How Underfunded Public Pensions Be Around The Country Essay

Imagine this. You wake up one morning in the year 1929, in your luxurious, pricey mansion. You then make your way downstairs to eat that nice big breakfast. Then you kiss your family good bye and head off to your fancy job. You come home that evening and suddenly you’re flat broke. Meaning all your money and life’s savings vanished. Unreal right? Well it was real for hundreds of families on October 29, 1929. The day the stock market crashed and when America’s confidence was challenged greatly.

The stock market collapse was one of the most important events, in the country economy during 1929, which led the Great Depression. Before October 29, 1929, most Americans believe that stock was the key to success and fortune. John T. Raskob affirms his belief that everyone could be

Many people believe the Stock Market crash and the Great Depression are one in the same. In the nineteen twenties the Dow Jones went from sixty to four hundred. People became instant millionaires. Trading became America’s favorite pastime and a quick way to get rich. There were Americans mortgaging their home and investing their life savings in stock such as ford. However, there were many fake companies that formed to deceive the inexperience investors. Many investors did not believe that a crash was possible; they all thought the market would always go up.

In “The Social Security Problem”, Max Moore discusses the fearful reality of Social Security running out of funds. He states that the U.S. Department of the Treasury predicts that Social Security funds will run out by 2041 and action must be taken in order to prevent this (134). In his essay, he explains how the depletion of Social Security funds are a result from a decreasing retirement age, decreasing fertility rate, and shrinking work force. These things contribute to an increased population relying on Social Security, an increased population of the elderly, and a decreased ratio of workers paying for those beneficiaries (135). Moore explains the proposal of George W. Bush to make Social Security partially privatized; allowing young workers to invest their retirement savings into their own account. This would result in people putting their retirement on the line in

The Chicago Fire Department and The Chicago Police Department are in danger of losing their pensions. These brave men and women put their lives on the line every day and this is how the government repays them. This is not securing their future of retirement. Citizens believe that our first responder’s pensions should be a high priority to Chicago’s to-do list. This City of Chicago owes these brave men and women a pension like they promised and if that means cutting funds to other things, then it should be done. The pension secures the men and women’s future of retirement, and by taking it away from them it may create unstable lives.

California has 62 state and locally managed public retirement pension arrangements. According to Nava and Christensen (2015), the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act that was implemented into law on January 1, 2013, covers the state’s two largest pension systems. They include the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS). It also covers the 20 county systems that are under the 1937 Act County Employees Retirement Law (CERL). The Act changes the manner in which CalPERS, CalSTRS, and CERL retirement and health benefits are applied, and places compensation restrictions on members (Nava & Christensen, 2015). PEPRA’s purpose was to establish a cap on the amount of compensation that can be used to determine a retirement benefit for all new members of a public retirement system. The cap should be equal to the Social Security wage index limit, that is, $110,100 for workers involved in Social Security, or 120% of that limit, which is $132,120 if the employees do not participate in social security (Nava & Christensen, 2015). PEPRA’s provisions apply to new staff and new members of CalPERS, CalSTRS, and the 20 CERL plans. According to the Act, a new employee is a worker of a public business who was not employed by any other public employer before

This started the idea of having ownership over a private account that was personally controlled. Account holders were directly receiving the money they invested in Social Security, and have the option to spend the money as they see fit.

As you may know there are two types of pension plans that are most commonly used: a defined contribution plan and a defined benefit plan. “A defined contribution plan sets forth a certain amount that the employer is to contribute to the plan each period (Schroeder, Clark, & Cathey, "Pensions and Other Postretirement Benefits," 2011). “A defined benefit plan specifies the amount of pension benefits to be paid out to plan recipients in the future. Companies that use this plan must make sufficient contributions to the funding agency in order to meet benefit requirements

President Obama acknowledged that it is not his “ideal plan” for reducing the deficit or growing the economy, according to a CBS News article by Stephanie Codon. Last year, the AARP released a national survey showing that eighty-four percent of voters fifty years and older oppose reducing Social Security benefits to reduce the Federal budget deficit. An entitlement reform would threaten benefit security–“a core value” of the Democratic Party. Cutting benefits when pensions are disappearing is the wrong direction.

On August 17, 2006 the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (the Act) was signed into law. The Pension Protection Act ("PPA") [P.L. 109-280] originated as a single-employer defined benefit pension funding reform bill to strengthen the DB pension system. However, it is best known for the number of provisions to enhance 401(k) and 403(k) plans, especially the auto enrollment feature. Among other noteworthy provisions are those intended to remove legal obstacles to, and create new incentives for, automatic enrollment 401(k) and 403(b) plans. It represents one of the most comprehensive pension reform legislation since ERISA was enacted in 1974. The Act has lead to many companies changing the way their plans are designed and administered, amend plan documents, increase plan funding, and make additional plan disclosures in regulatory filings and to plan participants. The Act made many sweeping changes but for the sake of brevity, only the automatic enrollment plan made by employers on the behalf of its employees is addressed in this report as to the rationale behind the passage of the PPA. Even though the provisions generally apply both to 401(k) and 403(b) plans, for explanatory purposes all references will refer only to 401(k) plans.

Roosevelt and his Economic Crisis Committee, in 1935, came up with the simple idea of providing benefits to the generation of retired workers from tax money of currently working generation. Roosevelt put this straightforward idea into the system to make it work, and it surprisingly has worked out well so far. When the bill became a law in 1935, there were many people who were affected by the Great Depression and sought financial aid. Unlike the bank money that goes in loans and still depositor have access to the money; Social Security System passes out collected money immediately into benefits (“Social Security System”). This way, the working generation will always provide enough money to the fund. Rather than providing money from government fund, idea of benefiting citizens from their own money didn’t receive

There are over a million residents living in Rhode Island between the ages of 21 to 65. The majority of the Rhode Island population is not employed by the state nor does an individual concern oneself with state issues (Randazzo, 2013). The Employee Retirement System of Rhode Island (ERSRI) was originated to cover state employees and teacher’s retirement, disability, survivor, and death benefits (Randazzo, 2013). In 1987 and 1989, the State Police Retirement Benefits Trust and the Judicial Retirement Benefits Trust were established (Randazzo, 2013). All pension plans in Rhode Island are managed by the state and the funds are commingled for investment purposes in determining the actuarial value

Despite the fact that PEPRA develops new levels of both safety and –non-safety employees with lower benefits, PEPRA’s pension benefits changes do not cover most of the employees. According to Nava and Christensen (2015), following the implementation of PEPRA, most of the public employees in California were promised health coverage for life, which is one of the major components of other post-employment benefits (17). Nevertheless, the state and local governments have no strategy and are not setting the funds required to cover the future obligations aside. A report by Tatum (2014) assessed the financials of 690 post-employment benefits (OPEB) plans in California and found an unfunded pensioner health care liability that amounts to $157.7 billion. The pensioner health care system was part of Governor Brown’s 12-point pension reform plan but was not included in PEPRA (Halper & York, 2012).

Political climate change, Political philosophy say that it would not increase or decrease. Political philosophy think that when you are not sure, select the option that minimizes profits and assets. This would have been more conservative if only underfunded plans were book to liabilities and overfunded plans were just reported in documents but no asset booked. Given the extensive assumptions, the certainty of future benefits is not very high. Overfunded plans can turn too underfunded with one deep plunge of the stock market, as happened in fall 2008. According to www.nrln.org an good example, General Motors used pension assets to pay for nearly $3 billion in lump sum severance payouts during 2008 and ended up with such a dangerous degree of under-funding that in early 2009 the Treasury Department restricted the practice as a condition of the federal bailout loan package. In 2012 it terminated its plan for management and salaried retirees entirely. (www.nrln.org)

Pension funds are any plans, funds or schemes which provide retirement income. The money in them varies from some offering very little making it not worthwhile for their holder to retires, whilst others pay more than the employee has earned in his lifetime. Examples of the former are the present-day crisis with Chicago teachers who have found that their pension is giving them as little as 42,000 per year ((NYT Times (September 19, 2012) Next School Crisis for Chicago: Pension Fund Is Running Dry). Examples with the latter are the absurd instances of Yonkers, where policemen in their 40s are retiring on $100,000 pensions (more than their top salaries), or in California, where payments to Calipers, the biggest state pension fund, soared while financing for higher education was cut (ibid). The largest 300 pension funds collectively hold about $6 trillion in assets (Global Investment