State pensions

[Ixiah]

There was an interesting article on Yahoo today about state pensions. Right now about 1 in 4 dollars of Kansas revenue goes toward state pensions. Even with that sizeable sum the fund will be broke in a few years.

Its pretty sad when you are worse off then California.

What is even more amazing is that Colorado spends 54% of its revenue to fund the state pension !!!

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/11-state-pension-funds-that-may-run-of-out-money-535516.html?tickers=^dji,^tnx,^gspc,spy,dia

#9 Kansas
Year pension fund runs out: 2022
Bill in the following year: $2.5 billion
Share of state revenue: 23%

[BOBB]

I read this David Brooks editorial and really agreed with it. Regardless of your political stripe, you have to be troubled with our current system of entitlements.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/opinion/12brooks.html

[Maggie]

I read this David Brooks editorial and really agreed with it. Regardless of your political stripe, you have to be troubled with our current system of entitlements.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/opinion/12brooks.html

Ezra Klein wrote a thorough and detailed reply to the column, if you are interested:

How much can we blame on state pensions?

[ShockBand]

I would happily put my mandatory KPERS contribution into a mandatory 401K or equivalent. Incidentally, the KPERS retirement benefit, at least under the rules I'm under, would have me getting less than half my final average salary, so it isn't as extravagant as the 90% mentioned in the NYTimes piece.

[ISASO]

I can corroborate that KPERS percentage. When I hired on and found out that I got state benefits, I thought I had it made. Boy, was I wrong. Just last year, our insurance contribution doubled. Am I living in the wrong state?

[WuDrWu]

Here's what I don't understand about "pensions"; it seems to be a bottomless pit just like Social Security. I hope we all understand that Social Security was never intended to be what it is today, it is broke and it is a total failure in its current form. So the state pension is just a scaled down version of the same thing?

I haven't done the math, but at first glance the ROI appears to be a figure 10-15 times what a really good invester might expect to gain. The word unsustainable comes to mind.

Someday we're going to have to pay for all of this....but nobody seems to want to do anything but play kick the can.

[BOBB]

I read this David Brooks editorial and really agreed with it. Regardless of your political stripe, you have to be troubled with our current system of entitlements.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/opinion/12brooks.html

Ezra Klein wrote a thorough and detailed reply to the column, if you are interested:

How much can we blame on state pensions?

This was an interesting take.