This article was written by Shaun Bradley and originally published at The Anti-Media.org.
Editor’s Comment: Decades of benefit promises to state workers, especially by socialistic large cities and left-leaning states, is reaching the point of no return. The promised money is not there, and there is no way to squeeze that much more out of the public – though many will probably try. Somebody is about to get screwed, and it probably won’t be the ones bailing out with golden parachutes.
Hordes of retirees are ready to cash in their benefits, but the coffers are running dry. Empty promises, smoke and mirrors are about to be exposed by the compounding pressure of debt piled to the roof.
Will this problem lead to bankruptcy for governments, or to riots and protests in the streets? What happens if the whole system ends up being one big I.O.U.? This is a huge problem that just can’t be overstated…
Pension Panic: The Coming Financial Bubble Nobody Is Talking About
by Shaun Bradley
For millions of public sector workers in the U.S., state-run pension funds are the only chance left for a comfortable retirement. In the hopes of providing a stable future for their families, an entire generation was duped into putting decades of their earnings into these supposedly ‘risk-free’ investments. Unfortunately, those who have entrusted the government to manage their life savings may end up destitute as a result.
Budgetary shortfalls that have plagued Detroit for years are now spreading to other municipalities. Since 2008, six local governments have been forced to renegotiate their debts in bankruptcy court, with many others on the same trajectory. The scale of the problem has been repeatedly understated by the media, but across the nation, a somber reality is beginning to set in.
States with large populations, like California, often find themselves in the spotlight when it comes to deficits, but there are several others that are in even worse shape. Illinois, New Jersey, and Connecticut are among those facing the biggest hurdles to meet their obligations to retirees. Instead of maintaining a surplus, politicians have continuously prioritized spending today on things like sports stadiums, for example, to ensure re-election. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle have echoed solutions that involve either massive cuts to benefits or shifting the financial burden onto the taxpayer. The price to prop up these insolvent funds will come in the form of higher property taxes, income taxes, and other stealth forms of subsidization.
The ongoing exodus of people from the Northeast to states that offer better opportunities and a lower cost of living is putting even more stress on the already fragile system. Pension payouts depend on the contributions of current workers, and as the labor force dwindles, so does the money available.
Pushing through substantial reforms is counter-intuitive for our representatives. If they do the responsible thing and defer excess spending in the present, it will undoubtedly have a negative impact on their voter base. America’s political pastime of kicking the can down the road continues, but the options to keep this shell game going are running out.
The rating agency Moody’s released a report in April of this year that outlined the scale of the shortfall:
“The unfunded liabilities of the various federal employee pensions systems, covering civilian and military employee benefits, amount to about $3.5 trillion, or 20% of US GDP…Additionally, Moody’s estimates that unfunded state and local government pension plan liabilities are of the same magnitude, bringing the total shortfall to 40% of GDP.”
These calculations don’t even include Social Security and Medicare, which compound the issue by trillions of dollars. As the baby boomer generation gets closer to retirement, the amount of money flowing out of these funds will only accelerate. Just this month, the Dallas Police and Fire Pension Fund was forced to freeze $154 million in withdrawals to prevent total failure. Emergency actions like this only serve to further erode the public’s confidence and foreshadow a bleak future for those anchored to the current system.
The promise of financial security from a bankrupt government needs to be seen for the fraud that it is. The ability to adapt when presented with unpleasant truths is crucial in this dynamic financial environment, especially when the path of least resistance has been rigged as a trap for those who fail to think critically about the future.
This article was written by Shaun Bradley and originally published at The Anti-Media.org.
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Blah blah blah
“The unfunded liabilities of the various federal employee pensions systems, covering civilian and military employee benefits, amount to about $3.5 trillion, or 20% of US GDP…Additionally, Moody’s estimates that unfunded state and local government pension plan liabilities are of the same magnitude, bringing the total shortfall to 40% of GDP.”
Federal government employees will never lose their cushy pension plans. There are always more American taxpayers to fleece, in order to pay these pensions in full.
Fed. civil service employees have been on the 401k plan since the early 80’s, public sector workers should have gone to the 401k plan 35 years ago. Employers match funds based on what the employee puts into the 401k. The pension workers also needd to set up an IRA with a credit union or broker (tax deferred) as a retirement back up. This is not rocket science.
I cannot believe they have not ran for the exit yet. The first to retire will get the most money. Its like a giant funnel, if you wait to long it gets clogged up. I have seen this before.
does it really matter when you possess the printer for the bills while the last monkey in eight years doubled the dept of your country ? 8…19… +/- 7 trillions more, won’t change a fuck as long the system is based on dept, and as no other plans are set up, this won’t change for a while…. get used to it…
this smacks of the cloward and piven strategy.
Obama was not a failure. He was a huge success. His whole goal was to speed up the Cloward and Piven strategy. He even went to the same university..
In the words of Henry Hill; “Fuck you, pay me!” I worked 20 hard years for that pension, often times forfeiting lunch hours and the like to satisfy some whining member of the tax payer public. Well, guess what? Pay back time.
Prideful, indeed.
We owe you nothing once you walk out the door on your final day of employment.
You want paid? Go find the lying, shyster politician that you believed was gold-plating your life at my expense and collect it from him.
Government employee unions were a bad idea from the
beginning. I feel bad for the guys who are getting
screwed by the system. I despise the guys that have
“gamed” the system and are multimillionaire retirees
on a cops humble salary and the Democrat politicians
that enabled this entire tragedy.
So you despise me for being smarter than you and “gaming” the system. I played by the rules bud and I’m getting what i deserve.
Yup, you’re about to get what you deserve; please bend forward from the waist . . .
I believe Commiefornia is a $1 Trillion in arrears in funding their State Pension system.
Who knows if there will be any SS benefits to collect when I am eligible at 62.5 YO. I calculated it out and found if I started collecting early at 62.5 opposed to waiting until I’m my 70’s that I would not break even until I was 87 YO. Which means it is smarter in the long run to start collecting ASAP as you can at 62.5 than waiting. Unless you have some kick ass job at 62 still making buko bucs.
And married women, if you husband dies, collect off of his social security first, until you max out your payments in the 70’s, then switch and draw off your SS at the highest amount. Lots of women screw themselves out of more pay, by drawing off of their own. Know the game and know how to play it.
That is correct, California, is about to dive into the financial dumpster, and get flushed completely.
until something is done to reove and or control the Banksters AND the politicians NOTHING will get better!! time FOR ALL AMERICANS to WAKE UP and see what it takes to FIX our country IF it is NOT to late!! the scumbags have infiltrated EVERY WHERE and the whole SYSTEM needs a PURGE!!!
Jesus tried to whip the money changers from the temple. Hitler threw them out of his country.so many have tried all have lost. Only the second coming can defeat the children of Satan.
Got gold?
To all you fascist leftists in the Northeast. You made your bed, now sleep in it.
Do NOT attempt to move to conservative states, or Canadian provinces like Alberta. We don’t want your filth, lies, moral and financial bankruptcy, corruption, decadence and socialism. You already stole California, Colorado and British Columbia. Go away. Live in what YOU, YOURSELVES created.
It is only fitting that the Worstest Generation – sadly, my generation – reaps what it has sown. They took the greatest economy and nation in the world, the US, and destroyed with with their ignorance, arrogance, laziness, selfishness and intellectual dishonest.
The really bad part is that, like all other socialist hell-holes, the innocent, the poor, the weak pay the worst price, while all the Learjet leftists, limousine liberals, and Hollywierd hypocrite socialists make off like the bandits they are.
Yep…the handwriting is clearly on the wall, it’s just that most folks won’t read it.
All pensions, private, govt are going down the tubes eventually….after they steal all the tax deferred money (IRAs, 401k’s, etc.) to prop it up as long as possible.
At mid 60’s, wife and I are fine I think….no debt, fairly self sufficient place, good pile of savings in non FRNote form, I figure we can ride out the rest of our days whether the checks keep coming or not.
But if I was 30-40-50ish, I’d be working like a dog (and did !) to get into the position we are now in….because no way in hell is anybody else going to look out for your ‘golden’ years.
The ponzi that is a nation built on the premise of a ‘service economy’ replete with a large number of gubbmint employed flunkies (legitimate welfare) surprisingly has run its course; hard to believe… Behind the shiny neon glitzy facades of the glorious strip mall, there lies a dirty little secret; take a drive around the backside of your favorite mall and tell me what you see?!?!? Glorious isnt it! The real face of America lies behind the mall full of our favorite Chinese made plastic trinkets a shiny doodads.
Sucks these folks going to have little/no pension,be damned if folks pay higher property taxes though to bail out the mismanaged funds,going to be ugly.
I worked in the real world for most of my adult life. I saw an earlier post, I assume from a gov’t. employee, about a gov’t. employee talking about actually working through lunch hours! It was not uncommon for me to work through the night when there was a problem and not be compensated for it since I was self employed I did hwowever, pay my employees at overtime rates. Don’t muni and govt. employees usually get what they refer to as “comp time” if they are ever inconvenienced?
Also, as recently listened to a retired municipal employee crowing about his huge retirement and how he didn’t give a flying **** about other people in his situation that were having their pensions slashed or disappeared. Could someone please pass me the Kleenex?
According to the Gallop Report, optimism is at an all time high. Not since before Obama took Office, have so many Americans believed that things will get better and the economy will improve.
__
Sales on lots of food items that are hard to find. Buy organic fresh or frozen cranberries. Freeze them. Add them to smoothies. Also add to stuffing or when preparing meat.
Nuts, Spices, meat, and poultry are cheaper and even chocolate candy can be frozen. Flashlights and batteries are on sale too, at Christmas time. Stock up. Kids love flashlights.
__
No, no, no. Yes, chocolate, cranberries and flashlights are nice but what about paying the rent or property taxes, food, meds and utility costs? A small pension or a little SS check is all most of us have to look forward to. Take those away and now our kids making a non-living wage have to help us out. They can’t do it and none of us would want them to. The system is rigged against our kids.
“The system is rigged against our kids.”
And us. The bankster controllers only concern with the US is to keep their enforcement arm the US Military both capable and willing to do their bidding.
Just when they are saying peace and security ? Look out? Even so come soon. Let the Tares burn. It’s what’s needed? And promised?
After the pensions then the bail ins. Once they go cashless it will be easier to steal from everyone.
All public sector employees are parasites. I don’t care about them. If they don’t receive pension money. Maybe they will not cause as much inflation?
A pension was part of their pay, a deferred payment. Not paying them is criminal regardless if you like them or not. I don’t know what bus drivers, firemen and the like have done to you but that’s not the issue. Worst yet this is government shortchanging them, the supposed arbiters of justice.
Want to shortchange someone? Shortchange those that vote on their own pensions, the politicians. A Congressmen serves one term and gets a pension for life with medical that is just for them not what the masses get? WTF is that?
Confiscate the wealth of every politician who neglected the fiscal responsibility they were entrusted with. This would the pensioners and send a strong, clear message to politicians that they ill be held responsible for their misdeeds.
And just how will you get this confiscation done? You know just as well as I do that any politician that even tried to be fiscally responsible would be defeated the next election or maybe face a recall. Only those who promised & delivered the most goods and services from the public coffers where reelected. Look at all the money the klintons stole and half the country supports them. Bill Clinton sucked at the public teat his entire life. His father died. So his mother received a social security check for him. When He turned 18 He received that check. Used it to go to England for college and dodge the draft. Then he was elected attorney general in Arkansas. the governor. The He was president. A parasite his entire life. And still sucking the government teat. So Burt start with the biggest parasite. The fact is the productive are tapped out they cant afford to pay parasites pensions.
What have they done? They are parasitic they produce nothing that adds to the GNP. yet they where rewarded excessively. They have sucked the life out of their hosts. They effectively voted themselves goods and services from the public coffers. Now the public coffers are empty. And how are the public coffers filled? By robbing the producers. now we are in a declining spiral. Its been stated that the very worst thing that can happen to a nation I for a majority of the people to start believing they don’t need to produce. They falsely believe that someone else will produce for them. And then the few remaining producers start asking themselves Why produce? And they then go galt and quit producing beyond their very own needs. Unfairly punishing the few producers by taxing more to fund those parasites is criminal. and yes the politicians are the biggest parasites. my question is why you all think that somehow everything is magically going to be funded? They have already ran out of other peoples money. All government spending is a tax. In the case of the trillions of debt that spending is a tax of the futures producers. Face the fact there aren’t enough producers left to tax to fund the parasites pensions. So suck it up buttercup the pension was a promise made by some politician who appeased his voter,s. He is now long gone. And everyone should have known promises are made to be broken.
“What have they done? They are parasitic they produce nothing that adds to the GNP.”
If your home catches fire call a plumber not a fireman. If you child is missing send out a posse not the police. Drive the transit bus yourself. I hardly think the aforementioned are parasites.
They were promised X you deliver X not Y.
I think spending 10 X on the military than our nearest rival is excessive while using them to further globalists endeavors not protecting the USA. A good 6 trillion was spent to in effect destabilize the middle east. Bailing out those that created the crash to the tune of trillions, there you have a parasite. Handing GM money to, “Save Jobs” and then seeing that money spent on building factories in China. Thats a parasite. Don’t blame the downfall of the US on working people.
Of course you try and justify your position by touting firemen and police. because its not politically correct to lamblast them. By and large the lions share of government parasites are not police and fire. They are office workers teachers lazy fat highway dept and public works employees. I was a vollentier fireman for many years not a penny of compensation. and the police are mainly parasite enforcers of revenue generation. Protect and serve is a bull shit lie Fire fighting is mostly spray water on burning stuff.
It doesn’t matter what they do, teacher, bus driver, clerk. They were promised X signing a contract. Thats a legal document. Your obligated to provide X. Its a rule of law thing.
“Fire fighting is mostly spray water on burning stuff”.That is the greatest over simplification of a job description that I have ever heard. A Surgeon just, “cuts and stitches”.
I fought fires too in an environment that would frighten the shit out of you, an Oil Refinery. Have the highest respect for Firemen.
Regardless the huge money went to the SOBs that continually rip off the US in every way possible and they are above the law. The Jon Corzine’s, the Wachovia Bank that launders dope money, thus poisoning our streets, to the tune of $300 billion and receives a $160 million dollar fine.
Save your condemnation for those that are truly guilty. TPTB leave crumbs and the idiots spent their time arguing over who gets what piece.
Sorry but I lump all parasites together. And we are now beginning to reap the downside of the unsustainable ratio of too many parasite takers and to few producing makers. So you don’t like it? Tough titty there aint a friggin thing you can say that will change the fact,s. There isn’t enough money to fund the parasites pensions.
“Your obligated to provide X. Its a rule of law thing.”
Um, nope. You need to brush up on your Contract Law, son.
First of all; these ‘contracts’ to pay benefits that are not available, are not enforceable if there are no funds. Not enforceable means the contract is void.
Additionally, ‘contracts’ that contain fraud are also not enforceable. A ‘contract’ that contains promises to pay without a mechanism for proper funding put in place *up front*, are *all* fraudulent on their face.
It may take a Bankruptcy Court Order to prove it, but funds that don’t exist, cannot be paid…or are you one of those that believes that there is still money in your account if you still have blank checks left in your checkbook?
The information we have heard for years, yet it still stumbles along and the pensions are being paid. Lots of doom and gloom, but not a whole lot of definitive data to back either side.
The multiple prophets saying that we are in the second coming, seem very realistic, as the signs, the evil, the corruption to the top, the volcanos, the earth quakes, the weather extremes, it all seems to go along. Yet the discussions on this have been going on since 2000. 2008 looked like it may be the crash, yet some how, some way, they pulled it off, they kept it together with only a few of many getting into severe dire straits. We hear of an increase in demons, As a physician, I see the highest amount of ‘delusional disorder’ patients that I have ever seen. The amount of of people with health issues along with mental health issues with the resulting effort by these people to seek a solution,by going to street drugs in an effort to ‘try to be normal’. What do the evil ones with access to health care authoritarians do? They started the Prescription Monitoring Program in an effort to make physicians look at patients as criminals. However, I see the politicians that made the Prescription Monitoring Program are evil satanists, evil people that have no interest in the health care and or the mental health of our people, these evil satanists only have an interest in making the people that self medicate to appear to be criminals.
These Politicians, these Medical Board members, These pharmacy Board Members all need to be removed from their positions and put in jail for treasons, they failed to up hold their oath to the U.S. Constitution.
It is the greed of these people that keep dipping into our pension funds for their own personal evil, so that they can feel superior to the people.
The evil that has taken over, the evil that has re-distributed (STOLEN) the money of the pensioners, we need to identify these people and try them for TREASON.
This is going to accerate faster than most think. once word gets out that places like dallas, a good local economy; cant handle the pension withdrawals; people all over will be retiring early or switching jobs and taking pension offers during separation to make sure they get theirs.
I predict it to hit the worst within the next 10 years, maybe the next 5 as many of the boomer generation are retiring in mass numbers already.
and I say this as someone with a pension, but I have over 25 years left and am not planning on seeing any of it, it will be eaten up long before I would retire; my only goal is to make sure I stay marketable and employable.
I belonged to a union and 50 cents per hour was taken from my pay for the pension. After Reagan was elected the union membership dwindled. And when there weren’t any union jobs I quit paying dues and dropped out. A guy I know really well. Kept paying dues. He worked sporadically on union jobs. feast and famine existence. Work at a good union wage for a few months. Then draw unemployment until that ran out. blame the politicians nd rich people for his plight. When he turned 62 he started trying to get his pension. And it wasn’t there. He wasted his money on union dues. And earned so little only working a few months per year that he could only receive a pittance of social security. Not enough to live on. So now he is working at Wal Mart Stocking groceries second shift.
So the guy complaining about public employees was union! The unions screwed us almost as much as the politicians…
yes for a few years I belonged to a Union. I paid a bribe in the form of union dues and the 50 cents per hour to be able to make twice the pay for the same work as the non union jobs paid. However I still wasn’t sucking at the government teat. I was performing a job where my employer had to derive a profit from the work I performed. I was not a public employee. I was a millwright. Belonged to the Millwrights 602 local. I worked in the car factorys , brewerys, and other plants in the St Louis area. At that time mid 70,s if you wanted to work in that trade in that area you had to belong to the union. A guy bought a brand new Datsun. Drove it to work and parked it on the parking lot at the Chevrolet plant. A few hours later when he came out to lunch the tires where all slashed, the glass all broke out. dents everyplace and it was turned upside down.
Anyone that expected any kind of a return on fifty cents an hour into a fund is an idiot. Seriously.
Most folks put nearly 15%, about $5000 a year, into Social Security. The average benefit for that is what, about $1500 a month?
Iam in a company 401K that rides the stock market and had lost 50 percent of its value in 1 day! The 401K is backup to its original value but i quit putting in money because i needed the money because of inflation gasoline, electric, health care, food and it goes on and on.
The dirty little secret about 401k plans: they don’t actually “own” anything even though you are making contributions from your paycheck into it.
What do they really own? Credits for the “shares” they claim to own. These things can go off a cliff real fast when they actually have to go out there and acquire what they claim to own. Follow that with having to then sell “holdings” to generate liquidity for payouts. As long as somebody, somewhere, is willing to pay for credits for shares in a company rather than real shares representing real ownership, the game continues. When no one is willing to pay for those credits, the 401k is doomed.
I’m eligible to enroll in my company’s 401k this year. For the reasons outlined, I’m looking for options where whatever goes into my 401k allows me to take immediate physical possession of physical assets. Make no mistake about it, I have no interest in putting money into what are nothing more than credits for paper assets.
hang ’em high.
Good one Old Guy. What a cluster fuck of a country we have become, but I have to agree with now. The question is what will take place next year in 2017? The sickening facts make my stomach turn. This is the type of stuff that I believe was done intentionally and was no accident. Until we get rid of these assholes and remove them from power, they will continue to crush the system, gut us, and one day in the very near future, these assholes will tell us, pack up you shit, and move out of your house, we are taking your cars and houses, and your kids too, you refused to have them vaccinated. Take a look at the recent numbers with car sales, is it the election, or people worried about January 20th? Or is the economic down turn affecting people. They loads of backed up inventory, GM is shutting down plants, so is ford. Back then, the Union was for the worker, its effects today are nothing much more than bullshit politics. Now what is it today?
HCKS..
2017-2020
Diseased?..Yep, our survival is still questionable?
F.R.E.E. the Fund To Restore An Educated Electorate puts out an annual chart of Bulderberg Group, Trilateral Commission and CFR members. Its a “who’s who of who’s who”. At one time you could buy them in bulk by mail, now their just on line. All of the big union leadership are now members. They’re all in globalist cahoots.
hope these screwed pensioners are heavily armed and awake
sure could use them on our side
Stop talking about taking money from the public. Pension funds are a negotiated wage, the public has nothing to do with it. Instead of bitching about union wages and benefits try fighting for your own.
NO public sector worker should get a pension. Why the hell should taxpayers fund these losers retiring @ 55 making 90% of their salary and full benefits while private sector workers get shit on and work till they’re dead? Time to abolish pensions, America CANT afford them!!!
DMONIC is correct. Why doesn’t the public employees realize that the public don’t have the money. There are too many retirees (takers) and not enough working (makers) are paying into their pension funds for them to be viable. Their pensions are a luxury the public cannot afford. The Pensions have become insolvent.
Saw something real interesting the other day. It seems US TBTF banks are issuing what are basically Co-Co bonds to fund what is an underfunding of their backstops against failure/collapse. The bank issuing the bonds goes bust, the sucker who bought the bonds loses his whole investment. Presumably, there’s some feature to these things where they can be converted to equity in whatever entity is built out of the rubble of said collapsed bank.
Guess where these worthless bonds are going to end up? Pension funds, because they need to chase return to meet payouts. They’re going to buy this garbage because they HAVE TO buy it for the listed rate of return. They’ll probably have no clue that these things are straight bail-in/Co-Co, and that they would be first in line to lose their ass come bail-in time. Should we see bank bail-in’s come to this country, we will likely see every last pension fund implode because they will all be loaded to the gills with these garbage bonds.
These pension funds were always an unsustainable system that are dependent on eternal growth in GDP, among other things, and for which the recipient (public employee) does not contribute towards one iota. When I build a tractor and sell it to the Chinese that contributes to GDP. When I hire 5 million social workers to babysit other adults with babies – uh, not so much. Then you consider the public employee begins this career at 22 years of age, retires after 20 years of service and collects partial to full benefits another 30 years until they drop dead and it is very easy to see with simple math, public pension funds are a ponzi. Which illustrates one of my assertions that the bulk of the population reside in Lala land and the nation is in such a state of mass psychosis that probably all is lost when people argue over something like a retirement system based on fantasy. Clearly, it will fail enmass. Eliminate 90% of gubbmint and start fending for ourselves. Turn the degenerate tv off go outside and plant a garden renounce the wickedness in your life and pursue more mundane endeavours.
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works to the ripe old age of
Stop believing everything the media tells you. If you are not working 6 or 7 days a week 12 hours a day you need to thank unions. No one else is fighting for working men and women. The rich blame the pension funds and you people believe that is the problem. I guess ceo’s making more in a day then most people make in a year couldn’t be a problem.
Qdolph
As my 95 year old father says (who by the way was a self employed barber). “If it wasn’t for unions management would stick a broom up your ass and make you sweep the floor while you were working”. Here here to Walter Reuther.
In the great 1950s the top tax rate was 90% above $400,000 / yr (or $6,000,000 / yr today). Tariffs protected US workers from slave wage nations and CEOs made 30x what a worker made on the floor. Now CEOs receive 500x that worker and get a bonus “golden parachute” when they destroy the company. Today people blame those less fortunate then them for our demise”. News Flash; the US Textile Industry, largely non union and even with unions made $15 / hr still fled overseas for 50 cent / he labor in Asia. Germany has strong unions and has some of the highest wages in the world with a very strong economy. Their speciality is ultra high quality goods. Management, “bean counters” determine the quality of goods and those in the US produced junk to save pennies per unit. Remember Winchester post 1964? I worked in the Oil Refining industry and seen risks taken both personal and economic of millions as a matter of routine for $25k day reward. US is short sighted, next quarter thinking. When BP, one of the more risky violators blows up and burns a facility many say, “How can that happen”? Those in the know say, “I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often”.
Organized labor did not destroy the US, disorganized greedy management did. Such is the reality.
Looks like Germany and the US are being destroyed not by businesses but by the leftist politicians the unions support.
Hordes of illegal aliens here and hordes of muslims in Europe.
I worked a lot of 6 and 7 day a week jobs. In the summer during the early 70,s I ran a D7 cat clearing land for rice production. I started at daylight and quit at dark. we worked every day it was dry enough. got paid $5 a hour and time and a half overtime. I thought it was a really good job most people made $1.80 per hour. ive put in many 16 hour days driving truck.
Ok in Illinoise a teacher will often teach in a rural school . then right before retiring they start working at a school at places like Chicago where they receive a much higher wage. then when they retire they receive 90% of that higher pay. Things like that are why the Land of Leaving is in a race to the bottom with Calif!
The problem is many public unions do not require the employee to put in a part of their salary to bolster the retirement fund. I’m a Police Officer for Washington DC. We have one of the best funded pension plans in the country,110 percent funded because each Officer puts 8 percent of his two week pay check into the fund. It is administered by a private company.I remember Gov Christie just wanted the public unions of New Jersey to put 3 percent of their checks into their pension fund to save it and they had a tantrum.