NEW: Thousands Make More in Retirement than they while Working
Monday, November 07, 2011
The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity posted a new analysis today of the 3298 pensioners who currently earn more in retirement than they did as an employee.
The post also shows that not all pension-granting public entities are equal. Of the 184 public employers listed, 81 have at least one retiree who has surpassed their final average salary. For 43 of the employers, more than 10% of their retirees are in this group.
The Foster School District was is most prolific public employer in this regard, with 46% of its employees faring better in retirement. The Burrillville Police Department, the North RI Police Collaborative, Barrington Public Schools, the Warwick School Department, and the N. Providence Housing Authority all came in at 25% or higher.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTDefying conventional thinking, this condition does not appear to increase over time, as one would expect as COLAs continue to compound, and provides credence to suggestions that pension deals of the past were inordinately generous.
With some notable exceptions, school districts in general and teaching staffs in particular dominate the list for retirees who make more in retirement than while working. Teacher pensions also tend to be toward the higher end of the payment scale.
The post, Pensions Beyond Pay, by Justin Katz, provides multiple charts and a table of all public employers where data is available in this regard. The full post can be found on the RI Center for Freedom's main website at www.RIFreedom.org . To view the 3298 pensioners in this group, go to www.RIOpenGov.org and select the 'Detailed Search' tab.
This data was collected from the RIOpenGov.org website, an interactive online database of public employee pension data for current ERSRI retirees. The data for 26,598 pensioners, which can be viewed in both table and graph modes, was provided by ERSRI (the Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island) through an open records request and can also be sorted by multiple criteria.
The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity is the state's leading free-enterprise public policy think tank. Firm in its belief that freedom is indispensable to citizens' well-being and prosperity, the Center for Freedom's mission is to restore competitiveness to Rhode Island through the advancement of market-based reform solutions.
