Culture
Watching the Cost of Employee Benefits Rise in Philadelphia
Pensions and benefits are making up a much bigger portion of the city budget over time.
A new report [PDF] out from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Philadelphia Research Initiative takes a look at some key indicators of the state of the city – population, crime stats, home sales.
One especially interesting chart shows a categorical breakdown of the city's budgets for the current fiscal year and that of fiscal year 2003. The important piece of the pie here is the gray wedge showing "Employee Benefits." This represents employee pensions, health insurance and other benefits. While most categories in this chart changed only slightly over this 10-year period, employee benefits have seen a huge increase, jumping from 20 percent of the general budget to 32 percent.