State pensions face loss of billions

[Snellius]

State taxpayers are having to spend billions of dollars to prop up public pension plans hit hard by stock-market losses, which squeezes state budgets at a time when tax collections are growing slowly.

States will contribute $9.6 billion to the nation's 12 biggest state pension plans this year, a USA TODAY survey found. That's a 35% increase in the past two years, but it is still billions of dollars less than what is needed to fund retirement benefits guaranteed to public employees. (Related story: W. Va. in deepest pension peril.)

The 123 public pension funds that operate statewide, covering both state and local workers, have $180 billion less in assets than they need to cover their long-term benefit obligations, reports Wilshire Associates, an investment adviser in Santa Monica, Calif. That amount is almost twice the size of California's state budget.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-08-03-pension_x.htm

[duid12]

1. wonderful system

Its a wonderful system isn't it? You get screwed on your own retirement plan by Wall Street, and then you get taxed extra to make up for the losses incurred by the government pension plan...is the government going to make me whole on my losses to0?

[are_we_united_yet]

2. Ya gotta loveit.

Makes one feel real bad for the Enron guys being led off in handcuffs don't it?

/end sarcasm

[Sick of Bullshit]

3. Did any of them ACTUALLY get led off in handcuffs?

If I recall correctly, "Kenny Boy" Lay is still laughing at us from one of his many mansions.

[NYC]

4. He must be

because no one has seen hide nor hair of him. Where is Ken Lay?

(I keep asking people that just to remind them.)