Are federal employee pensions going to be an issue in the upcoming years?

[Slew Foot]

Government pensions wont ever get cut. Youll see your taxes raised to 110% before the goverment gives up its money.

 

[Jimzz]

Government pensions wont ever get cut. Youll see your taxes raised to 110% before the goverment gives up its money.

Yea it will never happen... except it already did at the Fed level in the late 70's and early 80's when CSRS was phased out and FERS was phased in. i.e the sweet pension went away and Fed employees had to join the SS pool like private sector.

Then a couple years ago FERS was replaced by FERS+ and all that did was make Fed Employees put in more % of their salary for their retirement yet not get anything more.

 

[Slew Foot]

Yea it will never happen... except it already did at the Fed level in the late 70's and early 80's when CSRS was phased out and FERS was phased in. i.e the sweet pension went away and Fed employees had to join the SS pool like private sector.

Then a couple years ago FERS was replaced by FERS+ and all that did was make Fed Employees put in more % of their salary for their retirement yet not get anything more.

feds maybe, tell that to all of the state and local goverment employee unions with their full salary guarantees after 20 years.

 

[Brovane]

Federal Pensions are not in bad shape. The real issue is going to be at the state and local level's. I know in CA, CALPERS and CALSTRS are both way under-funded. Something is going to have to give at some point and it isn't just going to be the taxpayers wallet. Hopefully with the situation in Detroit the Unions will realize that they have to give up some benefits but I doubt it. The issue is that politicians can make promises of benefits that they know they never are going to have to pay for. Once a benefit is promised it cannot be cut unless the employees agree. It is going to be a real mess.

 

[Triumph]

Uhh, that was your idea. Nobody suggested it.

No one.

Really? No one has ever suggested that federal pensions be cut? Really?

feds maybe, tell that to all of the state and local goverment employee unions with their full salary guarantees after 20 years.

This thread is about federal retirement plans. Hence the thread title, "Are federal employee pensions going to be an issue in the upcoming years?"

 

[Fox5]

at somewhere around 4 million parasites (armed forces don't count) uncle sam is the largest employer in America, no one else comes close. on top of that you can add in state, county and local fungus (i'll give half a pass to police and firemen) so we're basically screwed. anyone who believes that this is not going to be a huge issue is either a socialist or twerks for a living. :whiste:

Why don't armed forces count? If suddenly we replaced all the government workers with military members doing the same job (and some ARE doing the same job, the DOD hires civilian employees that overlap with military), would you suddenly not consider them parasites? The benefits and pay for officers are even better than for government employees.

And as other people have noted, the really awesome government retirement plan, CSRS, ended years ago and the last of the government employees on it are retiring. IIRC, they didn't even have to pay taxes.
The current government plan is FERS which is decent (like 20%-30% of the high 3 average in retirement), but primarily relies on the TSP (the government's 401k equivalent) for retirement savings. The life time health benefits (2/3rd of essentially any plan paid for by the government) are still pretty sweet though. The federal law enforcement pension is far superior though, offering pretty much double the return on investment.

The government will eventually do what all pension plans do though. It will start raising deductions on new employee salaries, until it's no longer competitive in the hiring process because every new federal employee gets a mandatory 10% pay cut to pay for the older pension members. After enough pain doing that, they'll do away with the pension plan entirely, it simply is the natural progress of pension plans and the government is just a slower mover.

 

[Triumph]

And as other people have noted, the really awesome government retirement plan, CSRS, ended years ago and the last of the government employees on it are retiring. IIRC, they didn't even have to pay taxes.

They don't/didn't pay into social security (which of course is a tax). They also don't draw SS benefits.