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It's tempting to view defined benefit plans as something very valuable, but they are not an unalloyed good for whoever receives them. It's common for participat

It's tempting to view defined benefit plans as something very valuable, but they are not an unalloyed good for whoever receives them. It's common for participation in such a plan to require a teacher (or firefighter, policeman, etc.) to forgo collecting some, or all, of the social security benefits they would otherwise be eligible for thanks to provisions in federal law like Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO). Rolling these back to some extent (the argument is that they were well intentioned, but went too far) is the subject of active political lobbying, and has been for some time. [0] [1] There are a few particularly broken things about the current system. A worker's potential ineligibility to receive their spouse's social security survivor's benefits is a big one. It is not uncommon for the WEP to kick in and prevent a person with a defined benefit pension from receiving any of their spouse's survivor benefits, whereas if they had never worked a day in their life, they would receive it. [0] https://www.aft.org/news/educators-fight-keep-their-social-security-benefits https://www.aft.org/news/educators-fight-keep-their-social-s... [1] https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/how-wep-provision-hacks-educators-retirement https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/how-w...

gnicholas 2y ago
They also don’t pay into social security. For someone of my age (early 40s), this is a plus because it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to receive payments from the system (and certainly not at the levels that people currently pull out, due to means-based limitations that will need to be put in place). I’d much rather be paying into a separate system.
- justin66 2y ago
  > They also don’t pay into social security. That's not really the area of friction. The problem is that very few people pay only into a defined benefit plan in their lifetime. The point of contention is the calculations involved when a person has paid into both social security and defined benefit plans. (or how much of the survivor benefit a spouse should receive)
votepaunchy 2y ago
Note that spousal benefits are also reduced by one’s own SS benefits, so it’s no surprise that this same logic applies to other pensions.
- justin66 2y ago
  Indeed. In general the problem people have with WEP and GPO isn't that the reductions exist, it's where the lines are drawn. We're still using the first pass of a system that was cooked up four decades ago. (the larger point to my OP was that defined benefit pensions are not necessarily the amazing thing people assume they are - I'm happy to avoid them)

gnicholas 2y ago

They also don’t pay into social security. For someone of my age (early 40s), this is a plus because it’s unlikely I’ll ever be able to receive payments from the system (and certainly not at the levels that people currently pull out, due to means-based limitations that will need to be put in place). I’d much rather be paying into a separate system.

justin66 2y ago
> They also don’t pay into social security. That's not really the area of friction. The problem is that very few people pay only into a defined benefit plan in their lifetime. The point of contention is the calculations involved when a person has paid into both social security and defined benefit plans. (or how much of the survivor benefit a spouse should receive)

votepaunchy 2y ago

Note that spousal benefits are also reduced by one’s own SS benefits, so it’s no surprise that this same logic applies to other pensions.

justin66 2y ago
Indeed. In general the problem people have with WEP and GPO isn't that the reductions exist, it's where the lines are drawn. We're still using the first pass of a system that was cooked up four decades ago. (the larger point to my OP was that defined benefit pensions are not necessarily the amazing thing people assume they are - I'm happy to avoid them)