Houston Pension Reform Case Study

When the recession happened, and the housing market crashed in Los Angeles a few years back many people lost their homes. The foreclosure crisis displaced many homeowners, drove up demand, and rental prices increased. Now, it is almost two years later, and the dramatic rent increases continue to soar. There would be no issue with cost of living increase except; the increases in income have yet to make the same shifts. “In many cities, rent is rising out reach of

One of the most hotly debated topics in this year’s election is the municipal pension system. For years, it has gone without a cost of living adjustment, leaving former employees with less and less money each year.

Every Houston city worker who works hard and play by the standards deserves a impartial and protected retirement. Yet the city administration has mess-up Houston’s pension systems for years, leaving them underfunded and on unstable ground. Political leaders have cut corners on pension payments, used dicey investment return assumptions, and disregard the warning signs

The Chicago Fire Department and The Chicago Police Department are in danger of losing their pensions. These brave men and women put their lives on the line every day and this is how the government repays them. This is not securing their future of retirement. Citizens believe that our first responder’s pensions should be a high priority to Chicago’s to-do list. This City of Chicago owes these brave men and women a pension like they promised and if that means cutting funds to other things, then it should be done. The pension secures the men and women’s future of retirement, and by taking it away from them it may create unstable lives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the creation of the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan and to argue that it is a necessary and potentially effective way to ensure that workers in the private sector in Ontario will be able to retire and live comfortably. This conclusion is not made lightly as it is import to view any broadening of government influence through the most critical of lenses. However, there is an increasing need for Ontarians to save for retirement and it is becoming more and more apparent that private pension plans will not be able to meet the needs of most people. This is because too few people have private pensions and the once that do exist sit on volatile ground.

The cost of living has increased just in the past ten years. It’s crazy because I purchased two little rent houses after graduation for $29,000 each and now you can’t buy a small rent house for under $75,000. This is great for me because my investment has grown in the past ten years but it’s hard for those who are just starting out. These main reason why the cost of living has increased in the City of Lindale is due to the growing community and need for improved transportation and schools to fulfill the

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) is a piece of legislation enacted y the US Congress in 1974, after decades of similar legislation had been proposed and some of which had been enacted, but primarily as a means of addressing gaps in contemporary law and policy regarding employment pensions and retirement accounts (US Department of Labor, 2012). This legislation spells out certain requirements regarding information that retirement plan administrators must provide the participants and beneficiaries so that they can make pertinent decisions or take steps to safeguard their retirement savings, and also places certain guidelines and limitations on the conduct of managers of pension and retirement plans (USDOL, 2012). Government reporting standards and measures to ensure the protection of and proper access to retirement funds are also part of the legislation (USDOL, 2012).

According to a USA Today article from last year, nearly sixty percent of Americans have more than $25,000 put away for retirement. Thirty-six percent of Americans have less than $1000 saved for later in life. This means that as more people, especially the baby boomer generation, retire, there will be more strain on program such as Social Security and Medicare, and ultimately the federal budget that is responsible for these programs. If steps are taken now to close this gap, we will insure the continued longevity of these programs by raising the tax contributions flowing into both Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security is facing pressure to lower benefits… due to longer life-spans, an overall population increase …the Baby Boomers beginning to reach retirement age, and the increase in the number of people receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits. If the system continues as-is, the total benefits will eventually surpass the amount of taxes paid into the system by younger workers. If the system is not altered at some point full benefits will not be paid as promised. (13)

The cost of living for people who make minimum wage or below can be extremely high. Particularly, in Baltimore Maryland with the closing of steel plants and the opening of the Inner Harbor, the residents were faced with an extreme pay decrease. Due to the lost of jobs and pay cuts many residents left the city, or were not able to afford housing. This contributes to a community of homeless people and 16,000 vacant houses.

For an extended period, state and local policymakers and labor unions ignored as the growing public pension obligations became an increasingly fiscal burden. The pension problem was enormous and associated with irresponsible financial practices connected to defined benefit pension plans (Thompson, 1980). Following this, the state of California and its local government have a problem of unfunded public pension liabilities that was estimated to be around $583 billion. Because of this, as Lu and Otto (2003) claim, several cities in the state have had a difficult duty of balancing budgets in a balanced way to the public employees and taxpayers, while continuing to provide public services to the

There are many problems with Social Security today; however, the most prominent problem stands out as the baby boomers. The term baby boomers refer to the massive generation born after World War 2, and since they are all retiring now America’s Social Security is beginning to drain. Chuck Hagel, author for USA Today Magazine, states that in 1950 for each retiree, there were 16.9 people in the workforce; today there are much bigger numbers: for each retiree there are nearly 3.3 people in the workforce (“Saving” 12). Hagel suggests that Americans under 45 should be able to have options when it comes down to how their money is being spent in Social Security: either they can use the traditional Social Security tax rate, or they can use 4% of their Social Security payments to invest the funds that currently make up Federal Thrift Savings Plan (“Saving” 12). In doing so Americans will be able to limit and control where their Social Security money goes. However, many people disagree with changing Social Security. David Cay Johnston, author of several award-winning books, argues that Social Security does not need a revision because of the large surpluses in past years: $2.7 trillion in 2011 (“Social Security is Not”). This is true, Social Security does have a large surplus every year; however, the government ends up spending it which

From 1946 to 1964 approximately 4 million people were born each year in the United States. This was the greatest surge in births of any period prior or since. In 2006 the first of these so called baby boomers turned 60 and began settling into early retirement. In 2011 the first of them turned 65, the traditional retirement age. This year another 4 million will join the ranks of the retired. Many feel the passage of the PPACA came just in the nick of time to save the ailing Medicare system that this growing senior population relies on. Medicare's financial challenges would be far greater without the health care reform

Envision feeling cold, starved, petrified, and alone, just getting home to find an eviction notice, perhaps a letter of foreclosure hanging from the door. As the room goes grey and begins to spin, four words begin to echo in the background, “Is this really happening?” All resources are exhausted and Social Security proves ineffective. Fear has taken over. Thoughts of life in a shelter cloud the room. The bills are piling high, as bank accounts begin to dwindle. Unfortunately, this is the harsh certainty of many people in the aging community. Retirement is a critical life event that everyone has to undergo, through being unprepared, many fall victim to poverty in old age. Individuals should utilize Individual Retirement Accounts,

The significant policy worries pertinent to health and long life are the impending economic viability of pension,