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Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Simply doing away with early-retirement options (work 20 years with near zero personal contribution=~$60k starting annual entitlements age 55) would alleviate many Illinois crisis-level problems.
One such problem is: how do you force 65-year-old nurses (who paid 6.2% of salaries for 30 years in order to qualify for $30,000/annual social security at age 67) to happily fulfill immediate desires/with 100% perfect outcomes of demanding self-entitled 55-year-old retired teachers getting $60k year-one with COLA and free health insurance, entirely funded by taxpayers?
“Simply doing away with early-retirement options (work 20 years with near zero personal contribution=~$60k starting annual entitlements age 55) would alleviate many Illinois crisis-level problems.” Considering very few people are earning 60k per year pension after only 20 years and at age 55, I don’t see how that would have any significant impact on pension funding. You’re identifying a unicorn and acting like it is common. How many people do you think meet your definition? Do you ever operate in facts instead of rants about how nurses have it so rough? Let’s take a look at teachers since their fund… Read more »
Governments should not give overly generous pensions paid by taxpayers to government retirees.
These pensions are sometimes referred to as a “promise,” but the problem is most taxpayers never consented to this “promise.”
Corrupt politicians hand selected and paid off by government employee unions made this “promise” on behalf of the taxpayers they supposedly represent.
Behind a paywall.
yup, and that looks like an article worth reading posted by ctu blogger
Never going to happen. Overly generous pensions is all that is acceptable to government greedy employees. Damn everyone else.