Pension Papa Has it Wrong

[talon]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/21/pension.DTL&tsp=1

Pension papa seems to think all government employees have sweet pension plans. Boy is he ever wrong!

When I retire, my pension plan will give me a whopping $400 a month - that's assuming I stay on the job until I'm 80 (that's another 16 years to fully vest in the pension plan, and that's assuming they don't move the retirement age up even further before then).

That's right - $400, not $4,000.

Fortunately, I have other retirement plans in place so when I retire, my state government employee's pension won't be all I have. Granted I was able to survive with small children on $400 a month 15 years ago (rent, utilities, gasoline, groceries), but I couldn't do it now, since prices for basic utilities, gasoline, and groceries have risen so high.

But it's not just that some jobs have really deplorable retirement plans, what Pension Papa doesn't realize is that the people he's pointing out with the cushy retirement plans are the last ones to receive them. Their replacements will have much poorer retirement plans and it will take them much longer to vest in and receive those greatly reduced retirement plans. His children won't get the cushy $4,000+ a month retirement plans. They may be lucky to get a $400 a month plan like mine, because mine isn't the lowest.

He ought to consider teaching them money management skills, setting up a good savings account, and building skills they can barter.

Also, I don't know where he gets off thinking we government employees don't work hard - I don't know anyone where I work who isn't over-burdened with work and working well outside of our job descriptions and taking on extra tasks and working longer hours just to get all the essential work done (never mind the fact that we don't get snow days and we often have to work on so-called state holidays). We all try to do so with pleasant faces because it's not the people we serve who scrapped our retirements and cut our pay and benefits and reduced our workforce - it was the legislators who passed budget-reducing legislation that by-passed the voters who did that, and they did it so they could keep their pay raises (they've gotten one every year...) and their benefits (healthcare that doesn't have burdensome co-pays and deductibles) and their retirement packages.

Maybe Pension Papa ought to groom his kids for politics instead of government jobs...