Study grossly underestimates public-sector pay

I read an article in The Seattle Times entitled “How state workers’ pay really stacks up.” I’m ashamed of the waste of ink that this represents and how they seem to be in the tank for the Democrats in Olympia.

It’s not until deep into the article that I find a sidebar that states this study is really comparing state worker benefits to federal government workers, Local government workers and private-sector workers combined.

I have long believed that federal and local governments pay way too much to their employees, so this study is flawed from the get-go.

My dad always told me that “figures never lie, but liars do the figuring,” meaning that it’s easy to omit or add data to come up with a totally erroneous outcome.

Therefore, please re-do this study of wage and benefit comparisons of state workers versus only private-sector workers (do not include federal or local government employees in this study).

And be sure to state exactly how many paid days off a year state workers receive versus the private sector, and what their average retirement pay is versus their average pay while employed.

And why are they allowed to retire at 55 (early) and the private sector can’t retired until 62 (early) on Social Security (a full seven years earlier).

And when they exhaust their retirement benefits (taking out more that they paid in, even with interest added), then the rest of the taxpayers have to keep paying for their exorbitant retirement ... yet they did not pay into our Social Security retirement.

They should have the same benefits as the majority of us (not the highest paid few of us) that pay their wages and healthcare — and they certainly should be paying into and receiving only Social Security benefits and not an extravagant retirement package.

Pauline Cornelius

Olalla

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