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Sunday, February 22. 2009
The Unemployed and Over-Paid
Friday I heard the funniest phone message. After being unemployed for a full four weeks without any compensation, I decided to call the Employment Development Department. I actually got their number from a friend.
So I dialed — during normal business hours — and got this message (paraphrasing); “We are currently getting more calls than we can handle. We suggest the best time to call is before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m. when no one is here to answer the phones so you can use the automated system. If you call to speak with someone about your claim it will delay processing of your claim.”
The message actually did say, “… when no one is here to answer the phones …”
The best time to call is when no one is there and if I were to actually speak to someone, it would delay my claim? Only in California would they have the chutzpah to come right out and say that! Ya gotta love this state! They had a $40 billion-plus budget deficit to close, which they did on Thursday, and in the process they leave the citizens on the hook for more taxes and fewer services. And of course they delay entitlement benefits like unemployment compensation and tax refunds.
What the state is really banking on is the money from the Obama stimulus bill. California is in a steep decline and still going down. The conservatives blame high taxes for the drain of business from the state and in places like San Diego they get some of the electorate to echo their claim, and not just for state government, but for our local governments as well.
We see it every day in the letters to the editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
On Friday, there were a couple letters bashing the city employees for their wages and contracts, as if getting a living wage and affordable health insurance and retirement benefits is a bad thing. “Employee benefits are out of control,” the letter writer tells us!
Another writes, “Whether we are grossly overpaying city workers versus just significantly overpaying them, the city is still wasting our tax dollars.” There isn’t any room to ask if the city employees might be getting exactly what they need to live. One would think city employees live in the tonier section of San Diego, like Scripps Ranch or La Jolla. There is no doubt that some do, but for the vast majority of city employees, a step up might be an older house in Mira Mesa or a small condominium in Carmel Mountain Ranch.
So, what do the employees of the City of San Diego get on average? According to Councilman Carl DeMaio, the benefits package for city employees was 61% of the employees’ compensation. In other words, only 39% was salary, the rest was health and pension benefits, “fringe” benefits as they are called.
Shortly after DeMaio made his findings public, several of his colleagues went to work to either confirm or refute his numbers. What they had found was that DeMaio had inflated his numbers and that the actual percentage of an employee’s compensation that was “fringe” benefits was only 37%. That’s a big difference, but it didn’t matter to the people who read the story. As far as they were concerned, even after DeMaio admitted there was an error with his study, which he corrected after he was exposed, De Maio was right and the city workers were over-compensated.
For some on our fair city, it doesn’t matter what the truth is, if it goes against what they want to believe, then it’s all hogwash. The truth is, the actually salaries of city employees ranges from a low of $12.60 an hour for an auto messenger, to $38.75 and hour for any one of a number of city supervisors. When you add an additional 37%, just under $13.00 for the highest paid employees, that looks like a big number, when compared to the national average, which is what DeMaio did in his report.
In these studies, no one takes into account the higher cost of living in San Diego then say Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All they see is that it is higher than the national average, that city workers are paid more than the people working for the City of Milwaukee.
I can guarantee that a 900 sq. ft. condominium in a modest community of Milwaukee is not going to sell for nearly $300,000.00, as it does here in San Diego. But god forbid the average city employee is able to afford a condo in Scripps Ranch, Carmel Mountain Ranch or any number of communities in the city.
But the fact remains, California is in a deep recession and any scapegoat will do. California has always been a beacon of prosperity in America, which is why it remains the fastest growing state in the union. Hollywood alone brings thousands of people seeking their fame and fortune. Others come just for the beaches and scenery, although now that I’ve been around a bit, maybe Miami, Florida would be a better location.
Regardless of what’s happening in the state, people will continue to come here, looking to improve their lives. It’s a story as old as when the Europeans first found the West Coast. The U.S. made its march West just to own the Coast, and California in particular. There was gold in them thar hills, and much, much more.
The people will come, despite the bleak conditions here because it’s bleak everywhere and the siren song of California beckons, most especially when times are tough and these are the toughest of times, at least for those of us under the age of 70.
Unemployment in the state is running at nearly 10%, and that’s just the people receiving or who have recently filed for unemployment compensation. That’s more than three million people and I’m one of them, so I’ll call, when no one is there to answer the phone because there doesn’t seem to be anything else to do.
So I dialed — during normal business hours — and got this message (paraphrasing); “We are currently getting more calls than we can handle. We suggest the best time to call is before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m. when no one is here to answer the phones so you can use the automated system. If you call to speak with someone about your claim it will delay processing of your claim.”
The message actually did say, “… when no one is here to answer the phones …”
The best time to call is when no one is there and if I were to actually speak to someone, it would delay my claim? Only in California would they have the chutzpah to come right out and say that! Ya gotta love this state! They had a $40 billion-plus budget deficit to close, which they did on Thursday, and in the process they leave the citizens on the hook for more taxes and fewer services. And of course they delay entitlement benefits like unemployment compensation and tax refunds.
What the state is really banking on is the money from the Obama stimulus bill. California is in a steep decline and still going down. The conservatives blame high taxes for the drain of business from the state and in places like San Diego they get some of the electorate to echo their claim, and not just for state government, but for our local governments as well.
We see it every day in the letters to the editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
On Friday, there were a couple letters bashing the city employees for their wages and contracts, as if getting a living wage and affordable health insurance and retirement benefits is a bad thing. “Employee benefits are out of control,” the letter writer tells us!Another writes, “Whether we are grossly overpaying city workers versus just significantly overpaying them, the city is still wasting our tax dollars.” There isn’t any room to ask if the city employees might be getting exactly what they need to live. One would think city employees live in the tonier section of San Diego, like Scripps Ranch or La Jolla. There is no doubt that some do, but for the vast majority of city employees, a step up might be an older house in Mira Mesa or a small condominium in Carmel Mountain Ranch.
So, what do the employees of the City of San Diego get on average? According to Councilman Carl DeMaio, the benefits package for city employees was 61% of the employees’ compensation. In other words, only 39% was salary, the rest was health and pension benefits, “fringe” benefits as they are called.
Shortly after DeMaio made his findings public, several of his colleagues went to work to either confirm or refute his numbers. What they had found was that DeMaio had inflated his numbers and that the actual percentage of an employee’s compensation that was “fringe” benefits was only 37%. That’s a big difference, but it didn’t matter to the people who read the story. As far as they were concerned, even after DeMaio admitted there was an error with his study, which he corrected after he was exposed, De Maio was right and the city workers were over-compensated.
For some on our fair city, it doesn’t matter what the truth is, if it goes against what they want to believe, then it’s all hogwash. The truth is, the actually salaries of city employees ranges from a low of $12.60 an hour for an auto messenger, to $38.75 and hour for any one of a number of city supervisors. When you add an additional 37%, just under $13.00 for the highest paid employees, that looks like a big number, when compared to the national average, which is what DeMaio did in his report.In these studies, no one takes into account the higher cost of living in San Diego then say Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All they see is that it is higher than the national average, that city workers are paid more than the people working for the City of Milwaukee.
I can guarantee that a 900 sq. ft. condominium in a modest community of Milwaukee is not going to sell for nearly $300,000.00, as it does here in San Diego. But god forbid the average city employee is able to afford a condo in Scripps Ranch, Carmel Mountain Ranch or any number of communities in the city.
But the fact remains, California is in a deep recession and any scapegoat will do. California has always been a beacon of prosperity in America, which is why it remains the fastest growing state in the union. Hollywood alone brings thousands of people seeking their fame and fortune. Others come just for the beaches and scenery, although now that I’ve been around a bit, maybe Miami, Florida would be a better location.
Regardless of what’s happening in the state, people will continue to come here, looking to improve their lives. It’s a story as old as when the Europeans first found the West Coast. The U.S. made its march West just to own the Coast, and California in particular. There was gold in them thar hills, and much, much more.
The people will come, despite the bleak conditions here because it’s bleak everywhere and the siren song of California beckons, most especially when times are tough and these are the toughest of times, at least for those of us under the age of 70.Unemployment in the state is running at nearly 10%, and that’s just the people receiving or who have recently filed for unemployment compensation. That’s more than three million people and I’m one of them, so I’ll call, when no one is there to answer the phone because there doesn’t seem to be anything else to do.
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