Obviously, governments cannot be trusted to manage pension plans, especially when government employees can outrageously inflate their own pension through overtime pay in the last year before retirement (many government pensions are based on just the income earned in the last year of employment including overtime, instead of the average of the best 5 consecutive years out of the last 10 years as corporations who still offer pensions normally do). Time to outlaw government pensions and put that money invested to support pensions in "special" 401K plans, using a percentage (6 to 10%) of worker's salary invested each paycheck, paid by the state and also the Federal government, not the government employee. To that, the government employee can also add to his own "personal" 401K each paycheck, held separately from the "special" 401K described previously . At retirement, the special 401K becomes the "pension" with the state invested part taken out at 4% a year, divided into 12 monthly payments (which should make this pension self sustaining with inflationary increases occurring over time as investments should grow more than 4% a year long term based on stock market history). The employee part can be utilized however the state retired employee wants. In addition, there would also be Social Security payments each month as the worker must contribute to it while working as non-government employees do. No exemptions out of Social Security for these workers. Problem solved. No more ridiculously generous early retirement pensions and no more 100% pensions based on overtime pay in the last year when the intention was for a 50% pension. Any needed reductions in pensions for current retirees would come out of the overtime cheaters first who inflated their pensions their last year of work to get them back to a 50% pension as originally planned by the state.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/12/11/every-states-pension-crisis-ranked/115099952/
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