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News

Welcome Burnham Police Pension Fund to IPPFA
Source: IPPFA

Welcome Burnham Police Pension Fund to IPPFA.

 

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2016 Keynote Speaker General John Kelly now head of Homeland Security
Source: IPPFA Newsletter

Donald Trump has picked former Marine Corps General John Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security.  General Kelly was the Keynote Speaker at the 2016 IPPFA MidAmerican Conference.

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This one is going to hurt: Dallas police & fire pension issue is unfair
Source: Dallas News

I’ve spent countless hours the last three-plus years talking to cops and firefighters at all hours about their complaints, their working conditions and their daily lives. That short text exchange July 7 will be the one conversation that will always stick with me.

A few days after the shooting, a colleague and I walked around the perimeter of the crime scene that was downtown Dallas. We struggled to envision what life would possibly be like now. I wondered the same thing later that day when I sat in the Dallas Police Association office with members of its shell-shocked leadership while they struggled to find meaning in all of it.

But somehow, it wasn’t the tragic loss of five first responders’ lives that defined the second half of my year. It was the possible loss of the pensions of those who remain.

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Public pension funded ratio rises to 71.0% in Q3
Source: Millman

The estimated funded status of the 100 largest U.S. public pension plans improved by $48 billion from the end of June through the end of September as measured by the Milliman 100 Public Pension Funding Index (PPFI).1 The deficit fell to $1.338 trillion due to asset returns that outpaced their expected targets for the quarter. As of September 30, the funded ratio increased to 71.0%, up from 69.8% at the end of June.

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A Tale of Two Retirements
Source: Institute for Policy Studies

The presidential election put a spotlight on the decline of American manufacturing and the related economic insecurity among white working class males. In recent decades, this demographic group lost millions of unionized factory jobs that were once a major source of both decent pay and retirement benefits.

But they’re not the only ones with reason to be concerned about their economic futures. White working class families, families of color, and female-headed households share common worries about whether they’ll be able to afford to retire and whether their golden years will be tarnished by financial stress. Our country’s real retirement divide is between those at the top of corporate America and nearly all the rest of us.

This second annual IPS “Two Retirements” report provides a detailed analysis of this CEO-worker retirement benefit gap. As our numbers make startlingly clear, big company CEOs are continuing to enjoy colossal nest eggs while many of these leaders are further eroding their own employees’ retirement security.

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N. Riverside can’t claim hardship to skirt police, fire pension obligations
Source: Cook County Record

This case concerns the Village of North Riverside’s failure to meet its statutory contribution obligations to its police and firefighter pension funds. At an administrative hearing, the Village argued that its noncompliance should be excused because it had good and sufficient cause for failing to meet its obligations. The administrative hearing officer rejected the Village’s arguments, and the hearing officer’s recommendation was accepted by the Director of the Public Pension Division. The Village sought administrative review in the circuit court which affirmed the decision. The Village now seeks review here, and we confirm the administrative ruling and affirm the circuit court’s decision.

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Political class manipulating public employees’ pension fund statistics
Source: Star-Telegram by Max Faulkner

Two foundations closely aligned with business and Wall Street interests have stepped up attacks against public employee pension funds.

They know the legislative session is right around the corner. Lawmakers and the general public should continue to view them with suspicion.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation recently took aim at pension funds’ unfunded liabilities, a measure of benefit promises to current assets.  The TPPF sought cover of Pension Review Board reports to lump together 93 pension funds, ranging in size from $2 million to $133 billion, to produce a headline number of $61 billion in unfunded liabilities.

The size is meant to stagger, until put in proper context.

The TPPF failed to mention that 42 pension funds had decreases in those liabilities and 23 more had meager single-digit increases.  Excluding six of the largest state and local pension funds, the total increase for the 87 remaining systems amounted to only $39 million, which is hardly an unmanageable figure.

In fact, considering their billions in combined assets, it is miniscule.

Nor did the report include calculations for latest investment returns, most of which will be positive for a good stock market year in 2016. Those returns will not be in Pension Review Board stats until early 2017.

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2015 Comparative Study of Major Public Employee Retirement Systems
Source: Wisconsin Legislative Council

This report compares significant features of major state and local public employee retirement systems in the United States. The report compares retirement benefits provided to general employees and teachers, rather than benefits applicable only to narrower categories of employees such as police, firefighters, or elected officials. Generally, the report has been prepared every two years since 1982 by the Wisconsin Retirement Research Committee staff or the Legislative Council staff.

The 2015 Report includes data from the same 87 public employee retirement systems that were compared in the prior report. Although this report does not cover all major public employee retirement systems, it describes at least one statewide plan from each state. The same public employee retirement systems have been covered in previous reports to show long-term trends in public employee retirement systems.

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Options for Reducing the Deficit: 2017 – 2026
Source: CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

The Congress faces an array of policy choices as it confronts the challenges posed by the amount of federal debt held by the public—which has more than doubled relative to the size of the economy since 2007—and the prospect of continued growth in that debt over the coming decades if the large annual budget deficits projected under current law come to pass (see Figure 1-1). To help inform lawmakers, the Congressional Budget Office periodically issues a compendium of policy options that would help to reduce the deficit.1 This edition reports the estimated budgetary effects of various options and highlights some of the advantages and disadvantages of those options.

This volume presents 115 options that would decrease federal spending or increase federal revenues over the next decade (see Table 1-1 on page 6). The options included in this volume come from various sources. Some are based on proposed legislation or on the budget proposals of various Administrations; others come from Congressional offices or from entities in the federal government or in the private sector.

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The new low-wage reality for older Americans
Source: Money Watch by Aimee Picchi

Thanks to economic instability and an eroding pension system, Americans are working longer than ever. But it turns out there’s a twist in how they’re working: New research shows workers older than 55 increasingly hold low-wage jobs.

The findings may add to the anxiety that haunts many workers about how — or if — they’ll have the financial resources to retire. In September, slightly more than 27 percent of full-time workers over 55 years old held low-wage jobs, compared with 19 percent of younger workers, according to Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economics at The New School for Social Research.

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