Former NYT reporter Walsh: "Mayor Brandon, you don’t need a working group. The answer is obvious. You’re being asked to spend billions of dollars that you don’t have, to give everybody pensions that are as good as Social Security. It would make a lot more sense to just shift your Tier 2 workers into Social Security. Other cities have already made that switch. Chicago could become an exemplar for other jurisdictions."
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 »
Spike Protein
2 years ago
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.
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
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.