A couple of weeks ago, I pointed out the flaws in a recent study of Wisconsin’s public employee pension system. At the time the study was released, George Lightbourne, a former cabinet secretary in the Thompson administration who’s now associated with the right-wing think tank WPRI, touted the study as proof positive that Wisconsin’s public employee pension system needs to be changed.
This week Lightbourne is at it again, opining in an editorial for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the Wisconsin Retirement System (a system Lightbourne benefits from) is far too generous. However, as I noted a couple of weeks ago, if one uses an example from the WPRI study, public employees earn a total $4,800 more per year in retirement than private sector employees, but the private sector employee will earn $22,000 more per year during the duration of their working careers. During those working years, the private employee made $770,000 MORE in income than the government employee, but if both employees draw retirement for 20 years, the public employee will get an extra $96,000 in retirement. If one does the math, that means the private sector employee will have earned $674,000 more than the public employee.
Maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else see the irony in George Lightbourne railing against the Wisconsin Retirement System while he collects a fat pension check from WRS every month?
Recent Comments