Pensions just don't make sense mathematically. If they're solvent based on the state's investments, then the employee is getting a raw deal compared to having just invested the money themselves. If they're not, then I as a taxpayer am getting a raw deal by helping to pay for someone's retirement because they worked for a state agency decades ago.

My state starts doling out pensions at 5 years. A friend of mine worked for a state senator in the 90s for 6 years. He's got something like $1200/mo guaranteed during his retirement for 6 years of borderline political work ~25 years ago.

I know it's a politically charged subject but I don't see why from an economic/mathematical perspective it's any better than moving the same investments to the market. Or at least if you're going to keep the pensions, only give them out for full service (20 years) like the military, and make it easier to fire a government worker for poor performance.

I shouldn't be able to sit on my thumbs for a few years and have my mortgage covered by the taxpayers during my retirement.

Pensions make a lot of sense mathematically. If I personally fund my retirement I have to save enough for the "worst" case scenario of living many years longer than average. A pension on the other hand only has to invest enough for the average lifespan because the person who dies a week before retirement and collects nothing helps fund the person who lives to be 105.

State pensions are in trouble because govt pensions are allowed to assume overly optimistic rates of return.

If you're worried about living too long you can buy an annuity. It makes no sense for employers or the government to make that choice for you.

Mandatory safety net/insurance policies make sense because what we know from experience is that if you don't have a mandated program, some people will blow it off. And as long as we don't have the political will to let them die on the street alone in poverty, it'll be very expensive to try pick up the pieces of the mess once they hit the safety net. Especially if that's something like hitting the ER needing tens of thousands of treatment to stabilize, before just getting kicked back out to the street. Or wasting people's time in the ER without medical need because the ER has heating and a bed and the cold winter street doesn't.

Not everybody has family to fall back on in retirement, but we still don't want to let them simply die. So the money has to be given somewhere.

You've gone a bit off the rail here because most people in the US don't get pensions and we aren't forcing tons of people to die in the street.

I think you are confusing pensions with social security. Social security already provides that bare minimum mandatory safety net.

Social Security is a pension (defined benefit after a certain point as opposed to defined contribution).

Ok, but nobody in the US calls it a pension so when you refer to a pension everyone is assuming the one you got from an employer.

Right, but a very small pension.

I fully agree with your statement, but would also like to point to the darker side of the coin, where some people managing the mandatory pension fund will probably make some nice amount of money out of it.

It sounds reasonable in theory to collectivize this stuff, but in practice the programs all run out of money. Politicians always over promise. This happens over and over again all over the world.

I see no real alternative to freedom here. Let people make their own choices. Over the long term you can't really conjure up better investment returns and better retirements for people by decree. The wealth has to be there.

Do you think the political will is there to let people die in the street?

If not, the running out of money part happens either way.

> I know it's a politically charged subject but I don't see why from an economic/mathematical perspective it's any better than moving the same investments to the market.

It's worse on average, it's better at minimum (ignoring, for this analysis, municipal bankruptcy)

> My state starts doling out pensions at 5 years. A friend of mine worked for a state senator in the 90s for 6 years. He's got something like $1200/mo guaranteed during his retirement for 6 years of borderline political work ~25 years ago.

Assuming a 2% of highest full years salary per year of service formula at typical retirement age (a fairly generous public, non-safety pension), with 6 years of service that would require a base salary of $120,000 over the highest paid year of those six, that’s—today, not in the 1990s—a fairly senior staff salary for the California State Senate, which has the highest legislator and staff salaries in the nation.

Your description is not necessarily impossible, but it's extremely far from typical.

> that would require a base salary of $120,000 over the highest paid year of those six

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pension_spiking

piling up overtime and sick and vacation days saved over previous years, people are frequently able to 2x and more their salary for pension calculations.

> piling up overtime and sick and vacation days saved over previous years, people are frequently able to 2x and more their salary for pension calculations.

Yes—with a long career over which to save (especially since public employers tend to have vacation allocation which increases with years of service)—and an hourly wage rather than salaried job so that they are eligible for overtime, and participation in one of the systems that hasn't adopted controls to prevent pension spiking, sure.

But not with a 6 year stint in political staff position.

Salaried workers can receive overtime as well. Your thinking of exempt/non-exempt, which has more to do with responsibilities (e.g. management is an exempt category).

And the "political staff positions" are the in the same state bureaucracy as the other agency employees. They're not treated differently for retirement based solely on the fact that they work for the legislature.

And it's certainly possible to build up a lot of vacation and flex time (not strictly OT but it's still paid out at a reduced rate) in 6 years.

Pensions make a lot of sense ... they spread out the risk (notice this also means they spread out the rewards :). Now, the actual level of pensions is a different matter ...

Notice, also, that if you only give pensions for 'full' service (say, 20 years) you create a big incentive for people to stay exactly 20 years ... both people who should leave at 18, but stay 2 more years 'doing time', and people who get screwed because their boss knows they have to stay 2 more years (kind of like H1 abuses). There's no good reason to not make them increase linearly with time.

> If they're solvent based on the state's investments, then the employee is getting a raw deal compared to having just invested the money themselves.

Institutional investors have access to investment opportunities that individual retail investors don't. Many pension funds are big LPs in VC, PE, and hedge funds.

> Private sector pensions are for the most part long gone. Why should public sector keep them.

Because we don't want a race to the bottom?

Because they're a way to compensate highly skilled government workers for the fact that their salaries aren't competitive.

It’s true that highly skilled government workers are underpaid. But non-highly-skilled government workers are overpaid. Both groups get pensions, and there are a lot more of the second group.

Which is worse: a government with overcompensated secretaries, or undercompensated scientists?

I'm a government scientist. Maybe I'm biased. But it seems to me that if your government cannot compete for the best and brightest in your country, you are doomed.

Ideally, of course, we'd compensate both secretaries and scientists appropriately. But we don't seem to be able to manage that.

What about getting rid of pensions in order to be financially solvent is a race to the bottom?

> What about getting rid of pensions in order to be financially solvent is a race to the bottom?

The idea that the little guy needs to be made more financially insecure so those at the top can benefit from something more "financially solvent." This applies to business (less pensions, more dividends and share buybacks) and government (less pensions, lower taxes [for the rich]).

Also, IIRC, private sector pensions are quite common for CEOs and executives. They're only less common for the little guys.