Follow-up to the article from the other day.
The teachers are whining about FUTURE earnings from pensions. Somehow, they believe that when they signed on, they got some kind of lifetime agreement on the pensions. BTW, they did a sick out (with apparent impunity) and went to Frankfort to protest. They’ve done this several times. Not that it really matters if they show up or not, with KY usually propped up by MS, AK and WV near the bottom in educational achievement.
I myself saw the 401k contribution from my employer drop during and after the last recession. In the private sector, if you don’t like it, and you think that you can do better, leave. Many did. That is basically how America works, or, anyway, is supposed to work.
There was a time when government employment paid less than the private sector, but at least you got a good pension. This is definitely no longer true. In KY (as in many states), the biggest employer in most of the counties is...government. And it pays rather well.
Here is the situation in a nutshell;
1. Ky has extremely generous pensions.
2. Bad financial mistakes were made over several Dem administrations, by Dems.
3. KY is really in a small scale version of Illinois’ situation, with much less financial resource.
4. The teachers WILL have to convert to a 401(k).