With all this talk of reforming California’s pension system and eliminating state jobs because “everyone needs to sacrifice during tough times,” it’s understandable why there’s so much scrutiny of the cushy lives of state workers. 

Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman both want to cut state workers and their pensions - but that's a bad move. (Creative Commons)

Yeah! Down with….nurses, firefighters, and teachers…?

Wait. 

Wasn’t it Wall Street and Big Business’ risky and careless behavior that led to the current financial state in California and the rest of the country? Yeah. I thought so.

Some of the incentives of being a state employee are a steady job, health benefits and a pension - because it’s definitely not the pay. A high school teacher’s starting salary averages $40,000, depending on the school district, while the salary tops out at $91,000, assuming the teacher has a master’s degree and thirty years of teaching experience.

$91,000 is a good salary, especially in certain parts of California. But I want the folks who are teaching our children to feel supported and appreciated. Not that their necks (and livelihoods) are on the line every time the economy takes a turn for the worse.

Then there’s the myth that public employees make so much more than private sector employees. 

On average, state workers make 11 percent less than their counterparts in the private sector. The average public sector pension is $2,000, with 78 percent of public sector pensions falling below $3,000 a month. Those not receiving social security often rely entirely on their pensions.  

So what are Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown saying about state workers? 

They must make sacrifices.

Whitman’s proposals include cutting 40,000 state employees while trimming the annual state budget by $15 billion a year. Whitman’s platform of shrinking the size of government may rile up the Republican base, but it ignores the fact that public sector employees are integral to California’s infrastructure and economy. Without a strong public sector, California’s already fractured infrastructure will further decline and the unemployment rate will remain stagnant. 

While Brown is not taking the axe to state employee jobs, his decisions also focus on concessions. He wants to renegotiate benefits, asking employees to contribute up to 10 percent a year in order to save the state $100 million a year, as well as to increase the retirement age to 60 from the current 55. 

In an effort to ease the blow to state employees, Brown pulled out the infamous JFK quote in the final debate on Tuesday, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Sorry, Jerry, but I don’t think that this is what JFK was referring to.

State workers have already made sacrifices, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s furloughs, which reduced some state workers' pay by over 10 percent. Working in a State Senate office, I heard heartbreaking, first-hand stories of state workers who could no longer pay their mortgages because of pay cuts and furloughs.

Sanford Jacoby, a UCLA professor of management and public policy, suggests common-sense changes such as, “closing loopholes that allow some people to collect more than 90 percent of their pre-retirement wages, limiting multiple pensions and forbidding public agencies from taking a contribution holiday during good times, as California did during the stock market bubble.”

As we mull whether to vote for Whitman or Brown during the final days before the election, let’s first take a moment to appreciate the underappreciated: the school bus drivers, DMV workers, sanitation workers and city maintenance crews. They are churchgoers, our neighbors, brothers, moms, and friends, and they need our support.

Reach writer Meredith Vivian here.