Public Sector Pension Strikes – A JOKE !

Fairzo

ILW wrote: »

Is it true that the employer makes a 14% contribution to some public sector pensions?

Rhetorical question?:beer:

CLAPTON

ILW wrote: »

Is it true that the employer makes a 14% contribution to some public sector pensions?

yes, local government pays about that into a funded sceheme

teachers employers pay about the same but that is simply paid to government and not into a funded scheme

for some unfunded scehmes the government actuary make periodic assessments of whether the notional fund is over or under funded: strangely for a government keen on transparency the government won't release the figures

Debbie_A_3

ILW wrote: »

Is it true that the employer makes a 14% contribution to some public sector pensions?

The employers' contribution to the Teachers' Pension Scheme is 14.1%.

Ygor

jamesd wrote: »

Rising life expectancy heaps further pressure on Britain's pensions crisis is a good introduction to the issues that are causing the increases in pension ages for everyone. A brief summary:

1. "Average longevity at birth improved by 1.2 years for men and one year for women between the periods 2004/06 and 2008/10".
2. "Men aged 65 could last year expect to live 18 years compared to 17 years in 2006".
3. "When an early form of a state pension was introduced in 1906, male life expectancy was 48; it had risen to 62 by the creation of the modern welfare state after the Second World War".

It also covers the really troubling North-South life expectancy differences that mean later retirement most harms those in the North (and also those with lower qualifications/work skills).

I don't think anyone is claiming increased longevity is not a factor. The easiest way to deal with that is to honour the cap and share agreements that were already in place.

Instead the government has made 'savings' by putting 2% of salary less in the 'pot' (a real pot for LGPS, the SCAPE account for unfunded schemes). Really? A pay cut is now a 'saving'?

The double blow is the government has reduced the discount rate (effectively the rate of return for unfunded schemes) by about 1.3%. Hutton thought a 0.5% drop was the equivalent of 3% of salary so a 1.3% drop is about 8% of salary. Lets see them do that with Index linked Gilt coupons and keep a AAA rating! How many private sector pension funds would consider the drop in in investment returns to be a 'saving'?

Now I get that markets have fallen and losses have been made. Oil and Gold seem to have done all right.
But Markets recover and inflation falls and I can't see the discount rate being so easily increased as it's only going to be reviewed every 5 years. The point of having a stable discount rate was so that it would be better when the market was down and worse when the market was up.

The main reason for the reforms is not increased longevity but the cut in pension funding equivalent to 10% (2%+8%) of pay.

Uglymug

I’d thought I’d post on how pensions in the unprotected non-tax payer guaranteed world of the Private Sector work (not that the blinkered Public Sector posters would care a jot or even begin to understand, but hey it’s worth a go.)

6 months ago my pension was worth about £100,000, annuity rates for an index linked pension at 65 was 3.3% so I was expecting an index linked pension at age 65 of a grand total of about £3,300 a year.

Today my fund is worth about £90,000, a drop of 10% because in this time the FTSE100 has dropped from over 6000 to less than 5400.

Annuity rates have also dropped by about 10% - this is due to the recent Quantative Easing, the associated drop in Gilt yields and the trouble in Europe - our wonderful Pension Minister announced yesterday that this was a price worth paying by our Pensioners.

I can now look forward to a pension of £2,700 a year (3% of £90,000). To get back to where I was 6 months ago I needed to have saved £20,000 into my pension (£110,000 is now needed to fund £3,300 a year).

The good news is my employer pays £1,000 a year into my pension, so the 6 month short fall is only £19,500. The bad news is I don’t earn this much in 6 months. So even if I’d paid all my wages into my pension I’d still be worse off.

This example is not an exception, this is what will have happened to the vast majority of pensions in the real world of the hard workers of the Private Sector. Hard workers who are on basic, average salaries not too different to those in the Public sector.

Like I said I don’t believe any Public Sector poster to understand or even care a jot and expect to receive a lot of ridicule and ridiculous posts from them.

Their objections to the pittance more they have to contribute to their Gold Plated guaranteed pension is a joke. As I initially posted this can only be put down to their unfettered and totally blinkered GREED.

real1314

Uglymug wrote: »

I’d thought I’d post on how pensions in the unprotected non-tax payer guaranteed world of the Private Sector work (not that the blinkered Public Sector posters would care a jot or even begin to understand, but hey it’s worth a go.)

6 months ago my pension was worth about £100,000, annuity rates for an index linked pension at 65 was 3.3% so I was expecting an index linked pension at age 65 of a grand total of about £3,300 a year.

Today my fund is worth about £90,000, a drop of 10% because in this time the FTSE100 has dropped from over 6000 to less than 5400.

Annuity rates have also dropped by about 10% - this is due to the recent Quantative Easing, the associated drop in Gilt yields and the trouble in Europe - our wonderful Pension Minister announced yesterday that this was a price worth paying by our Pensioners.

I can now look forward to a pension of £2,700 a year (3% of £90,000). To get back to where I was 6 months ago I needed to have saved £20,000 into my pension (£110,000 is now needed to fund £3,300 a year).

The good news is my employer pays £1,000 a year into my pension, so the 6 month short fall is only £19,500. The bad news is I don’t earn this much in 6 months. So even if I’d paid all my wages into my pension I’d still be worse off.

This example is not an exception, this is what will have happened to the vast majority of pensions in the real world of the hard workers of the Private Sector. Hard workers who are on basic, average salaries not too different to those in the Public sector.

Like I said I don’t believe any Public Sector poster to understand or even care a jot and expect to receive a lot of ridicule and ridiculous posts from them.

Their objections to the pittance more they have to contribute to their Gold Plated guaranteed pension is a joke. As I initially posted this can only be put down to their unfettered and totally blinkered GREED.

I suspect most public sector workers will have every sympathy with private sector workers whose pensions have been pared/hacked/slashed to the bone.
Most public sector employees work on the concept of fairness. However, private sector employees often do better in the good times, but contrastingly do worse in the bad times.

Did the private sector workers look at the public sector in the good times and say:

"Hey, they don't seem to be getting their share of this wealth, we should be losing a bit of our gains and giving it to them, it's outrageous how GREEDY we are being"

If they did, it was a very quiet protest that barely raised a whisper. But now the bad times have come, the voice is loud and rampant. And, usually from the lowest paid in the private sector attacking those who are predominantly paid less than the average wage in the public sector.

You could suggest that the public sector workers are actually just following the capitalist model though. Make as much profit (pay/pension) from the lowest investment (working hours/pension contribution). In the private sector you call it successful management, but for public sector employees you call it greed.

Irony? Hypocrisy? You decide. :cool:

The_Angry_Jock

real1314 wrote: »

Did the private sector workers look at the public sector in the good times and say:

"Hey, they don't seem to be getting their share of this wealth, we should be losing a bit of our gains and giving it to them, it's outrageous how GREEDY we are being"

That's pretty much what happened though, the private sector enjoyed record growth and through increased taxation and revenue so did the public sector. No one one moaned because it was all good, now it's all gone t*ts up the public sector continue to expect growth whilst the private sector shrinks. It's madness.

If the public sector didn't grow with the private sector then how do explain higher average salary in the public sector and far superior pensions aswell as record staffing levels?

Fairzo

Believe me I have every sympathy with the position of many private sector pensioners. But, having made a decision in 1975 to join local government and stayed there (despite many colleagues leaving for the greener grass of private sector pay + bonus + car) it's lunacy to think that I'm going to just give any of the pension away without at least a bit of a dust up.

Backbiter

The latest figures regarding the Teachers Pension Scheme (not 'fund', as there is no fund as such - it doesn't operate like that) show that, since its inception in 1923, £46.4 billion pounds more has been paid in by teachers than has been paid out.

These figures are on the NUT website: http://www.teachers.org.uk/pensions

The Unions have requested that the Government carry out its legal duty to value the scheme, which was last undertaken in 2004. The Government is refusing to do so but is pressing on with massive changes that will cost every teacher hundreds of thousands of pounds on average (depending how close they are to retirement). There is an agreement in place from 2007 (when the scheme was reformed for new entrants) that, if the scheme cannot meet its obligations, contributions will have to rise for all teachers.

Their refusal to value the scheme is proof that they are not negotiating in good faith. What do they have to hide? Most people are convinced (by Government propaganda and irresponsible coverage in the media) that the scheme is in deficit but the latest figures indicate that it has built up a vast (notional) surplus.

CLAPTON

Uglymug wrote: »

I’d thought I’d post on how pensions in the unprotected non-tax payer guaranteed world of the Private Sector work (not that the blinkered Public Sector posters would care a jot or even begin to understand, but hey it’s worth a go.)

6 months ago my pension was worth about £100,000, annuity rates for an index linked pension at 65 was 3.3% so I was expecting an index linked pension at age 65 of a grand total of about £3,300 a year.

Today my fund is worth about £90,000, a drop of 10% because in this time the FTSE100 has dropped from over 6000 to less than 5400.

Annuity rates have also dropped by about 10% - this is due to the recent Quantative Easing, the associated drop in Gilt yields and the trouble in Europe - our wonderful Pension Minister announced yesterday that this was a price worth paying by our Pensioners.

I can now look forward to a pension of £2,700 a year (3% of £90,000). To get back to where I was 6 months ago I needed to have saved £20,000 into my pension (£110,000 is now needed to fund £3,300 a year).

The good news is my employer pays £1,000 a year into my pension, so the 6 month short fall is only £19,500. The bad news is I don’t earn this much in 6 months. So even if I’d paid all my wages into my pension I’d still be worse off.

This example is not an exception, this is what will have happened to the vast majority of pensions in the real world of the hard workers of the Private Sector. Hard workers who are on basic, average salaries not too different to those in the Public sector.

Like I said I don’t believe any Public Sector poster to understand or even care a jot and expect to receive a lot of ridicule and ridiculous posts from them.

Their objections to the pittance more they have to contribute to their Gold Plated guaranteed pension is a joke. As I initially posted this can only be put down to their unfettered and totally blinkered GREED.

this is a very good illustration that the debate about pensions should cover all pensioners both public and private.
obviously the government is delighted that all then anger about pensions is aim at the public sector gold plated stuff and the plight of the private pension is being ignored.

given that much of the plight of the private sector is caused by specific government policy (QE) there is a reasonable case that the government protect people nearing retirement age.
however as there is no public outcry about these pensions no action will be taken