California households owe an average $30,500 for public employee pension debt (San Diego: how much, bankruptcy)

[SportyandMisty]

California households owe an average $30,500 for public employee pension debt

Daniel Borenstein: California households owe an average $30,500 for public employee pension debt - San Jose Mercury News

It seems the state has been handing out more in pensions to retired public employees than it should -- resulting in a debt of $30,500 on average for every household.

Talk about gold plated pensions! All in return for campaign contributions to elect pension-friendly politicians.

[Malloric]

Pretty sad that we've run-up $380 billion in unpaid for labor that already occurred. That's one the reasons I'd never work for the state/government in California. The only thing that makes it at all attractive is the pension/benefits which are underfunded. 'Course the same is true for private industry... look at Socialist Motors unfunded pensions which the tax payer is also on the hook for. 'Course they're about 10% of what California's are. Makes me glad I'm self-employed at times... now if I could just get Uncle Sam from raiding 15.3% of my income for social security and medicare...

[NewToCA]

Painful article to read, especially when considering it included this comment:

Moreover, the numbers don't include the unfunded liability for promised retiree health benefits, which were estimated four years ago to be at least $118 billion. They're surely far more today.

[Malloric]

I wonder if this falls into social security/medicare category of bad? There's a growing consensus there that the $70 trillion doesn't really matter because we can't pay for it anyway. It's just a question of how we don't pay for it and how long it takes the rest of the country to figure it out.

[NewToCA]

I don't know Malloric, depends upon how you measure things I guess.

The most disgusting thing to me personally, as someone who generally supports things like pensions and health care support, is that all of this stuff can be constructively fixed if the "will" was there.

But I guess not, so on we go, and just lament.

[Malloric]

Pension fixes are mostly changes going forward and specific remedies for certain things like pension spiking. California's public pension problems are more manageable since you're not talking about the entire population. How much will there is to bail out I don't know. The 3%@55 is ridiculous. You have people retiring at 90% of their highest pay at 55 for doing desk jobs? Maybe that makes sense for LEOs, although I still think 3% is nuts. San Francisco has 2%@50... If I started there working at 25 and retired at 50 I could go out with 50% of my highest pay. Even at base-pay that's $55,000 a year pension plus health benefits at 50. And I could turn around and work temp/contract doing the exact same thing while collecting that pension or return to the private sector. Don't get me wrong, the pension/benefits are what makes the worth it. Working for the courts is not 40 hours a week and it's salaried, working those kind of hours in the private sector is usually more lucrative. Maybe not for entry-level, but once you get 5-10 years of experience it is.

Will to bail that out? Not so much. How about we provide reasonable salaries and stop using the pension to hide and defer the cost? In certain jobs you might have to give a 10-20% raise in turn for a realistic retirement age of 65 capped at say 2/3 of the average highest 3-5 years BASE pay. For physically demanding jobs maybe 50 or 55 is reasonable, but not for desk jobs. That's by any measure a generous pensions... it's just not one that lets people collect more than base salary at 55 and double dip.

[NewToCA]

I agree that the changes would be to benefits going forward, but still state that the problems can be resolved.

Items you mention like pension spiking should have been eliminated long ago, it was discussed as a major problem over 5 years ago. Likewise, pensions can always implement caps, either on a maximum amount you can collect each year or (better in my view) a maximum % of your highest 3-5 years of earnings.

I'm not trying to debate how to "fix" the pension issues, just stating there are multiple ways it can be solved in a manner that is fair to both employees and taxpayers.

[ringwise]

Originally Posted by SportyandMisty

California households owe an average $30,500 for public employee pension debt

Daniel Borenstein: California households owe an average $30,500 for public employee pension debt - San Jose Mercury News

It seems the state has been handing out more in pensions to retired public employees than it should -- resulting in a debt of $30,500 on average for every household.

Talk about gold plated pensions! All in return for campaign contributions to elect pension-friendly politicians.

What did the taxpayers expect? The unions took HUGE risks with their investments, knowing that if they made money the fund would benefit. If the investment failed, they would just take the money from the taxpayers. A win-win for them. A HUGE lose for the taxpayer. But that's what you get with a Dem-run state....

[Bulldogdad]

If you want to study a microcosm of California's financial problems all you have to do is look at Stockton. By far and away the biggest problem is unfunded public pension liabilities as well as horribly negotiated union labor contracts. The problem started back in the 1980's and just snow balled ever since. Accounts for about 70 percent of Stockton's budget issues that might drive them into bankruptcy and most certainly into mediation.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by Bulldogdad

If you want to study a microcosm of California's financial problems all you have to do is look at Stockton. By far and away the biggest problem is unfunded public pension liabilities as well as horribly negotiated union labor contracts. The problem started back in the 1980's and just snow balled ever since. Accounts for about 70 percent of Stockton's budget issues that might drive them into bankruptcy and most certainly into mediation.

Or San Diego. The Mayor has gone on record stating that we now have a surplus. Guess what? We haven't filled one single freaking pothole and he already wants to throw it back to labor.