Public workers to haul in multi-million dollar lifetime pensions, study finds

By M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Reporter

MILWAUKEE – Tom Barrett presides over a $1.42 billion budget and a “company” with some 8,300 employees, but with all that responsibility the Milwaukee mayor only ranks seventh on the list of top paid city employees with $145,635 annual earnings.

Perhaps more striking, his estimated $2.86 million lifetime pension also ranks seventh among his Milwaukee peers, according to a new report by Taxpayers United of America. Those figures demonstrate how the public pension system is simply unsustainable, say members of that group.

TUA estimates show that Barrett will draw an annual pension of $127,945, and eventually net nearly $3 million if the 59-year-old mayor retires within the next year and lives to the age of 86, life expectancy based on the all-powerful Social Security Administration’s actuarial table.