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Every teacher pension is one of the best in the country. Maryland now has one of the best pensions availabe to American citizens. Where else can you work for 30 years and be guaranteed 50% of your salary for life when you retire. In fact if you are American and have a pension you are ahead of 80% of your fellow citizens. If the average pension is $9,000 and you are getting 4/5 times that wow. Teachers can retire early in their early 50's man thats the stuff of a Money magazine article. Let me add it up Pension + 403B + social security sounds like a 6 figure (normal retirement age) income to me.
This is why I wish everyone didn't incorrectly advise me in my 20s when I was searching for a career - that the teaching field was glutted and teachers make no money... how totally incorrect that was. I am in my 40s now and wish I had become a teacher like I really wanted to.
Although I have heard that other govt. and railroad and some private sector pensions are pretty good too...
To be fair, it is not only teachers who get good pensions. Pretty much any state employee will be able to get something similar.
The question is will those pension funds be around in 20-40 more years? Large companies like GM and the major airlines looked like a sure thing 30 years ago, and those pensions are being cut right now, leaving the employees high and dry.
Sorry but I disagree. Yes, teachers get a good pension HOWEVER, it is 100% employee funded (at least in MN). You are REQURIED to contribute to that pension fund. The only time teachers can retire at 50 and take a full pension is when districts offer an early retirement option to cut spending. It isn't a guarentee. You also have to have a combination of years of teaching and age to be able to take advantage of this when it is offered.
My husband's company puts 15% of his gross salary into a pension fund (profit sharing) and it will have MILLIONS more in it then any teacher's pension fund. Now tell me who has the better retirement plan?
Forty years ago teachers didn't make out so well. When my X graduated in 1971 he was offered $8,000 a year to teach and in addition was suppose to drive the school bus.
Before that time women who taught weren't allowed to be married, and in retirement lived in old age homes specifically for teachers. Then again you could teach with a high school degree, though some did have two yr 'normal school' (community college level) educations.
It wasn't until unions began in the 70's that things changed.
NY is a divided state. The pay is good here, pensions too, but there's a world of difference if you're making the same amount of money and the avg cost of a home is $400,000, than if you live in part of the state where one is $70,000. Even then I've heard complaints from the later group that they should make as much as doctors, or lawyers (which some of them do).
Every teacher pension is one of the best in the country. Maryland now has one of the best pensions availabe to American citizens. Where else can you work for 30 years and be guaranteed 50% of your salary for life when you retire. In fact if you are American and have a pension you are ahead of 80% of your fellow citizens. If the average pension is $9,000 and you are getting 4/5 times that wow. Teachers can retire early in their early 50's man thats the stuff of a Money magazine article. Let me add it up Pension + 403B + social security sounds like a 6 figure (normal retirement age) income to me.
If I quit my teaching job today, I would be able to collect retirement at age 60(I have 21 more years to go) and receive about 16K a year. Provided that there is enough money still left in my state's retirement system by then. Also, my district doesn't take out for social security(they do take out for medicare). I know many teachers at my school who are working for as long as they can for the health care benefits more than anything else. Pensions are only one part of the retirement puzzle. A major medical illness can wipe out a six-figure salary and then some.
Last edited by chitown68; 07-13-2007 at 03:53 PM..
Reason: take out a word
Chitown68, I take it your district doesn't provide medical insurance at retirement at any age? That surprises me because I think they do here where most everyone retires at 55.
Chitown68, I take it your district doesn't provide medical insurance at retirement at any age? That surprises me because I think they do here where most everyone retires at 55.
My district does provide medical coverage .However, depending upon the lifetime maximum, there are some people(and their spouses) that may have circumstances were they exceeded the maximum. I have known a few teachers that have had chronic, ongoing illnesses continue to work until they were 65 or 67 when they could have retired earlier than that. I have a colleague who has a husband that is on dialysis. She could have retired 2 years ago but stayed on to continue the insurance since her husband got ill.
I have known a few colleagues that stayed until 62 or 65 so that they could get Medicare . But, I have also had many colleagues who opted out at 55 and paid for the insurance. So it varies from individual to individual depending upon their particular circumstances.
When you are talking age 55 thats early retirement. Age 62 is early and age 66 is normal. It is recommended that folks have $215,000 set aside for excess health care in retirement. All I am saying in my original post is that if the three legs of retirement finances are:
Investments
Pension
Social Security
Then teachers have it great if they can go into it with 50% of their last highest 3 years covered and reach that point in 30 years of work. Very few Americans have any pension possibility today. Some pensions are better then others but any is better then nothing. Go teachers become one the life is good and I know.
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Retirement Health Care
