A History of Public Sector Pensions in the United States

A History of Public Sector Pensions in the United States
Author: Robert Louis Clark
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2003-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780812237146

From the Wharton School, offering a comprehensive assessment of the political and financial dimensions of public-sector pensions from the colonial period until the emergence of modern retirement plans in the twentieth century.

Pensions in the Public Sector

Pensions in the Public Sector
Author: Olivia S. Mitchell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 692
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780812235784

From the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School, this book explores the diversity of governmental pension plans and investigates how these financial institutions must change in years to come.

The Role of the State in Pension Provision: Employer, Regulator, Provider

The Role of the State in Pension Provision: Employer, Regulator, Provider
Author: Gerard Hughes
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2013-03-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475767897

This book deals with the role of the State in pension provision as an employer, regulator and provider. Part I deals with problems and reforms of public sector pension systems in OECD countries. The countries covered are Denmark, Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and the USA. Part II considers the regulation of occupational pension schemes in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, and whether there is still a role for the State in providing earnings-related pensions in the United Kingdom. Part III presents demographic projections for the next half-century, using Ireland as an example, looks at some of the options which have been used in Finland, and proposed in the United States, to cope with population ageing, and examines issues of intergenerational equity which are posed by these options. All the chapters deal with recent reforms. The chapters are written by acknowledged experts in their field who are independent of both the pensions industry and Government. Hence the chapters provide an informed critical account of current developments in relation to the reform of occupational pension schemes in the public sector and of the debate about the State's role as a regulator of private pension schemes and a provider of pensions based on the social insurance principal. The book is important as a source of information about pension schemes in OECD countries. It shows that there is not a unique model of occupational pension provision for public sector employees and that the pension benefits which are provided in different countries are quite variable. It also shows that public sector occupational pension systems have changed and are in the process of considerable further change in a number of OECD countries.

Public service pensions

Public service pensions
Author: Great BritainH.M. Treasury
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2011-11-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780101821421

In this paper the Government sets out its preferred scheme design for public service pensions. It is built on the foundations laid by Lord Hutton in his report (Independent Public Service Pensions Commission: final report, 2011, ISBN 9780108510410). The cost of public service pensions paid out has risen by over a third over the last ten years to £32 billion a year. Reforms to date have been insufficient to reverse the increase in costs of public service schemes from rising longevity. The Government's offer is: benefits already earned are protected; for those in final salary schemes, those past benefits will be linked to their final salary when they leave the scheme or retire; public service workers with ten years or less to their current pension age, will see no change in when they can retire; Government will continue to pay more overall toward pension benefits than the workforce. The scheme design will ensure: guaranteed, index-linked pension benefits on retirement; an accrual rate of 1/60ths and earnings indexation for benefits while still working in the public service; fairer distribution of benefits across the workforce; and, that most low and middle earners working a full career will receive pension benefits at least as good as they get now. But in return, the Government is asking public service workers to pay more towards their pensions and work a bit longer. The Government's offer is conditional on the trades unions and the Government reaching agreement on the reforms.

U.S. Public Pension Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Trustees and Investment Staff

U.S. Public Pension Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Trustees and Investment Staff
Author: Von M. Hughes
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2019-07-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1260134776

The first comprehensive guide to mastering the roles and responsibilities of a public pension fiduciary in the U.S. In an ever-changing financial and political landscape, your job as a public pension fiduciary continues to get more difficult. Now, you have the help you need. U.S. Public Pension Handbook is the only one-stop resource that covers the various areas of public pension governance, investment management, infrastructure, accounting, and law. This comprehensive guide presents critical data, information, and insights in topic-specific, easy-to-understand ways—providing the knowledge you need to elevate your expertise and overall contribution to your pension plan or system. U.S. Public Pension Handbook covers: •Today’s domestic and global public pension marketplace•The ins and outs of the defined benefit model, the defined contribution, and hybrid pension designs•Financial concepts central to the actuarial valuation of pension benefits•Public pension investment policies and philosophies•Asset allocations and how they have changed over time•State and local government pension contribution policies•The impact of governance structure and board composition on organizational results•Fiduciary responsibility and the general legal/regulatory framework governing trustees•How changes in trust law may affect public pension trustee fiduciary responsibility and liability•Best practices in pension governance and organizational design Public pension trustees are the unsung heroes of the world of finance, collectively managing over $6 trillion in retirement assets in this country alone. U.S. Public Pension Handbook provides the grounding you need to make sure you perform your all-important with the utmost expertise and professionalism.

Public Pensions

Public Pensions
Author: Susan M. Sterett
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2018-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501717774

In Public Pensions, Susan M. Sterett traces the legal and constitutional structures underlying early social welfare programs in the United States. Sterett explains the status of state and local government payments for public servants and the poor from the mid-nineteenth century until the Great Depression. The most visible public payments for service in the United States were directed to soldiers, who risked death for the nation. However, firemen, not soldiers, first captured local governments— attention; social welfare programs for soldiers were modeled on firemen's pensions. The dangerous work of firefighting and of combat provided the fundamental legal analogy for courts as governments expanded pensions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nothing about the state court doctrine approving payments for dangerous, local service would allow pensions for indigent mothers and for the elderly, which states began to consider after 1910. Counties and railroads that objected to the new taxes could fight programs based on the old doctrine, established for firefighters, soldiers, and finally civil servants. State litigation provided one of the many grounds for contesting expanded welfare states in the early twentieth-century United States. Sterett demonstrates that state courts maintained a gendered division between the service that marked citizenship and the dependence that marked indigence, even during the promising ferment of the early twentieth century.

The cost of public service pensions

The cost of public service pensions
Author: Great Britain: National Audit Office
Publisher: The Stationery Office
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2010-03-12
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780102963571

There has been much public discussion about the affordability of public service pensions. This National Audit Office report aims to bring greater transparency to, and understanding of, the cash costs involved. Total payments to more than 2 million pensioners in the UK's four largest pay-as-you-go pension schemes (also known as unfunded schemes - where current employee and employer contributions are used to pay current pensions) were £19.3 billion in 2008-09, a real terms increase of 38 per cent since 1999-2000. This is driven by more employees retiring each year, which is a substantially more significant factor than longer lifespans. Employee contributions of £4.4 billion reduced the taxpayer's share of costs to £14.9 billion in 2008-09. The employee element grew by 56 per cent in real terms since 1999-2000 because staff numbers and contribution rates have increased. The report also looks at projections of payments across all UK public sector pay-as-you-go pension schemes over the next fifty years. Expressed in terms of constant 2008-09 prices, the Government Actuary's Department projects total payments rising to over £79 billion a year by 2059-60. The Treasury has a reasonable framework in place for assessing future costs and has undertaken some analysis on the sensitivity of projections to changes in key assumptions. The Treasury has not undertaken any systematic analysis of the effects of changing its assumption that there will be zero public service headcount growth, despite the existence of several factors that could put upwards pressure on staff numbers in the long term.

Pension Ponzi

Pension Ponzi
Author: Bill Tufts
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2011-01-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1118098730

The vast majority of Canadians are blissfully unaware that every man, woman and child in Canada now owes a $35,000 share of government debt and must pay this back, with interest! Make no mistake, this debt will change our country and affect every single Canadian in the decades to come. You may think you have planned for your retirement and are safe, but the government must find a way to recover this borrowed money, and they can only do that by raising your taxes and reducing your hard-earned benefits. How did this debt come about, and why can't we simply pay it off? Pension Ponzi lays the blame squarely at the feet of the politicians who refused to stand up to Canada's public sector unions. The fact is Canada's public sector, which accounts for 20% of the workforce, has been grossly overpaid relative to their counterparts in the private sector with cushy pensions paid for with your taxes and new debt. There is no denying that the country does not have the financial resources to ensure that the next generation of Canadians will have the same standard of living as the ones before it-or to support our growing seniors population. Meeting our public sector pension obligations will break the current social safety net that is a pillar of the Canadian way. Can you escape this bleak future? Can you afford to live longer? Nationally-recognized pension expert Bill Tufts and award-winning journalist Lee Fairbanks explore how this catastrophe came about and then suggest ways that government can fix what's broken, and how you as an individual can protect yourself from the financial calamity that is about to engulf Canada.