5 ms·

>Any system that tells a worker they can work for 25 years somewhere then receive 25+ years of pensions at their inflation adjusted final salary is a crock. Ni

>Any system that tells a worker they can work for 25 years somewhere then receive 25+ years of pensions at their inflation adjusted final salary is a crock. Nice strawman you got there. I doubt there's even one pension plan, public or private, in the U.S., Europe, or Asia which is as generous as your example.

patio11 10y ago
California public safety employees (police, fire, etc) get all four prongs of that deal, I think. Technically it's 90% of peak salary but "spiking" is culturally accepted, so in practice you can have more than 100% of your final year salary in pension benefits.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > California public safety employees (police, fire, etc) get all four prongs of that deal, I think. Technically it's 90% of peak salary but "spiking" is culturally accepted, so in practice you can have more than 100% of your final year salary in pension benefits. Government postings are even better. The UN requires only five years of service before you're eligible for pension benefits, and you can still collect those on top of whatever pension your home country government gives you (which is common), or even while being employed in a different government posting. It's not 100% of salary if you only stay 5 years, but it's pretty large - you can easily reach eligibility for a pension that's large enough to live on before you're 30, and then "double up" by taking other government postings whose pension eligibility is handled separately.
  - hudibras 10y ago
    UN pension is 1.5% per year, which you can start collecting when you're 62 years old. Not that unreasonable.
    - chimeracoder 10y ago
      > UN pension is 1.5% per year That's the minimum. It goes up from there depending on your position. Typically, you could expect to make a lot, lot more than that, even for very short tenure: http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salary.htm http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salary.htm > which you can start collecting when you're 62 years old ...yes, but the point is that you only need to be employed for five years to be eligible for lifetime benefits. Work there for 5 years in your 20s and you're set.
      - yellowbeard 10y ago
        If you can't collect until your sixties, you still have some thirty years or so to work through.
        chimeracoder 10y ago
        > If you can't collect until your sixties, you still have some thirty years or so to work through. ...so? This whole thread is in response to the claim that "I doubt there's even one pension plan, public or private, in the U.S., Europe, or Asia which [provides 100% of salary as a pension after working 25 years for eligiblity]". So, having a pension which provides more than 100% of salary as pension after working only five years for eligibility is very relevant. That's far more generous even than what OP described. Oh, and that income is tax-exempt in many places, to boot. It's an absurdly lavish benefit.
- hudibras 10y ago
  This article [0] says its capped at 90% for 30 years of service, which is not the same as 100% for 25 years. But I'm still genuinely interested in finding an example like koolba mentioned. [0]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/in-california-many-police-and-firefighters-get-100-000-pensions/239796/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/in-calif...
  - koolba 10y ago
    I was specifically think of the CA public workers pension which I mistakenly remembered as 25 years (apparently it's 30). I'd say that's close enough and no where near a straw man. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a 25 year example in a different state too.
- koolba 10y ago
  Exactly the example I had in mind. The spiking is particularly heinous. For readers unfamiliar with the practice, the idea is by giving the employee a last minute raise, their variable for their final pension formula would be adjusted accordingly. Sure it doesn't matter in the individual case, but multiplied out by all employees and you just increased your pension obligations by 10%!
  - patio11 10y ago
    Another example is allowing the employee preferential access to overtime in the last year, or them exercising unused vacation time as a one-time cash payout on retirement. The overtime thing is the most galling, since it's generally straight-up theft of government resources. There's no legitimate government purpose to the extra hours. The theft is culturally accepted by government employees because it costs more than garden-variety timecard fraud -- you don't just get to steal the marginal hour's pay, you get to steal X0% of that every year for the rest of your life, automatically. And it becomes culture in these institutions -- you cover for others because you expect someone to cover for you once it is your turn.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > The overtime thing is the most galling, since it's generally straight-up theft of government resources. There's no legitimate government purpose to the extra hours. That's true in some extreme cases, though the more usual case is simply bias in which employees get assigned legitimate overtime, in which case there is a legitimate government purpose in the extra hours, it's just that the cost to the government of those extra hours is unnecessarily maximized. Though in either case I wouldn't say either form of overtime spi king is the most galling form of spiking.
      - eaguyhn 10y ago
        Not all pension systems are the same. In California, each locality has its own, even if they are all managed by CalPERS. For example, the spiking that is mentioned in the thread (Vacation cash-outs, overtime, etc.) is not available in the State employee system.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > California public safety employees (police, fire, etc) get all four prongs of that deal, I think. There are very good reasons that public safety employees get much better pension deals than other public sector employees, and they certainly aren't typical of the field. > Technically it's 90% of peak salary but "spiking" is culturally accepted, so in practice you can have more than 100% of your final year salary in pension benefits. Spiking is just strategically maximizing your final year salary; it doesn't increase the ratio of pension to salary. And, spiking in the future has been cut back since for several years new hires in moosr CA public employers (including public safety ones like CHP officers) have average salary of the highest 36 months rather than the highest year as the pension base.
brewski 10y ago
Some towns in California come close: http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-el-monte-pensions/ http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-el-monte-pensions/
bigchewy 10y ago
look at the government plans - police, fire, teachers etc.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Public safety and public senior executive (non-elected) might be close to that; teachers (and other non-safety civil service) are nowhere close to that; and some elected officials are much, much better.

patio11 10y ago

California public safety employees (police, fire, etc) get all four prongs of that deal, I think. Technically it's 90% of peak salary but "spiking" is culturally accepted, so in practice you can have more than 100% of your final year salary in pension benefits.

chimeracoder 10y ago
> California public safety employees (police, fire, etc) get all four prongs of that deal, I think. Technically it's 90% of peak salary but "spiking" is culturally accepted, so in practice you can have more than 100% of your final year salary in pension benefits. Government postings are even better. The UN requires only five years of service before you're eligible for pension benefits, and you can still collect those on top of whatever pension your home country government gives you (which is common), or even while being employed in a different government posting. It's not 100% of salary if you only stay 5 years, but it's pretty large - you can easily reach eligibility for a pension that's large enough to live on before you're 30, and then "double up" by taking other government postings whose pension eligibility is handled separately.
- hudibras 10y ago
  UN pension is 1.5% per year, which you can start collecting when you're 62 years old. Not that unreasonable.
  - chimeracoder 10y ago
    > UN pension is 1.5% per year That's the minimum. It goes up from there depending on your position. Typically, you could expect to make a lot, lot more than that, even for very short tenure: http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salary.htm http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salary.htm > which you can start collecting when you're 62 years old ...yes, but the point is that you only need to be employed for five years to be eligible for lifetime benefits. Work there for 5 years in your 20s and you're set.
    - yellowbeard 10y ago
      If you can't collect until your sixties, you still have some thirty years or so to work through.
      - chimeracoder 10y ago
        > If you can't collect until your sixties, you still have some thirty years or so to work through. ...so? This whole thread is in response to the claim that "I doubt there's even one pension plan, public or private, in the U.S., Europe, or Asia which [provides 100% of salary as a pension after working 25 years for eligiblity]". So, having a pension which provides more than 100% of salary as pension after working only five years for eligibility is very relevant. That's far more generous even than what OP described. Oh, and that income is tax-exempt in many places, to boot. It's an absurdly lavish benefit.
hudibras 10y ago
This article [0] says its capped at 90% for 30 years of service, which is not the same as 100% for 25 years. But I'm still genuinely interested in finding an example like koolba mentioned. [0]http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/in-california-many-police-and-firefighters-get-100-000-pensions/239796/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/in-calif...
- koolba 10y ago
  I was specifically think of the CA public workers pension which I mistakenly remembered as 25 years (apparently it's 30). I'd say that's close enough and no where near a straw man. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a 25 year example in a different state too.
koolba 10y ago
Exactly the example I had in mind. The spiking is particularly heinous. For readers unfamiliar with the practice, the idea is by giving the employee a last minute raise, their variable for their final pension formula would be adjusted accordingly. Sure it doesn't matter in the individual case, but multiplied out by all employees and you just increased your pension obligations by 10%!
- patio11 10y ago
  Another example is allowing the employee preferential access to overtime in the last year, or them exercising unused vacation time as a one-time cash payout on retirement. The overtime thing is the most galling, since it's generally straight-up theft of government resources. There's no legitimate government purpose to the extra hours. The theft is culturally accepted by government employees because it costs more than garden-variety timecard fraud -- you don't just get to steal the marginal hour's pay, you get to steal X0% of that every year for the rest of your life, automatically. And it becomes culture in these institutions -- you cover for others because you expect someone to cover for you once it is your turn.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > The overtime thing is the most galling, since it's generally straight-up theft of government resources. There's no legitimate government purpose to the extra hours. That's true in some extreme cases, though the more usual case is simply bias in which employees get assigned legitimate overtime, in which case there is a legitimate government purpose in the extra hours, it's just that the cost to the government of those extra hours is unnecessarily maximized. Though in either case I wouldn't say either form of overtime spi king is the most galling form of spiking.
    - eaguyhn 10y ago
      Not all pension systems are the same. In California, each locality has its own, even if they are all managed by CalPERS. For example, the spiking that is mentioned in the thread (Vacation cash-outs, overtime, etc.) is not available in the State employee system.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> California public safety employees (police, fire, etc) get all four prongs of that deal, I think. There are very good reasons that public safety employees get much better pension deals than other public sector employees, and they certainly aren't typical of the field. > Technically it's 90% of peak salary but "spiking" is culturally accepted, so in practice you can have more than 100% of your final year salary in pension benefits. Spiking is just strategically maximizing your final year salary; it doesn't increase the ratio of pension to salary. And, spiking in the future has been cut back since for several years new hires in moosr CA public employers (including public safety ones like CHP officers) have average salary of the highest 36 months rather than the highest year as the pension base.

brewski 10y ago

Some towns in California come close: http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-el-monte-pensions/ http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-el-monte-pensions/

bigchewy 10y ago

look at the government plans - police, fire, teachers etc.

dragonwriter 10y ago
Public safety and public senior executive (non-elected) might be close to that; teachers (and other non-safety civil service) are nowhere close to that; and some elected officials are much, much better.