SK I have no problem with what your friend gets as his pension. I do have a problem with the return on his pension being gauranteed by the state.
Why can’t the state gaurantee the returns on my 401k?
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What you’re arguing is that no employees should ever have defined benefit plans. But the fact of the matter is, thirty plus years ago, when my brother joined the police force, they were pretty common in private industry too. They’re not anymore. But there are negotiated labor agreements. As those agreements expire, those retirement plans can be negotiated into defined contribution plans (like 401Ks), but that doesn’t change anything in the past. These retirement pensions were negotiated and agreed up over the last 40 years. Arguably poorly negotiated on the part of the municipalities, but that doesn’t mean both the recipients and the payors aren’t getting exactly what they bargained for.
