hopefullyoneday
Recycles dryer sheets
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2017
- Messages
- 247
Agreed.....but during this 10 year bull run why didn't these funds sky rocket.
because the city reduced or did not increase their contributions.
Agreed.....but during this 10 year bull run why didn't these funds sky rocket.
Hopefully a look at pensions, starting with public pensions, which may not seem important for those with careers in the private sector, but affects all of us in terms of public debt. Putting the current government shutdown aside for the moment, the longer view of National and Local pensions is worrisome.
Let's start by looking ar just one pension plan. The Chicago Teacher Pension Plan. Currently measured at more than 11 Billion Dollars, the plan is incurring an annual interest rate charge of @230million dollars, just to cover current obligations.
That is for just one city.
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The genesis for this comes indirectly from long term plans for a sustaining insurance policy for public service, and was created at a time when interest rates were in the double digits. Unfortunately, as time changed the investment returns, the local government did not address the construct of the pension plan, and projections were made at a too optimistic rate.
Oversimple, but essentially the basis for today's nightmare.
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If this were an anomaly, we could overlook it, and tend to our own business.
The trouble is, the problem exists in hundreds, possibly thousands of public entities. Cities, towns, counties and state tax enabled constructs.
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Private pensions are not exempt, but should be discussed on a separate thread. More food for thought and discussion, but not here. Public pensions affect all of us... in taxes, and in public services.
Our county is generally considered safe, and well managed. That is, until we look at long term pension obligations. Young police officers are looking at pensions in the $60K+ range. The numbers just don't work out.
A subject that is commonly overlooked in meetings and public elections, but a major factor in the future of our nation and our personal taxes.
Do you know how pensions obligations affect your future?
Maybe so, lots of good information here. University of Illinois is losing talent by the minute because of pension cutbacks. Great profs are moving on to bigger and better pastures or they retired early, before the cutsGreat another pension bashing thread
Maybe so, lots of good information here. University of Illinois is losing talent by the minute because of pension cutbacks. Great profs are moving on to bigger and better pastures or they retired early, before the cuts
Maybe so, lots of good information here. University of Illinois is losing talent by the minute because of pension cutbacks. Great profs are moving on to bigger and better pastures or they retired early, before the cuts
If they can't be competitive they don't deserve the talent.
Right, in many cases, the IL public workers did not participate in SS. Apparently, this was another power grab by the local politicians. They wanted control of all the money. It does stink.
But not all cases. My wife will get a small pension as a part year, and sometimes part-time school secretary, and she is in the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund. That fund somehow managed to keep the politicians out of it, it is run by members, like a Credit Union. It is well funded, and she still participates in SS.
-ERD50
I don't believe that pensions made sense before and they certainly don't now with all the funding problems. I don't think it's fair or reasonable to eliminate a pension for people who were hired with a pension as part of their compensation. However, there is no reason to continue to hire more people with the promise of a pension. Increase the wage by a small amount(10%?) and maybe give a small extra 401k(or similar) contribution(maybe a few %) for all new hires and don't give them a pension. This won't fix the problem in the short-term but i'm not sure there is a far way to do that. Excessive pensions have happened for too long for there to be an easy fix.
Either unrealistic pensions get cut
or taxes sky rocket to pay for them
(or some combo of both)
Either way somebody is going to unhappy.
My Aunt worked her whole career in social work management and retired from Chicago(or IL?) with an 80% pension(at age 58) AND free healthcare AND SS. That is way too much to give to someone who isn't even working and there are worse examples from people making 6-figures and getting a similar % pension.
With all due respect, I hope you have another more convincing example. “Tens of thousands of dollars” is absolutely trivial compare to unfunded pension liabilities. IL is up to $133.5B now...If you just knew what the city is overspending on other than pensions you would be furious. My city got audited and 1 of the things they found was tens of thousands of dollars worth of cell phones with plans being paid that were in a storage room not being used.
“The primary reason for the (unfunded liability) increase was, again, actuarially insufficient state contributions, which increased the unfunded liability by $3.187 billion, accounting for 66.1 percent of the total increase,” the report said.
Much less so for people who leave those states before...?Either unrealistic pensions get cut
or taxes sky rocket to pay for them
(or some combo of both)
Either way somebody is going to unhappy.
With all due respect, I hope you have another more convincing example. “Tens of thousands of dollars” is absolutely trivial compare to unfunded pension liabilities. IL is up to $133.5B now...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-illinois-pensions-idUSKBN1O62KC
The article also supports my earlier assertion that it’s not lower returns that have been the primary issue, it’s curtailing annual contributions mostly. Politicians, voters and public retiree all share “blame” for the predicament.
Much less so for people who leave those states before...?
I was just giving and example of something overlooked as compared to my cities shortfall. So go pick someone else apart.
Its funny how you blame the employee.
The "employee" is the person willing to walk out on the job (and slash the tires of those willing to keep working) in order to get the bigger benefits and rules that encourage pension stuffing during the last year on the job.
The "employee" is the person willing to walk out on the job (and slash the tires of those willing to keep working) in order to get the bigger benefits and rules that encourage pension stuffing during the last year on the job.
Spock said:I've read 3 articles just today about how the average gov worker is paid 5-17% more than private sector workers of the same educational background. Gov workers still don't have to work overtime, still have generous pensions, and still have job security. Needless to say private sector does not.
Just saying but back in the day when I started working for the city of Chicago in the early 80's I was told I had a dead end job. Private companies and Mega Corps were flourishing with their benefits and pensions for their employees. Zoom forward now and layoffs and no pensions for private work force. All of a sudden public employees are greedy scumbags.