Adjustments in City’s pension plan may take six or more years

Link: https://richmondfreepress.com/news/2022/nov/10/adjustments-citys-pension-plan-may-take-six-or-mor/

Excerpt:

City Hall’s 4,200 retirees likely may wait years before seeing another cost-of-living adjustment in their pensions.

In a report to City Council on Monday, Leo Griffin, director of the Richmond Retirement System, projected that 2029 may be the earliest that cost-of-living adjustments are considered for enrollees in the defined benefit pension plan. The defined benefit plan provides a guaranteed pension that depends on the salary earned.

Mr. Griffin’s report suggested the city would be better off waiting until 2033 to consider pension improvements. That is when the system is projected to be fully funded and the city’s yearly

contribution for the pension plan is projected to plummet 81 percent from around $55 million a year to $10 million a year.

Mr. Griffin’s projections assume that the system achieves an average annual 7 percent return on investments.

If that level of return is received, his report indicates that the system would cross the 80 percent threshold of funding in six years – the funding threshold the retirement system has set before any cost-of-living adjustment could be considered.

Author(s): Jeremy M. Lazarus

Publication Date: 10 Nov 2022

Publication Site: Richmond Free Press

Social Security Politics

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/social-security-politics#details

Graphic:

Excerpt:

2022 OASDI Trustees Report, plus spreadsheets, etc. https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2022/

I am graphing the net change in the OASI (that’s the old age benefit part) Trust Fund, year-over-year.

I think you can easily see all those glorious years the Boomer payroll taxes were being stuffed into the Trust Fund… but really flowing right out into current spending for other goodies.

And you can see when that reversed and is now negative, and will continue to be negative until the Trust Fund is exhausted, in the early 2030s.

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 7 Nov 2022

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Social Security Needs Saving Again

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-security-needs-saving-again-retirement-planning-wages-earnings-benefits-eligible-savings-11654631767?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Excerpt:

— Raise the full retirement age further. Starting in 2028, it would go up by one month every half-year until it reaches 68 1/2 in nine years. That means that in 101 years (1935-2036) the full retirement age would have risen 3 1/2 years — far less than the increase in average life span over the same period.

— Raise the early eligibility age. Since the 1960s, all workers have had the option of retiring at 62 with benefits reduced by around 25%. Most retirees now claim Social Security at 62, and the rising full retirement age strengthens the incentive to do so. Once it’s at 67, holding out for higher payments will mean giving up five years’ worth of benefits — a three-year gap will have widened to five.

If my first reform were enacted, the gap would grow further, to an irresistible 6 1/2 years. So Congress should return to the three-year gap by raising the early eligibility age to 65 1/2 as soon as possible.

— Change the way benefits are calculated for new recipients. At a 1983 White House Rose Garden ceremony, I sat next to a Senate member of the Social Security Reform Commission. I told him, “You can fix Social Security by not indexing the bend points for five years.” His response: “What the hell are bend points?”

Bend points determine how much your initial Social Security check will be. First they take the 35 years of your highest income. Thirty-five years ago, you were a junior employee and the dollar didn’t go as far. So each year’s wages are adjusted for inflation to compute an average monthly wage in today’s dollars.

Using the present rules, assume you’re retiring in 2022 and your average inflation-adjusted monthly wage is $6,572. Your first check would be $2,628.96 — 90% of the first $1,024 (or $921.60), plus 32% from $1,024 to $6,172 (or 1,647.36), plus 15% in excess of $6,172 (or $60).

The bend points are $1,024 and $6,172. They were $230 and $1,388 in 1982, when I wrote my constituent newsletter. The growth in benefits could be constrained by indexing the bend points every other year rather than annually for six to 10 years. In addition, the initial benefit should be based on 38 years of wages rather than 35, since Americans not only live longer but work longer, and the inflation-adjusted average wage should be discounted by 5%.

— Slow the growth of benefits for new and existing beneficiaries alike by changing the basis on which they’re indexed for inflation. All indexing of Social Security now uses the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W. Economists agree that the Chained CPI is the most accurate inflation index available. Between 2000 and 2020, the Chained CPI was around 0.3 percentage point lower each year than the CPI-W. The government uses Chained CPI to index income-tax brackets and the higher CPI-W to calculate government outlays, including Social Security cost-of-living adjustments — which leads both taxes and spending to rise more quickly.

— Withhold some Social Security COLAs from higher-income retirees. Those who report income of more than $60,000 (a threshold that itself would rise with inflation) from sources other than Social Security could be denied the COLA every other year for up to six years.

— Give the COLA not annually but every 14 or 15 months using the 12 months of lowest inflation.

— Tax Social Security income for higher-bracket taxpayers, and give them the option to forgo all or part of their monthly payment. The forgone amount could be deducted as a charitable contribution. In high-income-tax states, forgoing Social Security payments would incur little or no cost. Skeptics may be surprised by how many Americans will forgo a part of their monthly checks to assure the system’s solvency for their grandchildren. The election to forgo would be reversible annually.

— Raise the payroll tax by 0.1% of wages every other year — half from withholding, half for the employer’s contribution — for 20 years, a total tax increase of 1%.

Author(s): Rudy Boschwitz

Publication Date: 7 June 2022

Publication Site: WSJ

What Social Security Should Really Be Paying to Survive in This Economy

Link: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/10/what-social-security-should-really-be-paying-to-survive-in-this-economy.html

Excerpt:

Inflation continues to rise in the United States. Although gas prices have recently fallen since their record high over the summer, the cost of groceries rose by 11.4 percent over the last year, and there is no expectation that they will fall back to reasonable levels. Prices overall have risen by 8.2 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index report covering September 2022 as compared to the same month last year. While most working Americans are not getting hefty wage raises to compensate for inflation, seniors will see their Social Security benefits—which are pegged to inflation—rise next year. Starting in January 2023, beneficiaries will see an 8.7 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) bump in their Social Security checks.

Conservatives are scoffing at this automated increase, as if it were a special treat that the Biden administration has cooked up to bribe older voters. Fox News reported that there was a “social media backlash” against White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s tweet lauding the upcoming increased COLA benefits for seniors. The outlet elevated comments by the conservative America First Policy Institute’s Marc Lotter, who retorted to Klain, “Nice try Ron. Raising benefits next year does not help seniors with the higher prices they are paying today or the higher prices they’ve been paying since you took office.”

But Social Security benefits have risen automatically with inflation since 1975 by design, precisely so that the livelihoods of seniors are not beholden to partisanship. This is an imminently sensible way to ensure that retired Americans, who spent their working lives paying Social Security taxes, can have a basic income.

If conservatives are complaining that an 8.7 percent bump is not enough to counter inflation, one might expect them to demand an even greater increase to Social Security benefits.

Author(s): Sonali Kolhatkar

Publication Date: 15 Oct 2022

Publication Site: naked capitalism

The History of the Social Security COLA: A Timeline

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/10/11/the-history-of-the-social-security-cola-a-timeline/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The first Social Security COLA — an 8% benefit increase — happened in 1975. The COLAs were effective in June of the applicable year. Since 1982, adjustments have taken effect in December, with benefit increases reflected in January payments.

Over the years, adjustments have ranged from no adjustment — in both 2009 and 2010 — to a high of 14.3% in 1980. The COLA was 5.9% in 2022.

The 2023 COLA will be 8.7%, the biggest increase since 1981. Here are some thoughts on a few notable past COLAs. Tap or hover your mouse over the graph to see the COLAs for each year.

Author(s): Roger Wohlner

Publication Date: 11 Oct 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Pa. pension fund down over $3 billion in tough market, and braces for losses ahead

Link: https://www.inquirer.com/business/sers-pension-drop-investments-retirement-20220923.html

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The drop in global stock and bond values has shaved about $3 billion off the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS) during the second quarter, staff and consultants warned trustees in Thursday’s investment meeting.

The fund was worth $34.5 billion at midyear, down from $38 billion three months before, after counting an 8.5% investment loss for the quarter, along with payouts to 130,000 pensioners, and ongoing contributions from taxpayers and 100,000 state workers — lawmakers, judges, college staff, corrections officers, troopers, social workers — who hope to retire someday with pensions from the system.

The fund posted the decline as legislators have been weighing how to cope with pressure to boost pensions for more than 70,000 older state and public school retirees, whose last “cost of living allowance” increases took effect in 2004. Their pension checks, unchanged since that time, are losing pricing power after food, fuel, and other prices rose earlier this year at the fastest rate since the early 1980s.

Author(s): Joseph DiStefano

Publication Date: 23 Sept 2022

Publication Site: Philadelphia Enquirer

Sanders’ Social Security Bill Would Extend Payroll Tax to Capital Gains for High Earners

Link:https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/06/10/bernie-sanders-new-social-security-bill-would-extend-payroll-tax-to-capital-gains-for-high-earners/

Excerpt:

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., introduced Thursday the Social Security Expansion Act (SSEA), which would, among other measures, boost benefits, adopt the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, or CPI-E, for benefit increases, and subject all income above $250,000 — including capital gains — to the Social Security payroll tax.

Dan Adcock, Director of Government Relations and Policy at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, told ThinkAdvisor Friday in an email that the DeFazio-Sanders bill, like the Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, introduced by Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., “both extend solvency and improve benefits.”

The Larson bill, however, “is consistent with President Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 per year,” Adcock said, while “the Sanders-DeFazio bill is not.”

A Sacred Trust adopts the consumer price index for the elderly as the basis of the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and applies the payroll tax to annual wages above $400,000.

Author(s): Melanie Waddell

Publication Date: 10 June 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Action on Social Security 2100 Bill Coming ‘Very Soon’: Rep. Larson

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2022/05/23/action-on-social-security-2100-bill-coming-very-soon-rep-larson/

Excerpt:

The House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee plans to debate his Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust bill soon, Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., chairman of the House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee, told ThinkAdvisor in a recent email.

The legislation adopts the consumer price index for the elderly as the basis of the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and applies the payroll tax to annual wages above $400,000.

“We are in the process of working toward markup, which will be held hopefully very soon,” Larson said in the email.

Author(s): Melanie Waddell

Publication Date: 23 May 2022

Publication Site: Think Advisor

High Inflation Leads to Expensive Cost-of-Living Adjustments for CalPERS and Others

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/high-inflation-leads-to-expensive-cost-of-living-adjustments-for-calpers-and-others/

Excerpt:

With big returns come big expenses. That’s what seems to be the case for pensions across the country, as they are forced to increase their payouts to beneficiaries due to inflation. While the past year has been a record breaker for pension fund returns, inflation will be claiming its fair share of the gains as well.

For CalPERS members, those who retired between 2006 and 2014 will receive the biggest increase at 4.7%. This will be the largest cost-of-living increase for beneficiaries in the past 32 years, dating to 1990.

While the Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated the Consumer Price Index to have increased by 7% over  2021, CalPERS is not using the 7% to calculate its increased payments. Instead, it uses an average of each month’s numbers.

CalSTRS similarly also has built in inflation protection, thanks to a California law that requires public pensions to do so. However, CalSTRS’ method of calculating this payment is slightly different. The fund gives quarterly supplement payments to those whose annual benefit falls below 85% of their original benefit. This year’s inflation numbers will likely increase the number of supplemental payments that CalSTRS in forced to provide.

Author(s): Anna Gordon

Publication Date: 1 Mar 2022

Publication Site: ai-CIO

‘The Pension Bill Has Something For Everybody’: A Look Into How Illinois Lawmakers Justified Their Pension Benefit Boosts

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2022/02/03/the-pension-bill-has-something-for-everybody-a-look-into-how-illinois-lawmakers-justified-their-pension-benefit-boosts/?sh=207f9a5233bb

Excerpt:

In my prior article, I laid out the Illinois General Assembly’s repeated unanimous, near-unanimous or strong bipartisan majority support for a series of bills increasing pension benefits for public employees from 1989 – 2000.

….

With respect to the SERS benefit increase, the Senate debate centers around collective bargaining. As Senator Jones says in the May 31, 1997 transcript, “I think Senator Collins had worked hours, and many hours and years to sponsor this piece of – this legislation so that we can arrive at the point we are today. So I – I stand up gladly and proudly to – to support you in this endeavor, but I think we should know where the real, real support originally came from and how it all came about. And it came about as a result of collective bargaining legislation.” (Again, all transcripts can be viewed online.)

On the House side, there was more discussion. The CGFA’s summary notwithstanding, there were a number of benefit boosts, including a “30 and out” provision. It was explained by Rep. Poe that the bill was “funded” by the fact that during the AFSME contract negotiations, the union accepted a reduced wage increase (relative to what they’d otherwise have demanded) in order to achieve this pension benefit increase, and it was taken on faith that the bill was indeed therefore truly “paid for,” when it ought to simply have been met with incredulity instead.

….

This is, of course, exactly the core of the reason why public sector unions are fundamentally so ripe for abuse, when the individuals who nominally have the role of “employer” gain so much politically from providing these generous benefits.

This brings us to the Teacher’s equivalent and the transcripts of May 21 – 22, 1998. Here the path of the bill was not as simple, as the speaker delayed moving the bill out of the Rules committee.

….

Finally, we have transcripts of the 1989 COLA/pension funding bait-and-switch bill to read. Again recall that this bill was wholly rewritten through negotiations, and presented in its final form on the day it was voted upon, June 30, 1989. 

….

“The pension bill has something for everybody, folks. It’s been designed in such a way that everybody’s got something in here.” 

But as Schuneman continues to speak, it is clear that he is cynical about this design and in fact he is concerned about the cost, and he continues talking about the pension debt as the equivalent to paying the minimum payment on a credit card – but gets no traction. The next speakers are far more interested in clarifying the (even more generous) benefit boosts for General Assembly members, and after some side-tracking Jones picks up his “something for everything” point but not with Schuneman’s cynicism but sincerely calling for passage, citing the governor’s support (and with no mention of costs or the funding plan): 

“Sure, there is something in here for everyone. The Office of the Governor came out very strongly for the workers of the State of Illinois and in strong support for the compounding of the increases for State Employees and retirees. So, let’s give me a favorable vote on this bill, and we will do good for the people who work hard for the State of Illinois.”

Author(s): Elizabeth Bauer

Publication Date: 3 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Forbes

Top Democrats challenge Janet Mills to give retired state workers a big pension boost

Link: https://bangordailynews.com/2022/02/04/politics/top-democrats-challenge-janet-mills-to-give-retired-state-workers-a-big-pension-boost-xoasq1i29i/

Excerpt:

Top legislative Democrats joined a Thursday letter challenging Gov. Janet Mills to give state retirees a bigger cost-of-living increase to address inflation with the governor nearly ready to release a key spending plan.

People in the Maine Public Employee Retirement System, which includes retired state employees and teachers, were told last summer that they would receive a 3 percent increase to their benefits up to nearly $23,000. Inflation during that time was 5.4 percent.

A letter sent to the governor on Thursday by 59 lawmakers led by Sen. Joe Rafferty, D-Kennebunk, and joined by all Democratic leaders in both chambers, including Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, and House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, asks Mills to fund an increase commensurate with the level of inflation in her upcoming budget proposal.

Author(s): Caitlin Andrews

Publication Date: 4 Feb 2022

Publication Site: Bangor Daily News

The Social Security shell game

Link: http://exclusive.multibriefs.com/content/the-social-security-shell-game/civil-government

Excerpt:

According to The Senior Citizens League, the sleight of hand behind it is a formula for calculating the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) that has robbed seniors of 33% of their buying power since 2010.

Since then, annual COLA increases have averaged a meager 1.375%. That means the average recipient has received a COLA increase of less than $20 a month. For many, the con job is even more vexing because much of that gain is taken back with increases in Medicare premiums.

These annual COLA adjustments are based by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on a formula that uses the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers — a lengthy descriptor that’s usually abbreviated as CPI-W. Therein lies the problem — this index does not accurately reflect the rising costs that most affect seniors — such as medical care and drugs, food/staples and rent. Even the most modest estimates suggest these costs are increasing at a rate of somewhere between 5% and 10% annually.

Author(s): Dave G. Houser

Publication Date: 5 March 2021

Publication Site: Multibriefs