There is this odd notion that the public sector employees are living off the largesse of the rest of us, i.e., the taxpayers, and that they have used their union power to somehow pull a fast one. This is false. As David Cay Johnston points out, the pension benefits that unionized workers get is not something that is a gift to them from us. It is essentially deferred compensation that was negotiated with employers. In other words, part of the wages they were entitled to was deferred until their retirement.
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