Haves and the have nots

I had a very interesting discussion this weekend with a friend who is a police officer and is in their union.  He was upset about our governor asking them to pay in a portion of their pension.  We live in Florida and Rick Scott is the governor who my friend now dislikes on every level as a result of this attempt to make him help with his pension.  My friend also explained that he has not had a raise in 5 years and is feeling the crunch. 

He mentioned that he sees an insurrection approaching between the haves and the have nots ... that's where I had to point out a few things to him:

• He has a pension - I have not
• He pays nothing to his pension - I have to fund my own 401k (my company matches $1000 per year)
• He has a great insurance which he doesn't pay for - I pay for a portion of mine
• He will get this same insurance when he retires - I will get NONE !
• My insurance has been tagged as Cadillac so I will get taxed on it or loose it - His union is exempted
• He can retire at 20 years with 80% of pay - I can't touch my 401k till I'm 62, and it will not yeild 80% of what I made

Now who is the real have and the have not?

These public sector union guys need to be careful who they bitch to.  They don't get that we pay for them not the governor and they are the haves and we are the have nots when it comes to lifetime income and how long they have to work.  The unfairness here is a joke .... only matched by the ingratitude.

National average for public sector union job wage is $67,000, the average for the private sector is $54,153
Let's do a quick comparison of average wages across the country for public sector union versus non-union workers. 

Say they both start work at 22 years of age.  If they both earned the national average the union guy would retire at 42 and earn $53,000 a year with all his insurance paid for till he dies.
The private sector guy would have to work another 20 years ...until he was 62.  Then he could hit his 401k which would yield him about $20,000 a year for about 20 years ...not till he dies.  He would also have to pay for his insurance out of that money that he worked 20 years longer for.

So the next time you see a public sector union protest just remember what they have and how ungrateful they are.  It takes some real arrogance to ask us to pay for them when we have so much less.  They don't understand where the government gets it's money and they never will.  They're not asking the government to give them more they're demanding it from us!

How did things get this bad?   The issue is that we have public sector unions negotiating with government officials who have the same cozy deal that they have ... nobody cares about us at the bargaining table.  But that is starting to change now and we have to support the governors.  By the way it's only around 13% of all the workforce that is in the unions, time for our government to start looking out for the 87% of us who also do the voting around here.  

Here is how public sector pay should be structured