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No shortfall in Wisconsin, the only state that can say so. I know that Wisconsin made controversial decisions to make employees increase their contributions to fund the pension that they want. However, Wisconsin workers know it will be there, Illinois, their neighbor to the south has a 60% funding shortfall.
It is not impossible that Illinois will wind up like Detroit - retirees finding out in retirement that they will be getting a pension pay cut. If I were a Wisconsin state employee I would feel more at ease knowing that the pension will be there.
We need adults making adult decisions rather than promising us fairy tales.
NJ did the sames things Wisconsin did - except for 1 the employer still did not make their contribution of 4% of an employees salary.
No. New Jersey did not do the same things that Wisconsin has done.
New Jersey pays out $4.9 Billion a year and collects less than $0.9 Billion a year. If your numbers on the previous thread are correct - the employer could contribute 38% and there would still be an annual deficit with the NJ pension.
Wisconsin has had a respectable pension for some time now and they make adult decisions to keep it that way (ie teachers go from making no contributions to making some contributions). New Jersey has had a problem slowly festering for decades that is about to blow up if nothing is done.
No. New Jersey did not do the same things that Wisconsin has done.
New Jersey pays out $4.9 Billion a year and collects less than $0.9 Billion a year. If your numbers on the previous thread are correct - the employer could contribute 38% and there would still be an annual deficit with the NJ pension.
Wisconsin has had a respectable pension for some time now and they make adult decisions to keep it that way (ie teachers go from making no contributions to making some contributions). New Jersey has had a problem slowly festering for decades that is about to blow up if nothing is done.
You would have thought with the election of gov jon corzine the financial guru blessed and quoted by obama, biden and HRC, NJ's financial house would have been put in order.....apparently not. So if Superman Jon Corzine can't save NJ, who can? I know, let's blame Chris Christie for decades of pension abuse!!!
Corzine raised the age you can retire, capped the amount pensions could be based on to the social security income limit and increased the penalty for early retiement.
Christie raised the level of the employees contribution. He raised the retirement age again.
What they both failed to do is contribute the employer portion of the formula. 4% of an employees salary.
So in NJ employees did the same thing as Wisconsin employees but our governors did not.
I have not blamed Christie over any of the other governors but I will correct him when he blames unions and the worker.
michiganmoon- NJ employees have always contributed to the pension
The issue you are forgetting is the accumulation of the payments that were missed for the past 20+ years. Those missed payments are the reason for the amount being paid out being much larger than the amount coming in. The employer needs to make up for all those years missed.
IT started with Gov. Whitman and was helped along with MBS and the Bush Depression. Overall the State Govt failed to fund at the level required. Which overall has helped NJ to have some of the highest Real Estate taxes (Christie promised to lower and failed) in the country.
For over 20 years there was zero dollars contributed to the pension by the State. Zero means that the pension had no impact on taxes in NJ but we have a governor who leads the public to believe that NJ's high taxes are due to the pension. Even now the State pension contibution is less than 1% of the State budget and all the local Board of Education budgets that cover the employees for those pensions.
Can someone explain to me how pensions drive the taxes?
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