Union Share of Public Workforce: 50.3%
Debt 2009: $8.4 billion
GDP 2009: $59.4 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 14.2%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $2.5 billion (32%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $3.1 billion (95%)
Jim Kirk, firefighter: “It’s about safety, making sure I can continue to collectively bargain for my members, the safety of my members and working conditions of firefighters in Nashua.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 60.6%
Debt 2009: $56.9 billion
GDP 2009: $483 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 11.8%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $34. 4 billion (27%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $68.9 billion (100%)
Gov. Chris Christie (R): There are “two classes of people in New Jersey: Public employees who receive rich benefits, and those who pay for them.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 52.1%
Debt 2009: $6.8 billion
GDP 2009: $66.4 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 10.4%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $5.2 billion (31%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $10.8 billion 100%)
Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D): “In Hawaii, we don’t confront each other as adversaries; we discuss our mutual challenges in good faith; we meet as friends with a common goal. That will be how we conduct ourselves in the days ahead.”
Debt 2009: $4.8 billion
GDP 2009: $36.0 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 13.2%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $1.5 billion (16%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $632 million (100%)
John Fleming, teacher: “We should take care of jobs and balance the budget. It seems like we’re distracted now. We’re doing lots of peripheral issues, all the way from sonograms to spears for hunting, and we think it’s time to get serious about what’s important to the people of Montana.”
Debt 2009: $6.6 billion
GDP 2009: $45.7 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 14.4%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $3.5 billion (24%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $4.0 billion (44%)
Alaska AFL-CIO president Vince Beltrami: “I think it boils down to whether you believe that unions are looking out for the middle class and workers or if you believe that corporate interests, whose major motivation is profit, [are] working for employee interests. That is a notion to me that is ludicrous.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 51.7%
Debt 2009: $29.6 billion
GDP 2009: $368.4 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 8.0%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $11.5 billion (16%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $39.9 billion (98%)
Gov. Rick Snyder (R): “I and my administration fully intend to work with our employees and union partners in a collective fashion.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 28.8%
Debt 2009: $6.5 billion
GDP 2009: $63.3 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 10.3%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $5.0 billion (36%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $6.1 billion (96%)
Butch Tritt, highway inspector: “Right now, on average, most state employees have been here nine years; they’re still earning entry level pay. New hires are coming off the street making what a nine-year veteran makes, and it’s really causing some problems. It’s gotten so bad that now we’re hiring people using special hiring rates above maybe what a nine-year veteran is making, and it’s just decimating the workforce.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 32.1%
Debt 2009: $23.7 billion
GDP 2009: $262.6 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 9.0%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $9.8 billion (28%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $442 million (100%)
Gov. Mitch Daniels (R): “We have a new privileged class in America. We used to think of government workers as underpaid public servants. Now they are better paid than the people who pay their salaries.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 53.4%
Debt 2009: $41.9 billion
GDP 2009: $554.8 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 7.6%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $13.7 billion (13%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $10.0 billion (99%)
Kevin Harley, spokesman for
Gov. Tom Corbett (R): “This is Pennsylvania, not Wisconsin. We’ve had Act 195 [the collective bargaining law] since 1970, and I anticipate that we will continue to have it. I don’t think a bill [repealing it] has a chance in Pennsylvania.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 61.2%
Debt 2009: $24.6 billion
GDP 2009: $338.3 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 7.3%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: -$179 million (0%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $7.9 billion (100%)
Becky Little, maintenance technician: “Once something like this happens in one spot, it’s kind of like what happens in the Middle East right now. It has a domino effect.” [sic]
Union Share of Public Workforce: 49.6%
Debt 2009: $20.9 billion
GDP 2009: $244.4 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 8.6%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $252.6 million (0%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $1.7 billion (76%)
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: “This isn’t about balancing the budget. This is about making political choices. This is about hurting workers. This is about taking away their rights.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 24.5%
Debt 2009: $8.0 billion
GDP 2009: $74.8 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 10.7%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $4.5 billion (17%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $2.9 billion (95%)
Michael Freed, demonstrator: “Middle class, it’s time to speak up. Egypt did it, so can we.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 59.2%
Debt 2009: $10.5 billion
GDP 2009: $260.7 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 4.0%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $10.8 billion (19%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $1.0 billion (100%)
Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN): “It used to be that public employees were underpaid and over-benefited. Now they are over-benefited and overpaid compared to their private-sector counterparts.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 13.0%
Debt 2009: $5.4 billion
GDP 2009: $51.3 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 10.5%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $2.8 billion (20%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $4.3 billion (99%)
State Sen. Troy Jackson (D-ME): “I just don’t know how anyone can say, ‘No, I should be able to get that benefit you’re paying for, but I shouldn’t have to pay for any of it.’”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 46.2%
Debt 2009: $27.9 billion
GDP 2009: $471.3 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 5.9%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $19.5 billion (13%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $27.0 billion (62%)
Gov. John Kasich (R): “We frankly want to give the managers in the local communities and our schools the ability to control their costs so they don’t have to raise taxes and drive businesses and more jobs out. What we’re trying to do here is to balance it out, to make sure that management has some power and some tools to create to control their costs.”
Union Share of Public Workforce: 14.4%
Debt 2009: $24.3 billion
GDP 2009: $408.4 billion
Debt/GDP Ratio: 5.9%
Unfunded Pension Liabilities: $10.7 billion (16%)
Unfunded Health Care & Other Liabilities: $2.6 billion (66%)
Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA): “We don’t have public sector unions in Virginia, we have a right-to-work state, we have very few unions overall, and it’s one of the great selling points that I’ve got to be able to attract business.”
