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On 2020-04-08 13:24, Alfred Molon wrote:
In article ,
says...
some police/fire/transport workers earning
$200K+ a year

Bus drivers in the US earn 200K$ per year - seriously?


I didn't say bus drivers.

I said transport workers. For example commuter train operators. At the
end of their career, they have a wide range of options that allow them
to cook the system for huge payouts. That said, I wouldn't be surprised
if some bus driver's in NY and some other cities are going well over
$100K when they pack all the options wisely.

In article , Scott Schuckert
wrote:

Bus drivers in the US earn 200K$ per year - seriously?

Not around here they don't. I sell cars, and the credit applications I
see from them usually state high $20's to mid $30's. IMHO, not bad for
the job.

dunno where you are, but that's rather ****ty.

https://www.comparably.com/salaries/...driver-in-san-
francisco-ca
The average Muni Bus Driver in San Francisco, CA makes $79,617, 51%
above the national average Muni Bus Driver salary of $52,730. This
pay is 23% higher than the combined average salaries of other metros
Washington, DC, Denver and Atlanta.

https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Chicago-T...ries/Bus-Drive
r/Chicago-IL
Average salary
$46,670 per year

https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Mbta/salaries/Bus-Driver
Average salary
$51,652 per year

https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Wmata/salaries/Bus-Driver/Washington-DC
Average salary
$65,978 per year

https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Mta-New-Y...ries/Bus-Drive
r
Average salary
$71,207 per year

https://nypost.com/2016/03/13/nycs-h...r-doubled-his-
salary-with-ot/
New York¹s highest-paid bus driver, Jeffrey Birch, 60, collected
$153,173 last year, more than doubling his $67,462 base salary,
MTA payroll records show.
....
The minimum salary for bus operators is $20.97 an hour, but veteran
drivers earn $31.79 per hour before overtime.

In article , nospam
wrote:

The average Muni Bus Driver in San Francisco, CA makes $79,617, 51%
above the national average Muni Bus Driver salary of $52,730. This
pay is 23% higher than the combined average salaries of other metros
Washington, DC, Denver and Atlanta.

Sorry, I misread - I was thinking SCHOOL bus drivers, a whole 'nother
thing.

Scott Schuckert wrote:
nospam wrote:

The average Muni Bus Driver in San Francisco, CA makes $79,617,
51% above the national average Muni Bus Driver salary of $52,730.
This pay is 23% higher than the combined average salaries of
other metros Washington, DC, Denver and Atlanta.

Sorry, I misread - I was thinking SCHOOL bus drivers, a
whole 'nother thing.

But its still closer than what Alan was alluding to.

Specifically, he's trying to use an example of where there's
been a longstanding "broken" pension system for a few
segments of public workers - typically just Police & Fire -
that he's using to broad-brush condemn all public workers.
Many/most other public workers don't have the same formula
as Police/Fire to be applicable - - just as how they also
don't have mandatory retirement at age 55/etc.

FYI, this 'broken' system is typically a mechanism where
their retirement benefit is defined as a percentage of
their last year's pay, with said pay _including_ overtime.

What then happens is that for these workers is that when
they're in their planned last year of work before retirement,
they try to rack up a ton of overtime, because of how it
adds to their pension.

For "transit", there are "transit officers" which are
basically police that are specialized in working just
on the transit system; they can be under the same 'broken'
retirement as their non-transit police officers. But
that's not the bus driver or subway/train conductor.

FWIW, there's a lot more to this, as governments doesn't
have the same budget flexibility as private enterprise
such as to increase pay in the short term. As such,
the backroom negotiations may agree on a (say) +5% raise,
but if they only have enough cash in this year's municipal
budget to increase pay by +2%, the balance gets shoved
down the road as a deferred benefit (such as retirement).

FYI, private industry's benefits used to be better than
public, but they found that with the decline in unions,
new hires weren't paying attention as much to anything
other than the current salary, so benefits is where they
chose to cut their labor costs.

TL;DR: its all a classical "pay me now or pay me later" paradigm.


-hh

Savageduck wrote:
-hh wrote:
Scott Schuckert wrote:
nospam wrote:

The average Muni Bus Driver in San Francisco...

Sorry, I misread - I was thinking SCHOOL bus drivers, a
whole 'nother thing.

But its still closer than what Alan was alluding to.

Specifically, he's trying to use an example of where there's
been a longstanding "broken" pension system for a few
segments of public workers - typically just Police & Fire -
that he's using to broad-brush condemn all public workers.
Many/most other public workers don't have the same formula
as Police/Fire to be applicable - - just as how they also
don't have mandatory retirement at age 55/etc.

For California State Health & Safety employees, which
include State Law enforcement, and State Firefighters the
earliest retirement age is 50 at 2% of final year’s salary
for each years service, then pro-rated to 3% for each year
of service at 55. Those are not mandatory retirement ages,
just minimums. I retired at 60 with 25 years service in a
State of California Law-enforcement agency. My last 15
years were served as a Lieutenant.

KISS summary: the 'broken' pension system that I was
acknowledging does not apply to your California district.


FYI, this 'broken' system is typically a mechanism where
their retirement benefit is defined as a percentage of
their last year's pay, with said pay _including_ overtime.

For California Health & Safety...Overtime is not included...

Overtime isn't included in my own pension plan either.

But unfortunately, that's not universally true across the
entire USA for all pension plans of municipalities.


What then happens is that for these workers is that when
they're in their planned last year of work before retirement,
they try to rack up a ton of overtime, because of how it
adds to their pension.

That is not what happens...

in California. But the history in the Northeastern USA has
included this, which was what I was acknowledging.


What does happen, is some Health & Safety workers will
‘burn’ leave they have accumulated, not working for their
final year, and then retire. A payout at retirement separation
results in a considerable tax hit.

That was my experience when I cashed out about 1200 hours
of sick,& vacation leave.

I think you misphrased that? I'm aware of two approaches
that people consider when 'unused' hours' are (or aren't)
included in some fashion in one's pension calculations.

A) when unused hours get some form of retirement credit,
an optimization strategy is to seek to maximize said hours
to maximize the payout. Forms of credits can include
being paid out as a lump sum (thus, the tax hit), as a
credit which increases the length-of-service, etc.

B) when unused hours aren't given a credit (or aren't
"good enough"), an optimization strategy is to use them
(aka 'burn') them while still at regular pay. Can be
an effective 'retire early', etc.


There are others who will plan for promotion and retire
once they have a year at the top step of the pay range
for that rank.

Another personal optimization. My program looks at what
they call "High 3" pay averaging in their formula, so this
sort of optimization approach means that they'll take that
promotion and then stay for 3 years before retiring.


The other group are those who will claim on the job injury,
and take a medical retirement earlier than age 50. Those
folks do not usually fare too well as their disability is
evaluated, and paid as a percentage which is not taxed...

Including when the media gets a tip and sets up a camera...

For "transit", there are "transit officers" which are
basically police that are specialized in working just
on the transit system; they can be under the same 'broken'
retirement as their non-transit police officers. But
that's not the bus driver or subway/train conductor.

Not my area of expertise.

My point was just that 'transit' doesn't automatically
mean a job as a {vehicle} driver as was being inferred.


-hh

On 2020-04-08 20:44, Whisky-dave wrote:
On Wednesday, 8 April 2020 15:08:31 UTC+1, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2020-04-06 19:49, Whisky-dave wrote:
On Sunday, 5 April 2020 20:10:17 UTC+1, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2020-04-04 20:47, Whisky-dave wrote:


Formula 1 cars have manual gears

Double clutched automatics that change gears very fast - all the driver
does is pull a an "up" or "down" shift control. If you call that
"manual"....

Yep because the driver decides, not the car.
They have 8 gears IIRC why not just have fast and slow options. ?

Optimize engine-RPM-torque to wheel-RPM-torque for the desired conditions.

So.
It's still the driver that decides when to change gear. One day it might be done in car or even remotely by those monitoring the systems.
Maybe even AI or machine learning for each section of track, then you'll be getting closer to driverless car F1.
But presently the driver performance does seem important to the results of the race.

F1 rules keep adjusting to make sure the driver is part of the talent
pool involved in winning.

At one point skirts were used to create a low pressure area under the
car. That made cornering at higher speed much easier. It also made it
very dangerous if the car hit something (debris, another car, curb,
etc.), lifted, destroying the vacuum and the cars went airborne.

Turbos have come and gone and come again. IIRC turbos are now
compounded with electric motors (but I might be confusing that with
something else).

Cars now have a required hybrid electric energy storage requirement and
caps on how much of that energy can be drawn back (IIRC on a lap by lap
basis and other requirements/constraints).

Seems that people working for the private sector in the USA get
much less.

I know a guy from Texas, regional Americas head for a large
multinational corporation. He is well above 60 and continues
working because he can't afford to retire.
--
Alfred Molon

Olympus 4/3 and micro 4/3 cameras forum at
https://groups.io/g/myolympus
https://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

In article , Alfred Molon
wrote:

Seems that people working for the private sector in the USA get
much less.

no.

I know a guy from Texas, regional Americas head for a large
multinational corporation. He is well above 60 and continues
working because he can't afford to retire.

that could be for any number of reasons, and one story means nothing
anyway.

On 2020-04-09 12:31, Alfred Molon wrote:
Seems that people working for the private sector in the USA get
much less.

Depends what you do and who you do it for. If you're unionized and
working for government in a large city, most provinces / states and the
federal government, it can be very cushy as you get past 20 - 25 years
of service - and harder and harder to be removed for performance issues.
(Why governments attempt to offer early retirement incentives).

Management (civil) service can cover a massive range of salaries and
conditions depending on many variables.

Private sector all over the place at both ends.

I know a guy from Texas, regional Americas head for a large
multinational corporation. He is well above 60 and continues
working because he can't afford to retire.

Could be he's overwhelmed by debt.

Too many Americans (and Canadians) over extended themselves with second
and 3rd wives (usually not at the same time), McMansions, luxury
vehicles, boats, 2nd homes, vacations and so on. A good way to get into
a pickle (esp. in the US) is to send 3 kids to the best schools at $100
- $200K each for a mere bachelor's degree. Hopefully they get a job too...

Such an executive earning $150,000 - $200,000 would find life tough at
60 unless he hit his bonus levels every year for some top ups.

At least, if he works for a good co., he'd have a good medical plan.
Not sure if that's a tax hit? (No need for such in Canada other than
dental and drugs.)

QUOTE
The median household income hit $61,372 in 2017, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau. That's almost $20,000 more than it was in 2000. But the
typical American household now carries an average debt of $137,063. The
median debt was only $50,971 in 2000.
ENDQUOTE

On Thursday, April 9, 2020 at 3:12:07 PM UTC-4, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2020-04-09 12:31, Alfred Molon wrote:
Seems that people working for the private sector in
the USA get much less.

Depends what you do and who you do it for. If you're unionized
and working for government in a large city, most provinces /
states and the federal government, it can be very cushy as
you get past 20 - 25 years of service - and harder and harder
to be removed for performance issues. (Why governments
attempt to offer early retirement incentives).

I'd revise 'cushy' to 'comfortable', as the question is
how prepared one is for retirement, and in that regards,
the public sector has generally had its retirement plans
cut less than the private sector typically has, so it
makes for a more favorable retirement prospect without
having to work until you're 100/whatever. Even so, it
comes back to also how well one has done with managing
one's budget and expenses over the prior 25 years.

Management (civil) service can cover a massive range of
salaries and conditions depending on many variables.

Private sector all over the place at both ends.

I know a guy from Texas, regional Americas head for
a large multinational corporation. He is well above
60 and continues working because he can't afford to retire.

Could be he's overwhelmed by debt.

Sounds likely.

Too many Americans (and Canadians) over extended themselves with
second and 3rd wives (usually not at the same time), McMansions,
luxury vehicles, boats, 2nd homes, vacations and so on.

.... & season tickets to professional sports (Dallas Cowboys),
premium cable TV, cellphones for the entire family ...


A good way to get into a pickle (esp. in the US) is to
send 3 kids to the best schools at $100 - $200K each for
a mere bachelor's degree. Hopefully they get a job too...

As well as private school before college.

Such an executive earning $150,000 - $200,000 would find
life tough at 60 unless he hit his bonus levels every year
for some top ups.

Or at even higher income levels.


At least, if he works for a good co., he'd have a good
medical plan.

Good, but not necessarily cheap. Companies have been
getting squeezed here for years and doing things
like going to 'high deductible' plans.

Not sure if that's a tax hit? (No need for
such in Canada other than dental and drugs.)

Probably not.


-hh