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by strontium_90
2719 days ago
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It's not obviously true that high pensions mean unfairly high remuneration. Another hypothesis that fits the facts you've mentioned could be that private sector salaries that could be earned by teachers are higher, and the public sector is competing by offering more attractive pensions for teachers than the private sector does. There's another possible contributing factor: government can offer higher future pensions without increasing current expenditure (because government is not forced to fund the higher pensions until they need to be paid, many years in the future). Maybe that's why so many US states have dramatically underfunded pension plans (meaning teachers and other pensioners might not actually get their promised pensions when they retire). |
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This is a very complex topic. I think it's widely agreed that the US Congress can change Social Security benefits at any time. But the pension issue varies in the states. E.g. the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that pensions were sacrosanct:
Justices cited a provision in the Illinois Constitution stating that pension benefits, once granted, “shall not be diminished or impaired.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-il...