I am sick and tired of the media trying to play the public sector off of the private sector.
[G]uaranteed pensions for relatively youthful government retirees — paid in similar fashion to millions nationwide — are contributing to nationwide friction with the public sector workers. They have access to attractive defined-benefit pensions and retiree health care coverage that most private sector workers no longer do.
I work in the private sector. My retirement plans are pretty much work until I die: I do not make enough money to save for retirement, and what I had in my 401k is pretty much toast thanks to a divorce and a stock market that does nothing for my portfolio. My company no longer offers a pension plan and living on Social Security checks is really not an option unless I want to dine on Ramen Noodles for every meal in my sunset years.
I wish I had a retirement plan like public sector workers. Does that mean I want to take away what they have? No. Public servants have earned their retirement, in many cases working for less pay in mentally and physically demanding occupations. They're still under attack, though:
Yet with cities, counties and states struggling to pay pension bills, changes are afoot.
- In November, San Francisco voters supported a local ballot initiative to hike minimum retirement ages for some city workers. Since that time, laws increasing retirement ages for government workers were signed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts in efforts to address underfunded pension systems.
- Earlier in New Jersey, part of a legislative deal struck between Democrats and Republicans raised the normal retirement age from 62 to 65.
- An initiative circulating for California's 2012 state ballot seeks to increase the minimum retirement age to 65 for public employees and teachers and to 58 for sworn public safety officers.
How's that for a biased framing for a "news" story?
The finger of blame needs to be pointed not at the public sector worker, but towards politicians who have refused to properly fund public employee pensions and refused to enact a single payer healthcare system. To private sector companies that have put profits over people. To those on Wall Street whose greed has put the middle class on the precipice of insolvency. To those who have worked to de-unionize America under the guise of “right-to-work.” That is where the finger of blame MUST be pointed!