Gov. Rick Scott wants the public to believe that teachers, law enforcement, firefighters and other public employees are getting rich off their pension benefits. The Miami Herald punctured that baloney in its Sunday, March 20 edition.
The Florida Department of Management Services calculates that the average Florida Retirement System employee earns a salary of $34,651, retires with 21 years of service, and collects an average annual benefit of $11.642, or $970 a month. Of the 304,337 beneficiaries in the state retirement system, only 0.17 percent – draw more than $100,000 a year.
Rep. Scott Clemens, D-Lake Worth, told the paper that the cost to each taxpayer to fund the retirement of all 655,000 current employees and 304,000 retirees is $138 per year.
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