With your free, personal my Social Security account, you can receive personalized estimates of future benefits based on your real earnings, see your latest Statement, and review your earnings history. It even makes it easy to request a replacement Social Security Card or check the status of an application, from anywhere!
PTSD Training Event – Saving Blue Lives
Source: NIU and IPPFA
The Illinois Public Pension Fund Association (IPPFA) and Northern Illinois University have teamed up to develop a program to assist law enforcement leaders and rank-and-file officers in expanding their knowledge of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as it effects police officers. This program, “Saving Blue Lives through Training on PTSD, Suicide, Resilience and Peer Support,” is offered at no cost to those attending.
irst responders are routinely exposed to critical incidents involving exposure to injury or death in others, as well as the risk of injury or death to themselves. Research shows, and those in the profession intuitively know, that individual incidents and accumulated exposure can adversely affect the mental and physical health of those involved.
The NIU – IPPFA seminar will include:
- Learning the symptoms of PTSD
- Conditions that often arise with PTSD, such as depression and substance abuse
- Identifying ways to bolster resistance
- Suicide and conditions such as PTSD
- Methods for dealing with PTSD without the help of a mental health professional
- Effective treatments with the help of a mental health professional
Do Tax Breaks Help or Hurt a State’s Finances? New Study Digs Deep.
Source: Governing
The debate over tax incentives usually centers on whether they lead to job creation and other economic benefits. But governments must also pay attention to their own bottom lines. This begs the question: How do all the financial incentives that states offer actually influence fiscal health?
New research seeks to answer that question. Using data from the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, researchers at North Carolina State University tallied all incentives offered by 32 states from 1990 to 2015, effectively covering 90 percent of incentives nationally. What they found doesn’t portray incentives in a positive light. Most of the programs they looked at — investment tax credits, property tax abatements, and tax credits for research and development — were linked with worse overall fiscal health for the jurisdiction that enacted them.
Disability Statistics and Data
Source: Workforce GPS
Disability statistics can be a useful tool to increase our collective understanding of the barriers faced by the disability population in the workforce. This information can also help us learn more about the customers we serve each day at an American Job Center. The following resource links are provided to help you gain insights on current and historical labor force participation at the national, state, and county level.
Video: Fire and Police Pension Funds
Source: At Issue
Cities in Illinois face pension obligations that are straining their budgets. The president of the Illinois Public Pension Fund Association, Peoria Police Pension Fund President and the Peoria City Treasurer discuss two steps that might ease the financial burden. They support legislation to allow more investment options called the prudent person rule and an open amortization system.
Your Medicare Coverage – Long-Term Care
Source: U. S. Government
Long-Term Care
Medicare doesn’t cover long-term care (also called Custodial care), if that’s the only care you need. Most nursing home care is custodial care.
Your costs in Original Medicare
You pay 100% for non-covered services, including most long-term care.
What it is
Long-term care is a range of services and support for your personal care needs. Most long-term care isn’t medical care. Instead, most long-term care is help with basic personal tasks of everyday life, sometimes called activities of daily living.
What Rhode Island can teach us about pension plunder
Source: Forward Kentucky
When you look at proposals and bills related to public pensions, there is one thing to keep in mind: we’re talking about an amazing amount of money. In just one fund, the Kentucky Retirement Systems fund, there are assets worth over $12 billion. ($12,250,960,799.44 to be specific.)
And just as Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is,” Wall Street firms love to help pension systems manage their money – because if you get the right deal on the right terms, there’s a lot of money to be made.
So, it pays to pay attention to what is happening with public pension systems – including changes to the boards. Shifting the balance of power on a pension board can make it easier for unscrupulous people to get their hands on all that money. And sometimes, they will make it look like they are actually trying to save the pensions. “What we’re doing is for your own good!” they will say, even as they pocket huge fees.
Illinois lawmakers debate consolidating downstate pensions
Source: KPVI
SPRINGFIELD — For municipal officials, the idea of consolidating 650 downstate police and fire pensions into one will save money in the long run, provide better investment returns and provide more stability to weaker systems.
But representatives of the pension plans said consolidating them will cost money that could take up to 20 years to recover and that there are more pressing issues facing the systems, including Tier 2 benefits that are inadequate.
The goal of consolidating downstate police and fire pension funds has been on the radar of the Illinois Municipal League for several years. This year, it also got the attention of Gov. J.B. Pritzker who appointed a task force in February to look into the feasibility of consolidating local pensions “beginning with downstate police and fire funds.” The group is supposed to deliver recommendations by July 1.
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