Rhode Island city asks retirees to cut their pensions

[TexDevilDog]

http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-21/us/rhode.island.pensioners_1_retirees-pensions-social-security-benefits?_s=PM:US

Wow! I didn't expect northern states to throw their elderly out in the streets.

[MichiganVote]

1. Jesus, do people not get that these are old people??? Tax the fucking rich already

[RKP5637]

4. They always go after the weakest, sickest, oldest and poorest. The rich will

kick their asses to hell and they damn well know it, the others, many, will submit because they often have no voice or are too frail, or in a bad position to fight.

It is the mark of a civilization that takes care of the weakest, sickest, oldest and poorest in a shared arrangement. It's a barbarian society that kicks them down and stomps on them. And it is a thin veil between civilization and barbarianism. And I fear in the US that veil is being shredded.

Despite the boasting and chest thumping the US often does, in many ways it's a very very weak country.

[movonne]

7. Do you hear anything about congress and senate employees

giving up anything...people must wakeup...

[ProgressiveProfessor]

17. As a group, the elderly are well off

It does depend on what stats you use, but there are more rich elderly than there are in other groups

[Big Blue Marble]

18. Link please.

The elderly I know are barely making it. A 50% cut in their income would mean they were on the street.

[MichiganVote]

23. Yeah ok. You let me know when you're ready to get off that life raft of BS

[MADem]

2. This isn't a state action, it is a small city action.

What a bummer for the firefighters--they didn't pay into Social Security. They're completely screwed if they don't take the pension cuts, and they may be screwed anyway.

[FLAprogressive]

3. What we need is an FDIC or something for pension funds.

[RKP5637]

5. All this pension money, SS and the like needs to be taken away from the

hands of politicians and the rest, and as you say we need "an FDIC or something for pension funds." This is all getting ridiculous.

[PoliticAverse]

9. This is a problem with unfunded pensions...

Where people are promised they can retire after working a certain number of
years at a certain pension but no money is actually put aside over the years
to pay those pensions when the time comes. It is simply assumed tax revenue
will be enough to pay these pensions when they become due. Many state and local
governments have set up their pension systems this way - and now the bills are
coming due.

[RKP5637]

10. Thanks for the additional info.!

:)

[Historic NY]

13. Thank God NY's Pension system is not in the politicians hands...

try as they may to raid it they have been rebuffed many times over by the comptroller & the courts. W/o social security these people won't have much.

[Yo_Mama]

15. Excellent points

And true, too.

And where were their unions all these years? Someone needed to start worrying about this 20 years ago.

[woo me with science]

6. K&R

Happening all over now. This is war.

[Bryn]

8. This is awful

50% cut is too much. But they're saying it's better than nothing if there's bankruptcy, they'd lose it all. Horrible! Something has to be done.

[RKP5637]

11. IMO a lot of the financial aspects of the US need to be rethought for the

21st century, also the way we govern IMO needs to be rethought and modified for the 21st century. I don't think it's going to work very well. Now, how that gets accomplished I have no idea. That said, what often comes to my mind is our financial structures and governmental structures are not as broken as are the people that occupy those seats. The greed and incompetence in this country for positions of power, wealth and authority is deplorable IMO.

[Hippo_Tron]

12. Our structures are broken if the people occupying those seats are greedy and incompetent

Lets face it. The way our system works right now, it doesn't tend to reward those who push legislation that helps 98% of Americans.

[RKP5637]

22. How could/can that be fixed? n/t

[Yo_Mama]

14. It's not a choice

The city is bankrupt. Even for individuals, if you are facing filing for bankruptcy a lot of times creditors will deal with you, because they will get less at the court.

They can't get tax revenue they don't have, and a city with 19,000 residents sounds like a poor, old city. You can't raise taxes on older people living on SS much.

This sucks, but it's not a choice.

[Big Blue Marble]

19. There is a choice.

Ask the citizens of the city to honor the promises that were made to these people who risked their lives to protect
them. Raise the taxes and honor the pensions.

[Petrushka]

16. Here's another link with more information . . . plus a short video:

http://newsblog.projo.com/2011/07/state-receiver-to-meet-with-ce.html

[no_hypocrisy]

20. I heard about this on WBAI yesterday.

The warning comes that other cities are watching this and likely to adopt this policy, cheating retired public servants out of their own contributions to support themselves. Their choice is to accept half their money or nothing.

[Yo_Mama]

25. You're not grasping reality

The median household income in this city is under $23,000. The city has been in receivership since May 2010.

Median is half below, half over. You cannot get enough income out of a tax basis like that to service all its debts. This is a tiny little place that is in receivership now. Per capita income is $10,825. 29% of the population is under the federal poverty line. 72.7% of the population spoke a language other than English at home.

It's a small place with a recent immigrant population. There is no money and there is no way to get any. The tax base is collapsing - per capita income was about 5K higher in the mid 2000s.

[Historic NY]

21. This is the same tiny city that fired all its teachers..in 2010....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Falls,_Rhode_Island

25% of the 18000 population is below the poverty line and its tax base isn't large enough to support itself.

[Vinca]

24. Why wouldn't firefighters have social security benefits?

A little off topic, but wouldn't the pension normally be in addition to SS? In any case, how on earth can you ask a person already retired to give up 50%? It's not like 50% of their bills are going to go away or 50% of their appetite so they don't need as much food. That's insane.