And there are work-related disablity benefits that a lot of people think is "retirement". Police and firefighters tend to get a disability suppliment if they retire early due to the wear and tear they get doing their job.
Where pensions really get wiggy is when a pension system is structured follow a rank and file worker into mangement, or if bonus pay for specialty positions are added into the pension calculation. While 80% of the public workforce will never get into management and will retire with a yearly $25K - $35K pension stipend, the 20% who made it into management over a 25 - 30 year career will often see a pension return of six figures because they held the equivilent of a specialist or executive position in a private company.
What really sucks is that somehow, people assume that when the newspapers shout about "Retirement Pension bonanzas", the newspapers are talking about the average worker. Nope, they're usually looking at the "average pension" - of the executives and senior managers, which are usually the equivilent of their private sector counterparts.
What do you think a senior manager at an engineering or insurance firm gets for his or her pension, or how their bonus and stock options work with their pensions?
In 2004, my mother retired as the administrative assistant to the Dean with an additional position as Graduate Studies advisor within that "School of" at a prestegious state university. She was making $57K a year, with 35 years for her standard state employees pension.
She's getting $28K a year for as long as she lives. No COLA. Dad was a 40-year high-school teacher/specialist/coach with a state pension that was paying $35K a year until he died last year.
As his surviver, she is getting half of that until the date he would have turned 80 (4 more years), then it ends (had he survived his stroke and lived into his 90's, it would have continued in full until then).
Lucky for her, his military and Social Security survivor's benefits to her doesn't have an after-death cut-off date, so she currently gets about $1200 a month combined with those, and they have a COLA.
I doubt the median pension (without disability) for a 30-year retired beat cop in Palm Desert is more than $40K a year, all things considered. Unless Palm Desert was particularly generous with their package to try and get more people to hire on.
Haele
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