Maybe not all teacher, police and fire personnel and state employees are members of a union But in certain states they are.
That was my point when there were comments about teachers retirement and benefits. That in some states, they are represented by a union.
I’m amending my post to state that workers in some states have unions.
Also helps to have the power to tax. My hometown had very strong private company unions. Provided jobs, great compensation, benefits and retirement. For a generation and a half. Parents of my friends did fine. Many still living on company pensions. My friends not so much. They got the great pay/benefits for a decade or so. Never saw the retirement benefits and eventually most lost those jobs and had to find other careers. Turns out paying $90k/year (30 years ago) with gold standard healthcare with little costs to employees with a pension isn’t sustainable. Unless you have the power to tax/raise revenues just because you need more.
Again, if you have a government provided pension, much more secure than private company provided pension (though many of those have been frozen with no new participants for a long time). Power to tax (and power to scare and inconvenience at will) is very helpful. And in inability to file for bankruptcy protection.
Yes, but the program can end at any time. Obligations would be honored, but everything can be frozen, with “going forward” looking different. That is my point in saying that choosing a career based on a 40 year from now what-if isn’t wise. I would guess that school districts are going to put an end to pensions at some point. Of course, I could be wrong. But I don’t think anyone can bet on what is happening today to still be the norm down the road.
" Not fair to pull the rug out from them at this stage" - Agreed. In the very many districts where teachers are underpaid, the pension perk helped compensated. Likely any changes for teacher pensions would be phased in starting with the new (or recent) hires.
A question if you don’t mind answering. I know your husband’s pension benefits were frozen and diminished. I’m not sure but I am thinking that your husband was a salaried employee.
How were the union employees pensions and benefits handled during the same time period?
I want to state that I’m not advocating for unions or against unions.
Speaking of healthcare, I received a shock. Simple generic prescription at CVS $235. I said, “No thank you.” Asked my doctor to try Walgreens - $235. “No thank you.” Two car rides, no joy.
Went online to Amazon Pharmacy - $22 and arrives in two days. The other two were more than 10x the cost for the exact same prescription. Unbelievable. Bummer that prescription pricing is not transparent and is so varied.
I just went to check a prescription I have. I can’t believe it. Something I pay $100 per month for with my insurance is $22 per month on Amazon. How is this possible? I have price shopped this medication many places over the time I’ve been on it and never seen this low of a price.
Costco pharmacy has good prices on most meds. I’ve never tried buying any on Amazon.
I usually have mostly maintenance Rx snd get a better price when I use the participating and preferred pharmacy. For us now, it’s cvs and we have an awesome neighborhood cvs pharmacist. He will run the price multiple ways to get us best prices. Often if we get 90 day supply, it’s FREE. Sometimes there is a copay but the copay is often reduced for z90 day supply. The cvs program automatically applies all coupons too.
I would be surprised and unhappy if my simple generic Rx went up from $100 to $235 each. I can’t tell you how Amazon can sell if for $20.
There is a lot of uncertainty over the next 40 years with many, many things beyond whether public pensions will be continued. Social security and medicare solvency windows close long before then. Any element of anyones compensation package (including taxes (or lack of taxes) is subject to changing. And given history, I expect the speed of change will be faster for private industry than for government. And at least two governors faced recall elections/threat thereof for trying to address public pension solvency issues.
H was salaried. There were some changes made for union employees, but they were much less impactful (medical coverage went into a trust). Friends who were salaried at another company that went through bankruptcy lost much more, and the union employees initially lost but had their pensions restored.
I don’t want to get into an argument over unions, but I will say this: What led to unions in the first place still resides in the hearts of the powerful. (Actually, the hearts of humans … but only the powerful are in a position to uplift employees … or not.)
The problem these days is that there is such burnout and the teacher loads and expectations are not the same as they were when I went into teaching 30 years ago. This is exactly why these teachers are counting the days until they’re 55 and can retire. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard teachers comment how they can’t wait. I even heard a teacher last year say “can’t wait until 2034 when I can retire”. Wth? If you hate it that much, get out now. So, it’s a serious problem. The amount of paperwork and work in general after 3pm when school ends is crazy. Then dealing with parents and unruly kids is beyond. Some are very supportive, but others not so much. Covid also brought out the worst in many people, both parents and teachers. My own district has some great teachers and some lousy ones and their contracts are up soon and suddenly they think they all did such a great job with covid that they can throw all these demands at the BOE. Not this time. The majority of people and the BOE are not behind them. They are also not a unionized district so this will be very interesting to see how it shakes out. Yes, we’re a top ranked district in the state, but I do not feel that these people are all irreplaceable. Many of them are replaceable.
The kicker though with teacher salaries is that when teachers with a bachelors degree start off in the 50’s and they’re always whining that salary is so low, these teachers can’t seem to comprehend that they’re also getting single health care coverage paid for by the district at 100%, family is not outrageous and that 50k (actually it’s higher) is for 10 months of work. So that salary is actually comparable to someone making $60k in the private sector. Pretty good for a 22 year old. Plus the opportunity to make a lot more. Teachers also want to pad their salaries when they’re close to retirement since the pension is based on highest salary in last few years so when a sub is needed for one period, many teachers will do it and I thin the pay is $40/period. What’s ironic is that our district only pays subs $60 or so for 1/2 day of subbing. So a teacher within the school gets paid $40 per period, whereas a sub gets $60 for 1/2 day. Bottom line, it’s cheaper to higher the sub than the teachers because 1/2 day in our district is 3 periods so a sub is $60 and a teacher is $120. Crazy, right?
@FallGirl As far as pulling out the rug from teachers. No one is saying to do that, but clearly something has to change and it’s got to start at the bottom with new teachers. Just like how the social security age changed. My husband’s full retirement age is different than mine. Not much, but it’s a change. People need to be grandfathered in. It’s been that way in contracts for years. Same reason why some federal/state employees have FICA withheld and some don’t. Over time it has all changed. Or why some retirees have insurance paid for them and some youngers ones now have to pay their own insurance. Nothing wrong with that.
So we usually only use Walgreens for pharmacy. It’s just the most convenient and just never thought about it. Unfortunately because we switched insurance companies this year, Walgreens is out of network and doesn’t take our plan so we had to find different pharmacies. My brother is on the same plan as we are and gets into finding all the best pricing and told me how to go about finding the best pricing with our plan. So, I now have learned that I need to login to our portal, put the prescription in and then the one month and 90 day prices will come up. Astonishingly, sometimes getting the 1 month 3x is cheaper than getting the 90 day home delivery. It is such a racket. But the bigger racket is he told me to start looking at goodrx as well to compare prices. The only negative is that using goodrx then the prescription doesn’t go against our deductible so unless it’s a big price difference, don’t buy it with the goodrx coupons. Goodrx will list the prices at every pharmacy, including costco (you can also go to costco directly and see what the prices are - you don’t need to be a member to use their pharmacy either).
So, some steroid he uses with our plan is $60, with goodrx it’s $27. I took my daughters to the dermatologist last week and asked her about what my husband uses and what might be a good backup so I can price it out before he sees the derm, which happened to be today. She wrote it out and that drug is only $3! So when he went today he asked his derm (different derm same practice I took my girls to) and the guy said for the price difference get the cheaper stuff. Unreal. The whole prescription thing is such a scam if you as me. My husband now is all aggravated asking why we can’t just go to walgreens anymore and why we are going to so many different pharmacies, lol. Yes, I am that cheap, but why should we pay $60 or even $27 when we can pay $3? Also, Amazon pharmacy last we checked wasn’t an option in Illinois otherwise you can bet we would use it here. This as my husband said who is a huge liberal, too liberal for me sometimes, is why we need national healthcare. He is right, there is no reason why the same drug should be such a different cost between 5 different pharmacies.
I’d like to know where these high teacher salaries are?? I’ve been a teacher for over 20 years and make 60K. Beginning teachers start out in the low 40s. I pay close to $500/month for health care. I’ve lived in 2 countries and 3 states and have never seen the salaries that are being quoted in this thread. I’m thinking of retiring and moving to a lower cost of living state. I checked out the sub pay yesterday in my new location and it’s $75/day.
Here is a recent list of average teacher salary by state: RANKING: How Much Money Teachers Make in Every US State. In my state, average pay is $62,000. Average starting pay is around $37,000 (that’s not on the list - I had to search for that).
Suburbs in Chicago. We have two tiered pay because our districts are k-8 and 9-12 so HS teachers are paid more than elementary.
Also, our elementary subs make $120-$130/day, some districts the lowest is $110 some are higher, and the high school is anywhere from $130-$165/day for subs. Long term subs get first year bachelor pay.
When I move to Iowa in 1996 my pay went from $40k/year (after 3 years of teaching) to 23k. I had more classes and more students and longer hours and a worse pension pickup. It was a crap job. But when I had my first kid and decided to just sub, even then the sub pay was almost $100/day. They also passed some law that all teachers with a bachelor degree had to be brought up to a minimum salary. I can’t remember what it was, but maybe it was like $22k or something. I had my Masters plus 45 or 60 at the time, I can’t remember. My undergrad is in Finance and my Masters is in Teaching, so I started at a higher pay lane with my Masters.
That teacher I said earlier who is making about $180k is also married to another teacher. It blows me away that the two of them are clearing almost $400k are not yet 55 and will make out nicely in retirement. She also tutors and cleans up because tutors here can charge $150/hr for Math. Some charge more even. I do some homebound tutoring through the high school (not my district) and I like it because I do it during school hours and it’s more structured and even that I get paid about $90/hr and I get paid towards my pension which is what I’m looking to pad at this point.
Oh, I should add on top of this since it provides spending per student. A HUGE problem in districts around here is how much money is spent per student, but again, maybe that’s why so many are top districts in the state but for what? Our property taxes are some of the highest in the country and it’s ridiculous as are these pensions and salaries. But my district spends just over $25k per student. That is obscene if you ask me.
That link you showed says Illinois spends on avg just under $16k. So big disparity on what the state spends and what our district spends.
Our local school district here in the SF Bay Area pays from $66,000 to $132,000 plus bonuses for masters, PhD, hard to recruit, etc. Plus medical, dental, optical, pension, 403b, etc. And if they want to work summer for 19 days, there’s an extra $5,000 for half days and $10,000 for full days.
CA. Per the article, average teacher salary is $85k. Our good friends who just retired, were making low six figures in their last few years.
Teachers are paid very well in MA, but the cost of living here is very high. Even with pension reform, teachers can still retire with full pension at age 60, assuming they’ve enough years of service. One of the few careers that still offers a real, non-401K, pension. Keep telling school librarian daughter that her teacher’s pension is gold. Wife and I count our blessings every month when my teacher pension comes through.
$50k (or $60k) per year is low, if they are comparing their pay to that of forum members who say that it takes every cent of $200k per year to live a middle class lifestyle.