Readers of this blog know that I’ve been quite positive about the pension reporting that usually is done by Mary Williams Walsh of The New York Times. Today, she has a lead front-page article (co-authored with Michael Cooper) with the scary headline “City Gets Sobering Look At Possible Pension Trouble.” The upshot of the article is this:

With the retirement plans said to be financially sound, state politicians have happily showered city employees with generous pension enhancements — annual cost-of-living increases, holiday bonus payments, early retirement with full benefits — that are the envy of private-sector workers, whose pension benefits have eroded.

But a close inspection of city pension records shows that the funds committed to the plans may fall well short of the city’s promises to hundreds of thousands of current and retired workers. They look fully funded chiefly because the city has been using an unusual pension calculation that does not comply with accepted government accounting rules. Even the city’s chief actuary, who helps produce the annual reports, says the official numbers are “meaningless” when it comes to showing the plans’ financial health.

The chief actuary, Robert C. North, has prepared a little-noticed set of alternative calculations showing that the gap in the pension funds could be as wide as $49 billion. That is nearly the size of the city’s entire annual budget and the equivalent of the city’s publicly disclosed outstanding debt.

I’m not going to focus too much on the quibbling between North’s number and the denials that city officials have issued about North’s contention. What’s more interesting is the frame in which the article is written.

First, check this out:

On their face, New York City’s pensions do not look particularly extravagant. As an example, a teacher retiring at age 55, after 30 years of service, could expect to receive a pension of about $51,000 a year today. The New York City police, who are compensated extra for the risks they face on the job, can retire after 20 years, at any age, with pensions of about $53,000 a year.

But compared with that of other workers — particularly in the private sector, where large companies have been freezing their pension plans and offering workers leaner benefits — the pensions are already relatively generous and becoming more so.

That’s where we have sunk in America–when someone receives a pension of $53,000n and that is seen as relatively generous we know how bad retirement security has become for the vast majority of workers. 53K? How can that be seen as “generous?”

And then there is the observation by the writers that:

In addition to the pensions, New York City has promised to pay for its retirees’ health care. The total cost of those obligations has not been tallied or reported yet, but Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has estimated it at about $50 billion in today’s dollars. (New York and other cities are adding up such obligations in response to a new accounting requirement.)

So, with the health care and the potential pension shortfall, New York City could have as much as $100 billion in long-term obligations that it has never formally reported.

A perfect place to insert the idea of single-payer health care which would be a huge cost savings to cities across the nation, not to mention employers who are carrying the health care coverage of workers.

And, finally, one reason cities and states are having such a tough time financially is the perversion of the tax system–i.e., the fact that the rich and corporations no longer pay a fair share of state and local taxes means that the revenue gap just gets bigger, with the burden to fill it–or the burden of the cuts that might be necessary in the future–increasingly being shouldered by average wage earners. That point never makes the article.