CalPERS users can take extra overtime and duty pay in those last years to inflate the base, also. And that base even without overtime is much higher than the average working salary. And CalPERS assumes a rate of return far higher than it can achieve through investments.
That's how CA employees end up with million dollar per year pensions. [0] Happily, some abuses have been reduced slightly in recent years. There's far to go yet.
While it is possible for pensions to be funded properly, it's not something state and municipal governments do and the few private companies with defined benefit pensions rarely do so either. In fact, it's literally illegal to fully fund pension benefits in the United States without paying a steep tax penalty for saving too much. The IRS and Congress know that exposing the full cost of what we're promising to pay out would shock too many people and they don't want to know. Better to defer the problem to the next Congress and let them sort it out.
The only hope is massive productivity growth. So, techies, get programming those robots and AI bots and new chemical materials and cheap new energy sources. The government has already assumed that they're all going to take off like crazy and forced us to bet the country on that assumption. We're going to need a tech explosion just to keep our heads above water.
> The only hope is massive productivity growth. So, techies, get programming those robots and AI bots and new chemical materials and cheap new energy sources. The government has already assumed that they're all going to take off like crazy and forced us to bet the country on that assumption. We're going to need a tech explosion just to keep our heads above water.
Solar prices are almost down to $0.01/kwh decades ahead of schedule (ie we have effectively limitless energy; no more oil, super cheap EV mobility, etc). The inflation that needs to be addressed are healthcare, education, and real estate costs; solve those and pension/retirement/major pieces of the economy as a whole become moot.
We're not post-scarcity, but the rollercoaster car is headed on the upward trajectory. More pylons please.
Just a note on CalPERS since the press lumps all state and local pension systems togther..
There are many different pension systems maintained by CalPERS. It isn't one system for all public sector. Bell had its system, completely independent of, say, Stockton, which again is independent of the State employee pension system. But all managed by PERS.
Only a few of these systems allow for pension spiking via overtime and/or vacation pay. State Employee pensions do not allow this. In fact, pension rules have become even more restrictive over the past decade.
> That's how CA employees end up with million dollar per year pensions.
Your own link shows that those extreme examples had nothing to do with overtime and duty pay, and everything to do with senior local executives with close relations with local elected officials being granted ludicrously high base salaries by those elected officials.
That's how CA employees end up with million dollar per year pensions. [0] Happily, some abuses have been reduced slightly in recent years. There's far to go yet.
While it is possible for pensions to be funded properly, it's not something state and municipal governments do and the few private companies with defined benefit pensions rarely do so either. In fact, it's literally illegal to fully fund pension benefits in the United States without paying a steep tax penalty for saving too much. The IRS and Congress know that exposing the full cost of what we're promising to pay out would shock too many people and they don't want to know. Better to defer the problem to the next Congress and let them sort it out.
The only hope is massive productivity growth. So, techies, get programming those robots and AI bots and new chemical materials and cheap new energy sources. The government has already assumed that they're all going to take off like crazy and forced us to bet the country on that assumption. We're going to need a tech explosion just to keep our heads above water.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Bell_scandal