Poll Shows Divide on Public Salaries, Collective Bargaining

Voters take a dim view of bankrolling public employees’ salaries and pensions on the backs of taxpayers and believe that workers’ pay should be clipped to reflect state government budget crunches. The findings are in a new national poll (PDF download) from the free-market Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

A plurality of voters also say that salaries and benefits for government workers are too high for the duties they perform, while half of voters oppose collective bargaining for public employees.

The results — drawn from voters in 10 states across the country, including North Carolina — come while states are embroiled in a political tug-of-war between public-sector groups and lawmakers forced to trim spending to balance government checkbooks.

A chief takeaway from the poll: voters’ distaste for politicians. Forty-eight percent of respondents said that elected officials are to blame for the budget crisis, compared to 6 percent who say state governments didn’t tax enough.

“The level of ire at elected officials is remarkably high,” said Douglas E. Schoen, the lead pollster on the survey.

Another major finding: Voters aren’t willing to have their taxes raised or social services cut in order to keep compensation for public workers at current levels. On that issue, respondents oppose increased taxes by an almost two-thirds margin.

Although a slim majority of voters had a negative view of union negotiations, they were split on whether laws recently passed in Ohio and Wisconsin limiting collective bargaining are a good idea.

Tar Heel results

On some state-specific questions, Tar Heel voters polled slightly to the left of their national counterparts. For instance, 48 percent of respondents in the national survey said that public employee salaries should be frozen and benefits reduced to shore up state budgets, compared to 40 percent who believe the opposite.

In North Carolina, the numbers were almost flipped: By a 46 percent to 42 percent margin, voters oppose freezing public-sector employees’ salaries or requiring them to contribute more to their benefits package.

But on other metrics, North Carolina voters favor a more conservative path. They support reform to health benefits that requires public workers to contribute to their own insurance and back a revamp of the state’s pension system.

“Voters clearly identify reckless spending and promises made by state politicians as a major culprit in the state’s budgetary woes, and voters don’t think they should be penalized with higher taxes to finance these promises,” said Brian Balfour, a fiscal policy analyst with the conservative Civitas Institute.

The poll took place two months after the General Assembly passed a $19.7 billion budget that reduced state spending. The Republican-controlled legislature gave the State Health Plan a facelift that requires workers to pitch in for their health insurance. Efforts to reform the state’s pension plan are in the works as well.

Key results of the national poll:

• Forty-one percent say that salaries and benefits for most public employees are too high for the work they do, 32 percent say they are about right, and 13 percent say they are too low.

• Voters aren’t willing to have their taxes raised to accommodate current salaries and benefits for public workers (65 percent to 29 percent), but they’re also not willing to have state social service programs cut to fund the compensation (52 percent to 37 percent).

• On who is to blame for the budget crisis, 48 percent say elected officials, 28 percent say excessive state government spending, 13 percent say overly generous benefits to public employees, and 6 percent say insufficient tax revenues.

• A plurality (47 percent) say the best way to ensure enough funding for public employee benefits is to cut government spending. Another 31 percent say current public employees should contribute more toward benefits, while 13 percent say that taxes should be raised to foot the bill.

• Fifty-six percent favor reducing or eliminating certain state services to control budget deficits. Thirty-five percent are opposed.

• Asked if they favor phasing out tenure for teachers “because it protects bad teachers from being fired while making it harder to bring in new and better teachers,” 56 percent agree. Thirty-nine percent say tenure is a “long-standing right” for public school teachers.

• Sixty-nine percent favor moving new public employees from a defined-benefit retirement plan to a defined-contribution plan, compared to 17 percent who oppose.

Key results of the North Carolina poll:

• Fifty-three percent oppose raising taxes to keep public employee benefits at current levels, compared to 41 percent who are willing to pay more taxes.

• A greater majority of North Carolinians (66 percent) rejects the idea of service cuts so that public employees can maintain current benefit levels, compared to 26 percent who are willing to take cuts.

• Forty-eight percent say that cutting government spending is the best way to pay for public employee benefits, compared to 23 percent who say current employees should contribute more toward their pensions and health insurance.

• Fifty-five percent said they would oppose raising taxes to reduce state budget deficits.

David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.