It reminds me a bit of Lincoln’s wellknown wisecrack about the man who was tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, somebody asked him how he liked it, and his reply was if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk. I see that Illinois’s public pension system has made RealClearPolicy’s “Waste of the Day” to the tune of more than $15 billion per year:
While businesses struggled under the lockdowns put in place by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2020, the high-earning employees of state and local government had a record year.
Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com discovered that more than 122,000 public employees and retirees earned over $100,000 last year, as compared to 109,000 employees in 2019 who collected that much.
I do wonder about how robust that finding is. They record that there are 16 school superintendents receiving $300,000 or more in pensions. I agree that’s excessive. But they don’t tell me, for example, how many of those present employees and retirees are drawing more than $150,000 per year. I agree that Illinois public pensions are exceedingly generous but I’m less concerned about those receiving $100,000 a year in pensions than I am about those receiving $130,000 or more in pensions. In statistics-speak what’s the mode on that finding?
Should get entirely away from defined benefit plans.
Steve
I agree with that. I’ve been saying it for 40 years.
The problem is that state and local governments prefer kicking the can down the road and that’s easier to get away with with extravagant promises. Those pose the most problems for states which, like Illinois, have declining populations.
Unfortunately, it can’t do that for present public employees and there’s strong resistance among the public employees’ unions in doing it at all.