Many Workers in Public Sector Retiring Sooner

[groovedaddy]

MADISON, Wis. — As states and cities struggle to resolve paralyzing budget shortfalls by sending workers on unpaid furloughs, freezing salaries and extracting larger contributions for health benefits and pensions, a growing number of public-sector workers are finding fewer reasons to stay.

The numbers of retirees are way up in Wisconsin, where more applications to retire have been filed this year than ever before. Workers in California’s largest public employee pension system have retired at a steadily increasing rate over the last five fiscal years. In New Jersey, thousands more teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public workers filed retirement papers during the past two years than in the previous two years.

In part, the flood of retirements reflects a broader demographic picture. Baby boomers, wherever they work, have begun reaching the traditional retirement age.

But increasingly workers fear a permanent shift away from the traditional security of government jobs, and they are making plans to get out now, before salaries and retirement benefits retreat further.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/us/more-public-sector-workers-are-retiring-sooner.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha3

[qb]

1. This has been the goal all along, and the Republicans lie that this saves money.

It actually costs taxpayers more because now the work will have to be done by more expensive contractors.
See the two links under "Studies and Reports"
http://www.nashtu.us/StudiesandReports.htm

[zbdent]

2. and how much do you want to bet that a lot of those "contractors"

don't have to go through the usual bidding processes? (You know, like Dick Cheney's Halliburton did in getting all those exclusive contracts under Bush)

[Citizen Worker]

3. Just imagine that soon we'll have the Blackwater Police Department, The Boeing Fire Department and

The Boeing Public Utility Co. Ain't it grand?

[groovedaddy]

4. I can hear it now: "Thank you for calling the Boeing Fire Department. Please have your credit card

number ready. Authorization required before responding to your fire."