Public Pension Reform : The State Of California

In the department of Health and Welfare, the new government had developed a national contributory pension plan that was based on the Liberal campaign promises. (English, 284-285)

The City of Houston pension systems are at a crossroads. The recession has brought pension funding practices into the bureaucratic limelight due to the proliferating scrutiny and tightening of the local finances. Pension reform has been spurred by ballooning cost projections and an estimate $2.7 trillion nationwide funding gap (Johnson, Chingos & Whitehurst, 2013). Reforming the insufficient pension system has suggested for most citizens from taxpayers who want to reduce the expense down and yet still receive a great quality of firefighters, police officer, and public services who want to preserve their retirement security. The recent Detroit bankruptcy ruling has left a sobering precedent that pension promises are not sacrosanct, but could possibly renege on if a local government falls too far behind its funding obligations (Bomey 2013). The wide ranges of public sector pensions are considering benefit plans. In these kind of plan, when an employee reaches a specified age or years of service, he or she in entitled to a set amount of benefits each year from retirement until decease. The benefit amount of a retiree

What would happen if the government made changes to the welfare system? There are approximately 110,489,000 of Americans on welfare. Many people benefit from what the system has to offer: food stamps, housing, health insurance, day care, and unemployment. Taxpayers often argue that the individuals who benefit from the system, abuse the system; however, this is not entirely true. Many of the people who receive benefits really and truly need the help. Even though some people believe welfare should be reformed, welfare should not be reformed because 40% of single mothers are poor, some elderly people do not have a support system, and college students can not afford to take extra loans.

The Teachers Retirement System of Texas (TRS) is Texas’ general pensions fund for active and retired public teachers. Currently, the TRS-Care plan, which insures health care for state retired teachers, is facing a $768 billion dollar shortfall. For the last few years TRS-Care has been struggling to remain sound as factors such as soaring health care prices, longer life spans, and more teachers retiring have put a strain to the system. More than 233,000 public retired teachers and their dependents participate in the plans within TRS-Care. The $768 million shortfall losing the funds that help pay for lifesaving health care procedures and drugs will cause the retirees and dependents put severe hardship to the retiree and dependents. Teacher’s general gross salary is already close to the poverty line and once they retire their socioeconomic situation does not change for the better, instead they cling to the funds they paid to when they were active for their pension and healthcare.

At the top of 2017, Mayor Turner issued a letter to concerned citizens discussing his objective to reforming the 7.7 billion dollar pension plan (Mayor Turner Gives Update on Houston’s Pension Plan). The letter was specifically targeting three specific groups: the Houston Firefighters’, the Houston Police Department, and Municipal Employees. The letter expressed much gratitude for those who are retired and those who plan to retire confortable in the near future. In addition, Mayor Turner was sure to emphasis how the pension system might affect employee’s cost of living, future benefit accrual rates, and the DROP program (Mayor Turner Gives Update on Houston’s Pension Plan). He conclude the letter by stating that they will not embark on this

Since the beginning of time choices must be made in any given situation. It has been said that tough times call for desperate measures. In the case study, California’s Governor Jerry Brown was faced with a $27 billion budget deficit. Governor Brown had to make some tough decisions in order to balance the state budget. This report will cover several questions. What decisions did California Gov. Jerry Brown have to make to balance the California State Budget? What specific steps did he need to take to do this? How did Gov. Brown respond to the criticism that he was harming the less fortunate by undertaking some of these measures? What other criticisms have been lodged my detractors? And what have been the results of these decisions in terms of California’s State Budget and on taxes on/services to different groups?

California is a highly dynamic state whose needs are in the eternal realm of changing and adjusting because of the diversification and growing population. Likewise, every county experiences different problems, and most of those problems require strategic problem solving because there is no one fit solution for all. This is the essence of California’s political system. The counties are legal entities responsible for governing and protecting segments of the population. Whereas, the state is responsible for the oversight and compliance, as well as, reimbursement of taxes and federal money. Baldassare (1998) illustrated three conditions: political fragmentation, voter distrust, and state’s fiscal austerity that explain current political environment,

In 1875, the first private pension plan was created by the American Express Company. Because most employers were not publically traded companies, they were rare. A series of revenue laws passed by congress from 1921-1929 helped private pensions grow by safeguarding funds from federal taxation and providing tax credits to employers who contribute to an employee pension plan.

Jose Pinera, who was Chile's minister of labor, privatized the state pension system in 1981. It is now giving retirees generous pensions while fueling investment, growth and improving living standards in that country. The heart of the Chilean system is a mandatory savings plan. All workers under age 45 contribute 10 percent of their monthly earnings in special accounts, known as AFPs (Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones).

Today, the Department of Labor, California State law and a host other regulations exist to protect public employees; therefore, unions are no longer necessary for public employees in California. Legislation has gone as far as to provide additional regulations for protection for employees that are not in a collective bargaining agreement. Increased protections, rights to sick leave and health care, overtime compensation and property rights to employment are mandatory without union membership. This eliminates the unnecessary burdens of union dues, delays in compensation increases and divides in the working environment.

The Social Security System is in need of a new reform; our current system was not designed for the age stratification we have at this time. The U.S. Social Security Administration Office of Policy states, “The original Social Security Act, signed into law on August 14, 1935, grew out of the work of the Committee on Economic Security, a cabinet-level group appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt just one year earlier. The Act created several programs that, even today, form the basis for the government's role in providing income security, specifically, the old-age insurance, unemployment insurance, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programs.” Social Security was modeled to aid the elderly citizens, however during the

(5) Currently SS funds are collected and distributed on a pay - as - you -go (PAYG) system in which Social Security taxes from individuals are immediately distributed by the means of the SS Administration as it sees best fit. This means that taxes collected are not reserved for the individual who has paid them: in Rose 2 the current state he or she must rely on those persons paying SS taxes during the time of their retirement (Becker). For a number of these characteristics and future issues, the Social Security System must be reformed or completely abolished to meet the needs of tomorrow. The leading concerns of Social Security that merits the immediate initiation of reform are the demographic and economic circumstances in the coming century. Even though "forecasting the economy and budget over such a long period is uncertain" there remain many "certainties" regarding problems facing Social Security in the first half of the 21st century (OMB, Budget Perspectives 23). The Federal Government's responsibilities extend well beyond "the five- or six-year window" that has restricted the focus of recent budget analysis and debate. Of these "certainties" are the mounting challenges posed from the baby-boomer generation. This generation, born in the years after World War II, is aging

There are six types of sources of retirement income, namely work, social benefits, state pension, occupational pension, personal investments such as owned housing and personal pensions including donations and inheritance from family (Delsen and Reday, 1996). In addition, the public pension and workplace pension are considered the two largest predominant components. In this regard, this paper mainly focuses on the retirement income from Pay- As- You- Go (PAYG) financed public pension especially in 18 OECD European countries. Based on OECD pension indicators data set, there are three case attributes in this paper including

Tensions are mounting at the city. The city’s decision to remain with self-insured health benefits or transfer to a private health insurance company is a matter of serious concern for many employees. Costs of self-insuring are high, and no plan is in place to control these costs in the near future. Furthermore, the city’s management team is nervous that an incidence of catastrophic illness could devastate the city’s budget. Health care costs became a prominent issue when the mayor recently began a push for fiscal reform. Employees are concerned about how a change might affect them both financially and medically, while the city manager believes his job may be in peril if he is unable to

With the reform and implementation of a new defined benefit public pension system, Indonesia seeks to achieve international standards when it comes to public pensions. A new 1st pillar earnings-related defined benefit scheme named Jaminan Pensiun (JPN) was officially put into place on July 1st. With the exception of the non-contributory zero-pillar program, the implementation of JPN completes the Five Pillar Conceptual Framework suggested by the World Bank (World Bank, 2008). In this paper, the adequacy, sustainability, predictability, and robustness of Indonesia’s pension scheme will be evaluated in comparison to other countries with similar pension schemes. The focus will mostly be on the new program JPN, and to a lesser extent, the old Jamsostek program Jaminan Hari Tua (JHT).