As more companies move away from automatic pensions, workers have been accused of failing to contribute enough to their optional 401(k) plans or I.R.A.'s.
Fourth, a higher minimum wage was also an automatic stabilizer as workers lost jobs and had to resort to lower-paying work.
Additionally, the Legislature voted last month to give retired government workers automatic annual increases in their pensions, a package that is projected to cost the city $98 million this year and $586 million by 2005.
It has some good provisions, such as prohibiting insurers from imposing annual or lifetime caps on what they will pay and automatic enrollment of workers in employer-sponsored group coverage.
And with just a few days left in this year's legislative session, Senate leaders are seriously considering passing a broad package of gun controls; approving an increase in the state minimum wage to $6.75, from $5.15; and giving retired government workers automatic annual pension increases for the first time.
It proposed an automatic classification of workers as independent contractors, granting employee status only if they fit various criteria, such as working for only one employer and being given a uniform.
Many teachers, firefighters and police officers get automatic raises; lower-paid workers, who labor for District Council 37, do not.
In the very short term, this is a positive trend; Social Security payments act as an automatic stabiliser, and retiring workers reduce slack in the labour market.
Workers in automatic enrollment might contribute 2percentt of their pay the first year and then another percentage point or two in each subsequent year until they were setting aside a tenth of their pay, he said.
They included revised budgets for most government departments, with some winners and losers, plus changes to welfare and millions of public sector workers losing automatic annual pay increases.
