Quote:
Originally Posted by thoth
My numbers were based on memory and were slightly off, but not by much. Tom Ferrick did an analysis of Philadelphia's budget in 1960 versus today: Philadelphia 1960 | Its Our City | WHYY
The first number is from 1960, the second is from the '08-'09 budget
City Employees 27,448 | 24,585 Avg Salary - City Employee $ 27,219 | $ 28,822
Avg Benefit Cost $ 4,825 | $ 36,997
As you can see, the average wage has effectively decreased over time due to inflation, but of course the health/pension costs have increased more than seven fold. |
Hmmm.
Which makes me wonder ...
Is the reason for this is that, if you trade small pay raises for large pension increases, does that mayor pretty much balance his union contract budget on the backs of future mayors?