Poll: Maximum Percentage of Salary

[ziggy29]

2) They certainly did that to other people , although not to me. See below.

And how would you have felt if they DID do it to you? Think you might be just a little angry or resentful that you were being treated like a second class citizen and asked to subsidize the security of others while no one cared about your own?

 

[Rustic23]

I was surprised, but the table showed a higher allowance for Houston than for Dallas.

 

[ERD50]

Oooops! Sorry -

I erroneously voted in this poll, so disregard one of the "under 50% votes". I did read the statement "Please don't vote in this poll unless you are currently working, or have worked in the past, for local, state or federal government (including military). ", but then after calculating mine for comparison, and getting so focused on the number, I forgot about the pre-requisite for voting. Sorry.

-ERD50

 

[Emeritus]

And how would you have felt if they DID do it to you? Think you might be just a little angry or resentful that you were being treated like a second class citizen and asked to subsidize the security of others while no one cared about your own?

Would I be angry at the powers that be, sure. Would I be nasty spiteful and bitchy towards my fellow workers? NO

 

[martyb]

I'm a federal employee who will retire in 2 yrs, 2 months. I'm under the old CSRS defined benefit plan. As such, my retirement for 36 yrs service (includes 4 1/2 yrs active military) will be just a hair under 70% of my high-three average. Out of that, I'll pay federal taxes and health insurance, plus pay for a survivor benefit for my spouse. I'll be 55 yrs old when I retire.

In addition, when I reach age 60, because I'm also retired now from the Air Force reserves, I'll receive a COLA'd pension based on my 33 combined years service active & reserves. Because I did meet my 40 quarters minimum for SS, I will draw some SS when I reach eligibility age for that. However, since I am a federal employee under CSRS, and have not contributed the minimum amounts to SS in many years, I will only receive a very small SS payment, due to the Windfall Elimination Provision. WEP. Am I happy to be getting these 2 COLA'd govt. pensions? Hell yes. I am not a highly paid employee, though, and my 2 pensions will be enough to live on, but I won't be seen sailing around the world on a yacht.

 

[FANOFJESUS]

Pension?

So true and a low wage to boot.

 

[chinaco]

I think you have missed the point of the poll, which is to show that the pension stories which are posted here are not typical examples. Most public employees do not get six-figure pensions, we don't get above 100% of our base salary as a retirement benefit. We often don't get full COLA, and we don't always get full payment of health insurance after retirement, yet again and again, examples of people who do get these extremely generous benefits are presented as if they are the universal experience of public employees, and then this supposition is taken as evidence that public employee benefits are too high. I think that whole line of argument is nothing but a straw man and I'm sick of being beaten over the head with it!

Oops... my bad.

Sorry I didn't see the part about poll for govt employees.

 

[Amethyst]

Pension calculation for Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) may be found here:
CSRS Retirement Calculator
(No Social Security, and no matching TSP contributions from the Government)

for Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) here:
Federal Employee FERS Annuity Information and Calculator.

As a Federal annuitant, I will pay into federal health insurance until I turn 65 at which time, I recently learned, the "federal" insurance providers will force me onto Medicare by a ruse I don't completely understand.

A while back I started a thread about which "pensioners" pay or don't pay toward their pension :http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/those-w-pensions-how-much-do-you-pay-in-41737.html

Amethyst

 

[52andout]

there is a website for NY pensions, you can look up and see how much anyone in the NY retirement system gets paid. www.SeeThroughNY.net

For anyone in NY you can find out what all the teachers etc get paid in your district and how much the retirees get paid. There is also a police/fire section.

I looked up my school district, the large majority get less than $20,000 per year. I only know the particular history of one person, she drove a bus for 35 years and receives $16,000 per year. These days the amount would be even less as NY has a tier system. Most of the bus drivers supplement their pay by working part time in the cafeterias or with students on jobsites, on the evenings and weekends and during the summer- I know them as I pick up some on call work in the schools as well.

 

[rmark]

Both my wife and I are state higher education staff, she over a much longer period of time. Under her plan she has an underfunded fixed pension + 403b, under mine no pension, just 403b. No healthcare benefits in retirement.

 

[keegs]

I fully agree that Corporations "conspired" with tame bought politicians to screw workers out of pensions. I told people in 1980 that a vote for Reagan was a vote against pensions. By 1988 the Republican led (and Democratically enabled) destruction of private pensions was well underway. The key was the underfunding of the PBGC.

You should include the unintended consequences of ERISA enacted under Jimmy Carter.

I'd add court interpretations of stakeholder and shareholder rights have had allot to do with it as well.

 

[martyp]

The university I work for has a DB plan. The benefit is calculated by (years of service) x (highest 3 year average salary) x (age factor). The age factor starts at 0.011 at age 50 and stops increasing at age 60 at 0.025. I was fortunate enough to start working here just out of college so I can retire at 55 with a decent DB income. Most of the people my age didn't start working for the university until later in life so their years of service is relatively low and they can't (or won't) retire yet. Even with the state budget in shambles the University is staying with the DB structure though it is sure to be modified for current and new employees. The DB also has a COLA based on the state cpi. Health benefits payments are uncapped and doubled for me starting in January.

If you worked until age 60 and had 35 years in the system then you would get 87.5% of your salary. There are probably very few people who make it this far.

 

[Emeritus]

You should include the unintended consequences of ERISA enacted under Jimmy Carter.

I'd add court interpretations of stakeholder and shareholder rights have had allot to do with it as well.

Carter ?

Employee Retirement Income Security Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1974

Not Carter . Ford

And the compromises and consequences were not "Unintended" but were needed to get the legislation passed

 

[growing_older]

I have a friend in a municipal fire dept. He tells me that calculated pensions are 50%-60% of average top three years of pay, but that everyone he knows that has retired was offered essentially unlimited overtime in their last year or two of service, so the pensions are usually closer to 80% of pay. Occasionally they go over 100% if enough shifts were worked. It's not exactly a secret, since virtually everyone in the department has done it in the last few years and virtually everyone in the department lets the about-to-retire guys take all the overtime, expecting they will take the extra when it is their turn. I have no objection to police and firefighters having a reasonable pension for the difficult jobs they do. This kind of nudge-nudge wink-wink twisting of the rules is objectionable. So maybe my buddy is not giving me an accurate story, I don't have personal knowledge of this practice, but I have no reason to not believe him either. Since he himself is IN the system, I think his account is credible.

 

[growing_older]

I HAD a pension and retiree health insurance from my first employer out of college.

I also had defined benefit pension plans from several employers. In all cases, the plans were discontinued or the company went out of business and the "benefits" for employees many years from retirement were calculated in astonishingly skewed ways. In all cases, the existence of these plans was a big factor in attracting employees and in allowing the company to pay lower wages than some other companies without such pension plans. I still believe I was deliberately taken advantage of by slick finance types who knew how to manipulate the discount factors to minimize costs and reduce benefits paid to employees. We never had a choice of any sort, nor any opportunity to negotiate the value of what was bait-and-switched, other than seeking new employment.

 

[Nords]

I think the reason for the righteous (and rightful) outrage is that the recent FASB requirement to account for the lifetime costs of public-sector pensions has only now revealed the lack of accountability, let alone the need for fiscal responsibility. We'll all be scandalized by it for another decade or two until all the various levels of govt readjust their accounting to [-]hide[/-] take it into consideration, some will go bankrupt, everyone's taxes will go up, and then we'll get on with our lives.

While it's possible for a military veteran to earn a pension of greater than 75% of base pay, and while that scale could hypothetically exceed 100%, the reality is that only 15% of the people who join the military stay for at least 20 years. (Generally no vesting occurs before 20 years.) I'd bet that fewer than 3% stay for 30, and the only ones who can stay until 40+ are E-9s or flag officers.

If anyone can point me to a study or demographic data on the various levels of military pensions (20 years to 40 years) then I'll add it to the book. I haven't been able to find any references.

You can blame Reagan all you want, but it would have happened no matter who was in Congress... the private sector can change the rules.. they can adjust to market forces... we get that...

I'm sure that Reagan and his administration earned more than their fair share of blame, but I can't help have a sentimental glow in my heart for a CINC who raised my pay nearly 25% in one day.

Yep, news to me... I learned something from the posts...
AND.. learned something else... you can get a LOT of house for $2,400 per month in Houston... would this be someone who has to rent because they might have to move?

Not only would you have to move, but you might have to do it as often as 18-24 months. You'd also have to discard most of your groceries and cleaning supplies and restock at the other end. Govt insurance does not cover the cumulative wear & tear of multiple moves (it barely covers the loss or damage of one move) and veterans almost never have the opportunity (let alone the time) to search out a bargain at the new duty station.

That $2400 is also based on rank & dependents. I'd bet that junior enlisted get a lot less.
Here it is: Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH)

An E-4 would only get about $1400/month if their duty station was at Rice University. I guess you'd have to pick the ZIP code of a military base in the area for a more realistic number.

Military housing allowances have come a long way in the last 10 years, even more progress than in the 10 years before that. They used to be allocated to cover 85% of one's rent, and they didn't do a very good job of tracking individual ZIP codes or inflation. Computing power now makes it a lot cheaper to track the details more frequently, and allowances have been raised to cover not only 100% of rent but also utilities. Some very expensive areas (like Hawaii) even get an additional cost-of-living-allowance of a few hundred bucks a month.

There's a cynical aspect to this benefit. It's far cheaper for the military to raise non-taxable allowances & bonuses (and thus raise retention) than to take on the lifetime obligation of raising base pay. Allowances & bonuses end when the veteran leaves the service, but the effects of base pay raises show up in pensions that last until their survivors die...

Spare me the sanctimonious holier-than-thou stuff.
My fault for being an idiot. So sorry, sir. I stand chagrined for being a mercenary private sector idiot in your eyes who couldn't see the obvious fact that he'd get screwed 10 years later, and that if he only chose a government job it wouldn't have happened. I'm such a pathetic failure!
Your characterization of those who did NOT choose "public service" as mercenaries unwilling to "sacrifice", somehow less noble than those who work for government, is also rather offensive and prejudicial.

If they singled out your department for slashing the pension while you still had to pay for the pensions of others -- or increased your mandated contributions to subsidize another department's plan with no benefit to your own retirement -- how would that make you feel?

Ziggy, I hope you speak for the entire moderator team... and I wonder how much longer you're going to put up with it!