Clinton comptroller blasts government workers’ accrual of benefits at expense of private sector workers

“That person who’s working at XYZ company who’s not getting anything, is that the policy direction we want to go? Or should these corporate folks start thinking about providing adequate retirement security so we don’t have a whole generation of people who don’t have any money to retire on?” Eitelberg told The Daily Caller. “It should be raising everyone’s boat, not lowering everyone’s boat.”

Jeannine Markoe Raymond, the director of federal relations for the National Association of State Retirement Administrations, argued that if more isn’t done now for private sector employees, even those who are self-employed, then their retirement costs will also fall on the taxpayer.

“If we don’t raise the bar in the private sector and the public sector, the public sector’s going to get stuck with the bag. We’re all going to be paying, taxpayers are going to be paying if people can’t afford it,” Raymond said.

But that logic forgets that at some point, revenues dry up, since the federal government cannot print money or raise taxes endlessly, even in theory.

And while a recent study by USA Today showed that state and local government workers make five percent less than their private sector counterparts in salary, their total compensation is higher than private sector workers when their pension and health-care benefits are added in.

The USA Today study showed that federal government workers are making almost $110,000 for jobs that pay about $70,000, combining salary and benefits.

The National Institute on Retirement Security found, however, that “employees of state and local government earn an average of 11 percent and 12 percent less, respectively, than comparable private sector employees.”

“An analysis spanning two decades shows the pay gap between public and private sector employees has widened in recent years,” the NIRS study found.

NIRS focuses its research “on the role and value of defined benefit pension plans,” the kind of pension plan preferred by unions, as opposed to defined contribution plans.

Illinois State Sen. Chris Lauzen spoke at the Chamber event on Friday. One of his PowerPoint slides (similar to this chart) alleged that the 100 most well-paid Illinois public school administrators had pension plans that would pay them a combined amount of almost $1 billion — $889,514,827 to be exact – assuming they lived 29 years after retirement at age 56, following 34 years of government employment.

But the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System said Lauzen’s numbers were bogus.

“These numbers are not accurate,” said TRS spokesman Dave Urbanek.

For example, Urbanek said, the salary and benefits for the first name on Lauzen’s chart — Neil C. Codell — were completely wrong.

Codell was listed as having retired with a salary of $885,327, with an estimated total pension payout guarantee over 29 years of $26.7 million.

However, Urbanek said, Codell’s salary when he retired in 2009 was $221,000, and his annual pension is $163,000, not $602,000 as was listed on Lauzen’s chart.

“He’s not going to be getting $26 million over the course of his retirement,” Urbanek said.

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