Why should public sector be better off?

karens_3

'Devoted their lives to public service'...what a laugh! You get perks and pensions that the average person working in a real job in the private sector can only dream of.
The figures for size of pension pot versus annual income are correct (don't be so patronizing Gregg1). You can double check them elsewhere. Poor health/smoking may increase your annuity, but not hugely.
The fact is that public servants do not contribute anything like a fair amount to produce their handsome pension pots. They like to think they do. But do the maths - £100,000 over 30 years. You explain it then!!
Consider this
"Over the past five years, the average annual pension for a retiring officer who has completed his full 35 years' service has jumped from £12,500 to £14,250. Before the Pension Act of 2006, full service was defined as 30 years' service. The lump sum paid on retirement has risen from £80,000 to more than £88,000." (The Observer)
"Police officers now retire on average at 51"
"Many retiring police officers then get another job, but will draw their index-linked pensions for more years than they've served in the police." (The Observer)
Retire early, decent pension, lump sums, hobby job in middle age etc etc.
Freeloading public servants are draining the rest of us.

themull1

I'd love to get a lump sum of £80,000, but i won't because like all non public servants you believe all that is written in the paper. I have been a public servant for 26 years, since i was 16, and i'm on below £20,000 a year, not national average wage, as are more than half the workforce, get your facts right before spouting utter rubbish.

themull1

I'd also be interested in finding out what perks we are supposed to get, please enlighten me.

karens_3

"The average public sector worker is getting from the taxpayer the equivalent of over £250,000 for their retirement." Dr Ros Altmann (pensions expert) on Channel 4

"It doesn't sound a lot to have a £7,800 average pension, but the reality is this is worth over £250,000. The average public sector worker, when they retire, is getting from the taxpayer, the equivalent of over £250,000 for their retirement.

Angry, Gregg1? Why? Because it shows what an advantage you public service people have? The Observer and Channel 4 - reliable enough resources?

WhiteHorse

themull1 wrote: »

I'd love to get a lump sum of £80,000, but i won't because like all non public servants you believe all that is written in the paper.

You and your union will of course be taking such an obvious case of journalistic fraud up with the newspaper.

I have been a public servant for 26 years, since i was 16, and i'm on below £20,000 a year, not national average wage ...

And we are supposed to believe that government figures regarding the 'average national wage' are accurate?

...get your facts right before spouting utter rubbish.

The uncivil servant.

karens_3

Are there only public servants on these forums? I thought there were 20-25 million private sector employees! Aren't you bothered that you are financing retirement for these free loaders?

WhiteHorse

themull1 wrote: »

I'd also be interested in finding out what perks we are supposed to get, please enlighten me.

No personal responsibility whatsoever seems like a perk to me.

clemmatis

karens wrote: »

Do you really know how much you would have to save to get any sort of pension? £100,000 buys an annual income of around £5000 - £100 per week (who said they had ONLY got £50 per week pension? Still an ample pot of £50,000 to give you THAT). A public servant on a pension of £25000 (not unheard of) would have to have a pension pot of half a million pounds! You really believe that you poor, hard-done-to public servants have made proper contributions from your incomes to produce a pension pot like that AND live as well??? It's a sick joke. You are deluding yourselves. Get real.
....
Ask anyone with a proper job whether they can manage pension contributions and pay mortgages etc. - lorry drivers, shop assistants, chefs, car body repair lads etc.
Unless you can drum up a final pot of more than £5000, forget it. Annuity companies don't want to know.

karens, public sector pensions, and similar private sector ones (I had a private sector one that worked similarly) are funded by payments by the employer and the employee, supposedly, anyway; so your calculation is based on a wrong assumption. Also the fund is set up, all workers pay in. If they don't want to, tough: they must. If they are single and don't want to fund other workers' widow/widower benefits, tough. They must.

Your annuity calculations are correct now. When I retired, they were very different, 100,000 would give a pension of 14,000. That is far above the standard public sector pension, most have 5,000 or below. Now, public sector pensions are going to be changed -- basically, lowered. Please note. 100,000, please note, from contributions by employer and employee, the employee usually paying one-third, over many years; invested, reinvested, at compound interest. But most public sector workers, even so, have far far less.

It is true that public sector workers have had better pension provision than many private sector workers. That is changing rapidly.


I would like all workers to have a decent pension It would be very difficult to arrange for people like your nan given her kind of work, a better "old age pension" for all is the answer there. Meanwhile, surely she is entitled to the various top-up benefits?

And your "proper job" is just insulting to public sector workers.

The figures for size of pension pot versus annual income are correct (don't be so patronizing Gregg1).

they are correct given current economic conditions, just a few years ago, things were different.

Retire early, decent pension, lump sums, hobby job in middle age etc etc.
Freeloading public servants are draining the rest of us.

Police officers can retire early on a decent pension. Police officers are a very small minority of public sector workers. Very small.

WhiteHorse

karens wrote: »

Are there only public servants on these forums? I thought there were 20-25 million private sector employees!

When organisations like Atos Origin, the DWP (or the Civil Service in general), or the NHS come in for criticism, the response is immediate and fierce.

You can criticise commercial organisations like BP, the railway companies, or ICI, and yet you don't get that sort of vitriolic response from employees.

Which may tell you something.

hoogervaaner

WhiteHorse wrote: »

When organisations like Atos Origin, the DWP (or the Civil Service in general), or the NHS come in for criticism, the response is immediate and fierce.

You can criticise commercial organisations like BP, the railway companies, or ICI, and yet you don't get that sort of vitriolic response from employees.

Which may tell you something.

For me it's simply that I'm loyal to an organisation that I'm proud to work for I'll leave this discussion here, with no bad feeling, just because I love my role doesn't mean I expect anyone else to.