Comment by briffle

1 hour ago

My State is essentially screwed for budgeting, because for years, our public retirement system garunteed "AT LEAST 8%" to accounts. Some years was much higher. I have a parent that make more, 10 years after retirement, then they ever did working.

They moved around the year 2000 to accounts that don't have the AT LEAST clause, and they earn what they earn, but due to the backlog of people still retiring that were grandfathered in, its wrecking our state.

My city has a huge budget deficit, but 24% of its total payroll budget goes to the public retirement system to 'catch up' from years when it did not make 8%. Next year or two, that is supposed to jump to 28% of payroll.

Problem won't start getting better until something like 2034 when the boomers start 'leaving the retirement system'

The "advantage" for pensions is that they get to "keep the principal" (unless it's setup even more insane than normally) whereas with a 401(k) the residual gets inherited.