Misconceptions: Pushing Back on Retirement Security
by Kate Thomas
The recession hit baby boomers who put all all their retirement security eggs in the 401K basket especially hard. Even though millions have seen their risky individual accounts crash, retirement security has increasingly come under attack–and provided an excuse for those who want to take away pensions.
As these attacks step up, SEIU members are speaking out to defend working Americans’ retirement security. On Tuesday, SEIU Local 521 President Kristy Sermersheim published an opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News.
[...] It has become common practice for high-level managers to amass six-figure annual pension payouts with one hand, while pointing fingers at rank and file workers with the other. As a former Santa Clara County worker, and as a union leader who has bargained contracts for thousands of employees, I can assure you that public workers are not retiring in luxury. The average public sector employee, in fact, will receive $25,000 a year in retirement, and the majority of public sector workers will retire without Social Security or retirement health care benefits.
A person that works in public service is not doing it to become rich. But due in large part to opportunistic politicians, the public is fed a narrow version of the truth when it comes to public pensions and the role they play in budget problems. As Kristy notes, a smarter approach to curbing pension excess than bashing public service employees would be to take a hard look at where these kinds of abuses are taking place and make real corrections there.
Misconceptions: Pushing Back on Retirement Security
originally appeared on
SEIU.org
on Thursday, Mar 11, 2010.
Posted:
March 11th, 2010 |
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