The New Face of Bankruptcy: Public Employees

[IamOld]

andy158 I feel your pain...but without the union you'd be making $7/hour.

Speaking of teaching - I live in an expensive and "wealthy" area - the average starting teacher with an MA makes about $48-52K/year - now - the average deduction per pay (semi-monthly)for health ins alone - family coverage - is about $250/pay. There is a state pension, but the 403b is not matched - no raises for the last few years until this year. Barely.

And the feds making more - we have short memories - until the 80's, that was the earning pattern for folks in private industry too!!!

[IamOld]

Oh and I mention teaching, because it is pretty much the only job around here where they don't do a stupid credit check!

[banca rotta]

Hey all. I will give a face to this. I am a public employee and have been for 15 years. I know everyone gripes about our retirements and our benefits, but what a lot of people don't realize is what we gave up in exchange for those were raises. That's right, we did not take raises every year with the idea that our pensions were funded. Well that fell through due to a lot of mismanagement of money and now we must pay our pension costs and increased medical costs(they go up every year). I am 1 of at least 2 people in my small dept that I know have file bk and I'm sure more will be following. It truly is scary. I don't make great money, 70,000 a year, but increased costs and no increased revenue over the years finally took its toll.

The only reason so much of us gripe is this isn't 1952, but 2011. The current ponzi based public retirement systems (like s.s. and medicare) were workable decades ago, but they aren't workable today.

All of these systems were designed for retirees to collect a few years worth of benefits then die.

Now retirees are collecting much earlier and living a lot longer. Some of our current economic problems while it's being blamed on the housing bubble bursting is also due to unworkable ponzi schemes.

It's not really your fault that past politicians and unions made you promises that the laws of economics will sooner or later have to break.

[catleg]

Exactly. The decline of the use of tobacco really f'ed things up good. If everybody smoked we'd have no problems. :-)

[andy158]

Yep. I agree the health awareness and advances in medical treatment (if you can afford it) have given folks far longer live expectantcies than our previous generations. As previous posted people would retire and die within 5 years. The baby boomers are going to break ss and medicare. Being only 49 yrs old and having to wait until age 67 to retire, I'll never see either one.

[tobee43]

Exactly. The decline of the use of tobacco really f'ed things up good. If everybody smoked we'd have no problems. :-)

yes, tax money at it's best.

or better yet, if the government really wants to clear up the deficit, make us some money, stop the drug wars......legalize pot, and heroin...and while we're at it crack....our nation would be rich...

now REALLY think about this:

we can really add jobs to the economy, by employing, doctors to monitor use, open HUGE chains of retails stores...employ a ton of retail clerks, pharmacists...employees to load and unload shipments, clerks, inventory control, bookeepers...from the white collar to the blue collar and everyone in beween... on and on...


just think, we can afford to take care of the poor, old and all those in between!!!!
i just fixed the economy!!!

[kjrmom911]

The only reason so much of us gripe is this isn't 1952, but 2011. The current ponzi based public retirement systems (like s.s. and medicare) were workable decades ago, but they aren't workable today.

All of these systems were designed for retirees to collect a few years worth of benefits then die.

Now retirees are collecting much earlier and living a lot longer. Some of our current economic problems while it's being blamed on the housing bubble bursting is also due to unworkable ponzi schemes.

It's not really your fault that past politicians and unions made you promises that the laws of economics will sooner or later have to break.

I totally agree with what you are saying and for years us public employees stuck our heads in the sand and refused to see that pension costs were not keeping up with pension funding. I am OK with having to contribute to my pension and in fact ony 7 of my 15 years were fully funded. Most of the time I have funded my own pension. And whoever was comparing my 70,000 a year salary in california to their salary in a different state dont forget that 70,000 doesnt go a long way in this state and that is definitely not my takehome pay. They take a lot out of that and by the time all is said and done we are below median in this state. Its sad really, because I truly do love what I do, but lately I feel that people want to blame us for the economy when it really is not totally our fault.

[JackBondLove]

Let me tell you an additional thing they aren't saying that will be a HUGE ripple: many federal employees are not allowed to have a foreclosure or a bk in their credit history AND if they do go through foreclosure, they can be fired. I ended up not getting hired for a 5 week contract to do document control work for the GSA this month because anyone who is 60 days or later late on anything showing on the credit report is automatically disqualified from hiring. So that meant I can't get a $4-5K contract that could have really helped my family! Now take that, imagine you live in DC for one of the branches of gov't there, you get in a regular house (the real estate is expensive there) and then your spouse loses their job and suddenly you can't keep up on the mortgage with just the one gov't job. Now you go late, the gov't employer finds out, fires you making you even more poor, more unhirable in a town where many work for gov't, and now you have to lose your house and file BK. Isn't that just a charming concept? And I predict it will happen to thousands of people if the federal gov't refuses to get its head out of its butt when it comes to discriminating against people who are down on their luck often due to no fault except being unlucky for awhile.

I wonder what the effect of having a BK would have on getting a Security Clearance? I would think that someone who has had debts cleared would no longer be in the position in which he would feel the necessity to sell secrets - but then again, maybe the idea that someone who has filed for BK is more of a risk to getting in financial trouble again, hence a problem.

Also, I wonder if someone going for a SCI Poly clearance would be asked questions pertaining to the BK, and the answers could be used to go after him for possible BK fraud!