Friday, January 9, 2009

The benefits of working for Bloomberg

Bolstered in part by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s spending, the average New York City employee cost the city $107,000 a year in wages, health insurance, pension and other benefits in the 2008 fiscal year, an increase of 63 percent since 2000, according to a new report.

City worker compensation grew twice as fast as that of employees in the private sector and elsewhere in the public sector during the same period, the Citizens Budget Commission said in the report, which was released on Thursday. The increase was driven by contractual raises that outpaced the inflation rate, and by the rising cost of health insurance and pension benefits, said the commission, a business-backed research group.

The group said those benefits have remained “exceptionally generous” under Mr. Bloomberg.

And with the city staring at a projected $7 billion deficit by 2011, fiscal watchdogs are intensifying their calls for the Bloomberg administration to act more aggressively to control employee costs.


City Employee Pay Is Outpacing Private Sector, Report Says

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

So Bloomberg has given generous pay and benefits increases to city union workers - the working class people who live in Queens and the outer boroughs. Sounds like the working class has done very well under Bloomberg.

Anonymous said...

Seem to recall an anonymous poster asking me to pass the name of anyone at the MTA who made 6 figures. It now seems the average city employee is making 6 figures...

Anonymous said...

"So Bloomberg has given generous pay and benefits increases to city union workers - the working class people who live in Queens and the outer boroughs."

This is one of the funniest things I have ever read on this site. Very few members of the working class are city union workers. And with all the fare hikes and tax increases, their "generous pay and benefits" really amount to nothing.

Anonymous said...

So cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers, corrections officers and other city workers are not the working class? Start making some sense please.

Anonymous said...

Yes, they are, and most of them have been forced to move out of the city because of cost of living, housing, etc.

Anonymous said...

"cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers, corrections officers and other city workers" - live in Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland, Westchester and some of 'em even live in the Poconos because that's the only place where they could afford to buy a home. Sad, eh?

Anonymous said...

"the working class people who live in Queens and the outer boroughs"

The Working Class has been squeezed out of the outer boroughs. You will have a tale of two cities soon where all you have are the yuppies who take up way too much space and the tweeded living 8 to a room and sleeping in shifts.

Anonymous said...

Let's never forget the Commissar's generosity (with our money) to developers and suppliers of big-ticket items such as artificial turf.

Let's also never forget the generosity of those beneficiaries to the Commissar's growing $Billion$.

Jimmy Hoffa once said that every man has a price. Commissar Death and Taxes clearly worships at the same Hoffa Church of Loyalty for Sale.

Queens Crapper said...

"Sounds like the working class has done very well under Bloomberg."

Budget leaves city worker benefits vulnerable>

City Planning protects the rich & hurts everyone else


Correction: Developers and baseball team owners have done very well under Bloomberg. The middle class has largely been squeezed and/or evicted.

Anonymous said...

As a city worker I haven't seen my salary increase 63% in the past 8 years. I also pay over $500 a month for healthcare. Meanwhile my real estate tax is increasing along with my healthcare.

Anonymous said...

It now seems the average city employee is making 6 figures...
As a city worker I haven't seen my salary increase 63% in the past 8 years.

Read more carefully.
It's not salary alone that has increased 63% to $107K, it's salary plus the city's portion of all benefits.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what fantasy world you all live in, but in the good neighborhoods in Queens that I know - Maspeth, Middle Village, Glendale, Ridgewood, Rego Park, Flushing, on and on, lots of cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, teachers and other city workers live.

Anonymous said...

If they are married to someone who brings home the bacon, or inherited their parents' house, or rent, sure they can live in these neighborhoods. Once they have kids, though, they tend to leave.

RC said...

As a young fireman/teacher family, there was no way we could afford a house in Middle Village (where I grew up)at the peak of the market. Prices would have to correct down to a sane multiple of the neighborhood's median income before we could consider buying. In hindsight, it was truly insane for people to shell out $600,000 for a 2,200 sq. ft. attached row frame home.