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A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

nytimes.com

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Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#171

Post by gedy »

closeparen wrote: post #161
jakelarkin wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it humane or an entitlement? most people in the private sector work their whole life never get anything remotely close to a pension secondly, its just an intergenerational wealth transfer. another excess of the selfishness of the boomer generation. Who will pay the price ... the school kids getting a crap education in 35 student classrooms in crumbling buildings in a towns who's infrastructure is going to literall…

>an entitlement It's compensation earned in exchange for labor under a negotiated agreement. The fact that the check is separated from the labor by years rather than days doesn't suddenly make it "an entitlement." The time to complain about entitlement, selfishness, and intergenerational wealth transfer was when we were promising those pensions, not now that the bills are due.

True, but one approach that might help is paying generous pensions come after basic services, education, and pay for active workers. Versus them coming first then saying "gee no money for pencils at school" is just wrong.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#172

Post by vkou »

home_boi wrote: post #151

What's the chances of retroactively lowering pensions? 1. Progressively lower pensions. Skim off the top earners. 2. Create projects for the community and declare that the saved money will be used for those projects for better optics. This won't lower trust in government pensions by that much because this is just correcting what is seen as "unfairly high" pensions.

The same chances as retroactively renegotiating on other deferred obligations. We call it 'defaulting on a loan.'

Wouldn't it be a great idea if the government just stopped making payments on its loans that, in hindsight, were a bad idea?

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#173

Post by vkou »

ams6110 wrote: post #67
narag wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why it was downvoted, but my bet is this that you insist in: Pensions are surely a problem, but they are clearly a drop in the bucket Pensions are NOT a drop in the bucket by any measure. Maybe for the USA they're less important. But for the rest, safety net is most of a country expenses. Then you add that population in the first world tends to shrink and the model in most countries where current workers pay…

That was my fault as well. Pensions are almost a form of a Ponzi scheme. They all will eventually collapse. Corruption in pension administration is also rampant.

If pensions are a ponzi scheme, so is the expectation that our economy will, on average, grow YoY.

Yet, every single part of our society, from pensions, to investments, to government planning, to retirement advice for people working in the private sector is based on the insane notion that 3% GDP growth is perpetually sustainable.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#174

Post by Roybot »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

Re the ongoing debate here about government pay (and whether it's high or low): I'm not super familiar with city and state government jobs, but I do know something about military and federal compensation. They frequently pay less in salary, but have better benefits. This makes it an apples to oranges comparison when trying to talk about what they pay in comparison to non government jobs. I was a military wife for a l…

> This means that two people arguing about it can both be right and unable to see the other point of view.

Thanks for sharing this. This is something that has been extremely important for me to realize. When it comes to holding strong and passionate view points on any topic. I have to stop and understand that there is a reason that the person with an opposing view point may also be right from the perspective of their world view and I’m simply blind to it because I may never fully be able to understand their world view and they may never understand mine.

We all go through anywhere from slightly to drastically different life experiences that inform our world view. And it’s something I force myself to be more conscious about. But thank you for bringing this up in your context and experience.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#175

Post by [deleted] »

rootusrootus wrote: post #3

My mom is a PERS retiree. Not one of the rich ones, though she did retire at the perfect moment and she has a livable retirement income. One thing a lot of people (who do not work in gov't) don't recall is that while the economy was roaring back then, Oregonians working for the gov't went for years without so much as a cost of living adjustment. Some of the perks they got from PERS were in lieu of getting a raise. So…

[deleted]

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#176

Post by mythrwy »

cma wrote: post #81
mythrwy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4 million people. How many working people with enough income to pay tax? Half? Less? So maybe ~13K per tax paying person in outstanding pension obligations alone? That is a big deal.

> So maybe ~13K per tax paying person in outstanding pension obligations alone? Then that would be an obligation of about $300 per tax paying worker per year over their working lifetime. The average yearly salary in Oregon is $50,000. The article makes it out through anecdote that this is why they didn't have gas to send trucks out for a road repair. In the last 20 years Oregon has had near 1% per year population gro…

If the average person makes 50K a year then the average person in Oregon takes home about 35K per year. So you say it's "only" 300 extra dollars a year they have to pay.

In other words, this person now owes nearly 1% of their disposable income for life to cover _currently_ unfunded pensions with no corresponding increase in goods or service levels.

To put it another way, this person will work ~1/3 of a year out of their career to pay for unfunded pensions.

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#177

Post by [deleted] »

Roybot wrote: post #174
DoreenMichele wrote: post #109

Re the ongoing debate here about government pay (and whether it's high or low): I'm not super familiar with city and state government jobs, but I do know something about military and federal compensation. They frequently pay less in salary, but have better benefits. This makes it an apples to oranges comparison when trying to talk about what they pay in comparison to non government jobs. I was a military wife for a l…

> This means that two people arguing about it can both be right and unable to see the other point of view. Thanks for sharing this. This is something that has been extremely important for me to realize. When it comes to holding strong and passionate view points on any topic. I have to stop and understand that there is a reason that the person with an opposing view point may also be right from the perspective of their…

[deleted]

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#178

Post by ubernostrum »

tptacek wrote: post #119
ubernostrum wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mentioning federal employees in a discussion of state/local employees is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Please provide sources to counter the assertion that state/local employees often get large pensions in lieu of salary.

The median annual cash compensation for a teacher in my kid's public high school district in Illinois is six figures. I know that's not true of teachers in other states; Oklahoma teachers look like they're getting shafted. But in Illinois, where we have a public pension crisis, I don't have trouble coming up with evidence that public sector employees did not make cash comp sacrifices for their defined-benefit pension…

What were the teachers in Illinois making a couple decades ago?

Re: A $76,000 Monthly Pension: Why States and Cities Are Short on Cash

#179

Post by mythrwy »

home_boi wrote: post #151

What's the chances of retroactively lowering pensions? 1. Progressively lower pensions. Skim off the top earners. 2. Create projects for the community and declare that the saved money will be used for those projects for better optics. This won't lower trust in government pensions by that much because this is just correcting what is seen as "unfairly high" pensions.

Here's the other option. Pay the promised pensions and inflate them away. Since this is a growing national problem, I'm guessing that solution has at least been considered.
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