funds will be more than 5.5 times as large as total state tax revenue around 2012-2013… Continue reading
California Center for Public Policy: Reforming Public Employee Compensation and Pensions
“The $2 to $5 million in annuity value that (public safety) employees may receive through pension programs in their early to middle fifties makes these employees’ comprehensive career compensation among the highest in America… Continue reading
Civil Grand Jury of San Francisco: Pension Tsunami: The Billion Dollar Bubble
“Retiree pension and health benefits will amount to $1 billion in the next five years for San Francisco, which is roughly one-third of the City’s General Fund… Continue reading
Adam B. Summers, The Reason Foundation: How California’s Public Pension System Broke (And How We Can Fix It)
“Since 1998, California’s state workforce has grown by 31 percent and taxpayers now pay for more than 356,000 state workers…Since 2008, California has added over 13,000 employees to the state payroll during this recession. Continue reading
