The new one percent: Public-sector millionaires

A New York City public-school teacher earning $100,000 can retire at 55 with a pension of $60,000. A private-sector worker would need $1.2 million to buy an annuity with the same yield and starting at the same (relatively young) age, according to the online pension calculator developed by the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center.

It would take an even larger nest egg to replicate the pension income of city police officers, who typically retire in their 40s. According to data posted at SeeThroughNY, an Empire Center Web site, the average newly retired city cop collects a pension of $58,563 — plus a $12,000 annual supplement.

(Of course, public-sector workers also receive lavish health-care retirement benefits.)

Few private-sector workers have anything close to $1 million socked away in their retirement accounts. According to the Federal Reserve, the average worker in his late 50s has a balance of $85,600 in his retirement account, and a net worth of $222,300 overall.