This page contains informal notes on the Pioneer Institute White Paper titled “Public Pensions: Unfair to State Employees, Unfair to Taxpayers” .
Pensions & Benefits
benefit improvements, disability reform, early retirement incentives, long term perspective, municipal health insurance, opeb reform, pension reform, public/private comparisons
Limits on “double-dipping”
The Windfall Elimination Provision is designed to prevent higher earning state and local pensioners from being treated as low income earners for the purpose of computing social security benefits.
Pension comparisons
Public employee pension payments are generally dramatically higher than social security payments for similar earnings histories.
Public vs. private wages — statistics
It is hard to draw apples-to-apples wage comparisons between the two sectors, because many state and local government jobs have no direct analogy in the private sector.
Employee compensation — which is higher, public or private?
State and local government employees — on average — receive materially higher total compensation than private sector employees. Of course, public employees include many highly skilled categories of workers.
Heatlh insurance costs savings, GIC Bill
Comments and testimony regarding the movement of municipal employee health plans into the group insurance commission.