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Comment by mistrial9 | Hacker News Reader

the fattest, laziest, most 401k retirement gold plated health care bureaucrats I have ever met in real life, say exactly "you don't pay well enough, we need budget increases" as a reply to almost every problem. Their leaders rise in the ranks by making this statement with ever-more removal of details, essentially no accountability, no efficiency designs, no program changes.. Calling out a single unfair, one-sided statement as your rallying cry, is negotiations 101. all sides are guilty here

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I hear you, but let's circle back to the part where EMS staff is being poached by Dunkin fucking Donuts. That should not even be possible. A pizza delivery driver in a decent delivery area can make multiples (!!!) of the median salary for EMS staff.

> private firms are rapidly raising compensation. Government employers have been slower to adapt

Reads like someone has discovered that the government sector has a hard time competing with the capitalist sector.

The government offers stability and post retirement benefits, as opposed to cash remuneration. Neither of those have to be properly accounted for in dollar terms today, so this type of remuneration is useful for campaigning on “keeping taxes low today”.

Pensions are notoriously under/unfunded, particularly in local governments. I wouldn't count that as a guaranteed benefit. It may retroactively be cut in the future.

> Neither of those have to be properly accounted for in dollar terms today

They actually are, at least for pension contributions.

>They actually are, at least for pension contributions.

No. The government exempts taxpayer funded pensions from laws about calculating pension liabilities, and so they use discount rates far above what non taxpayer funded pension funds are required to use. And even these liberally calculated costs are not even funded properly, because there is nothing stopping the politician from not kicking the can down the road.

Paying people 50% of their wages in ballooning retirement benefits is not the best way to get the best and brightest.

Given we have stagnant or declining populations any defined benefit pension plan will fall short of the promises in the coming decades. Not only is deferred compensation unappealing to many people because of present time orientation, it's a riskier pension than a defined contribution plan. You also lose out on the ability to negotiate better compensation by changing jobs.

On the whole the lifetime employment model was abandoned by the private sector decades ago for many good reasons, namely the impossibility of funding defined benefits after population growth stalled; as usual the government is the last place in society that makes necessary changes.

It’s a bad model I ageee but the defined benefits Usally get pegged at last couple years salary so you just have to hope you don’t retire into inflation like we have now

On the other hand, defining the benefits based on the last few years, leads to employees taking every overtime opportunity for the last few years to inflate their retirement benefits. Overtime absolutely should be excluded for the calculus so people can’t game the system.

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