The State of the Pension Wars

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

9/22/12

 

Here at Via Meadia, we’ve been covering the expanding pension crisis in-depth as it spreads from state to state and city to city. Today, a new piece in the *Wall Street Journal lays out a comprehensive picture of the state of American pensions.

 

The findings are not encouraging. Most alarmingly, the Journal estimates the total funding gap for all non-federal American government pensions at a substantial $900 billion. (Other estimates are considerably higher.) Many states and cities have recognized the problem and are taking action to correct this shortfall, but thus far they have only succeeding in cutting the gap to a still-massive $800 billion. Worse, many of these changes are designed only to affect future hires rather than the current workforce. This will pay off down the road, but does little to solve the problems that will arise when the current group of workers retires.

 

It is, of course also profoundly unfair that when sacrifices must be made, they are all made by younger generations while the Baby Boomers — whose foolish and imprudent political decisions did so much to create this mess — escape in many cases scot free.

 

(Snip)

 

 

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