Mayor Bloomberg: NYC’s coming pension crisis

Mayor Bloomberg reports:

Here in New York City, over the past 12 years our pension costs have gone from $1.5 billion to $8.2 billion. That’s almost a 500 percent increase — when inflation totaled only 35 percent.

The $7 billion additional that taxpayers are forced to spend on pensions every year is $7 billion more that cannot be invested in our schools and our parks and our social safety net, or our mass transit system, or our climate resiliency work, or our affordable housing efforts, or our tax-relief for working families.

Think about it this way: During our administration’s time in office, we’ve spent $68 billion in taxpayer money on pensions, compared to $5.3 billion on affordable housing. So taxpayers spent about 13 dollars on pensions for every one dollar that they invest in affordable housing.

Unless something is done, that $7 billion additional will continue to grow, and continue to harm our ability to invest in the future. And, it will be compounded by the growth in health care costs, which have also continued to skyrocket.

Is your city next???