Tag: government employees

State and Local Government Employees Without Social Security Coverage: What Percentage Will Earn Pension Benefits That Fall Short of Social Security Equivalence?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v82n3/v82n3p1.html

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Excerpt:

Analysis based on a synthetic population of noncovered state and local government workers confirms earlier results based on a sample of retirement plan benefit formulas: Workers with medium-length government tenures are at risk of receiving lifetime retirement income that falls short of Social Security equivalence. Given the distributions of the synthetic population of noncovered workers by occupation, retirement-plan benefit formula, and tenure in government employment, this translates to about 16 percent of all noncovered workers at risk of receiving less retirement income than they would have received from Social Security alone had they spent their whole careers in covered employment.

Although the share of workers with projected retirement benefits that fall short of Social Security equivalence is not large, the problem is serious. Social Security is intended to provide a minimum level of retirement income for all Americans. Covered public-sector workers and many private-sector workers augment their Social Security benefits with employer-sponsored retirement plans. The concern is that pension benefits ultimately will not meet that minimum level for 750,000 to 1 million noncovered workers annually who cannot augment those benefits with Social Security income.

Author(s):  Jean-Pierre Aubry, Siyan Liu, Alicia H. Munnell, Laura D. Quinby, and Glenn R. Springstead

Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 82 No. 3, 2022 (released August 2022)

Publication Date: August 2022

Publication Site: Social Security Administration

Government Worker Shortages Worsen Crisis Response

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.governing.com/work/government-worker-shortages-worsen-crisis-response

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Excerpt:

States and cities all over the country have seen a loss of workers over the past several years, and many are struggling to hire new ones. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, state and local governments lost more than 600,000 workers between the start of the pandemic and June of this year. Those shortages have begun to affect basic services, including many that are critical to safety and quality of life. According to a Center for American Progress report from March, there were 10,000 fewer water and wastewater treatment plant operators in 2021 than there were in 2019.

…..

The obvious reason why governments have struggled to hire and retain workers over the past few years, says Brad Hershbein, senior economist and deputy director of research at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, is that they can’t improve pay rates as quickly as the private sector can in response to worker demands for better wages. Another reason is that lots of government work has become newly politicized during the pandemic — public workers can be “heroes one day and villains the next,” he says. And a third factor is that staff shortages tend to make work that much more difficult for people who remain, contributing to unattractive working conditions.

“The burnout gets worse,” Hershbein says. “You get a spiral, where fewer people are stuck trying to handle the same amount of work and the whole thing collapses. That’s a real risk at a lot of agencies.”

Author(s): Jared Brey

Publication Date: 3 Oct 2022

Publication Site: Governing