大公共养老金挤压

120000 nort瓦列霍,工人阶级社区heast of San Francisco, has long been a strong union town. Like many cities, it gives its workers generous retirement benefits: Police and firefighters can retire as young as age 50 with a pension equal to 90 percent of their final salary, and they enjoy free health care for life. Salaries, which serve as the base for determining pension levels, have also been generous: Forty-four percent of the city’s 613 employees had gross wages in excess of $100,000 in 2008.

在最好的时候，这种慷慨的融资并不容易。但是在自大萧条以来最严重的经济衰退中，这种薪水和福利正在变得不可持续。因此，面临800万美元的预算赤字和近2亿美元的未债益养老金和医疗保健负债，于2008年5月提出破产，使其成为1994年奥兰郡所做的最大的政府机构。在1994年之前，它是如此。在3月份联邦破产法官裁定该市可以作为重组的一部分，这座城市撕毁现有合同，这是一个标志标判决，为曾经裁定的公共部门工资和退休福利铺平了道路。

Earlier this year the city reached a deal with police to cut salaries by 18 percent through June 2010 and cap medical benefits; the agreement also imposes a 6 percent pay cut on managerial employees and requires new hires to contribute 20 percent of the cost of their medical insurance. City negotiators are playing hardball with other unions that have yet to settle; they rejected a firefighters’ proposal to take a 6.5 percent pay cut, forego previously agreed-to pay raises of 13 percent and cap health care benefits.

As goes Vallejo, so may go the nation. The cost of public sector pensions is set to soar in coming years because the recent meltdown in the financial markets has worsened the health of systems that were already badly underfunded. Municipal and state governments across the country are struggling with massive budget shortfalls, leaving them in no position to fill the pension gap. As a result, public workers look likely to bear the burden through cutbacks in their salaries and benefits and increases in their pension contributions.

“没有人可以从经济的影响中孤立，”加利福尼亚州的前总督和洛杉矶律师事务所Loeb＆Loeb＆Loeb的前州长Grey Davis告诉机构投资者在最近的面试中。亚博赞助欧冠

养老金福利在许多司法管辖区内享有宪法或法定保护，减少它们可能并不容易或简单。但分析师表示，各国政府可以使用各种手段 - 冻结或削减工资，需要提高养老金捐款，延迟退休并减少退休人员保健福利，等待立即节省预算储蓄，从长远来看，大大减少养老金成本。

“大多数痛苦最终将由那些能够看到他们的养老金削减的人承担，”Jacob Funk Kirkegaard说，他在华盛顿彼得森国际经济研究所的养老金问题上研究养老金问题。

在许多国家已经在进行中更改。根据4月份达成的协议，新墨西哥的公开雇员明年将以1.5％的薪水踢出养老金，并为其健康福利的成本提供更多的贡献。2月，加利福尼亚采用了加利福尼亚大学114,000名员工的变化，开始支付2％的工资以资助养老金福利，其贡献利率在2013年达到5％之前提高了1点。It will be the employees’ first contribution in 20 years to what had been an overfunded pension plan. Connecticut’s state workers made wage and other concessions in May that will save the government about $700 million through mid-2011.

加利福尼亚州面临着明年的240亿美元的预计缺口，已经开始削减工资。2月，总督阿诺德施瓦辛格每月两天开始居住国家劳动力，这有效地减少了9％以上的薪水。现在，他希望立法机构将工资削减5％和5,000名工人，占总数的2.5％。The state’s largest public employees’ union, the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, is proposing to give up previously negotiated pay hikes of 4.6 percent for 17 months in exchange for having only one furlough day a month, but the legislature has twice voted down the suggestion.

Imposing cuts on existing workers isn’t easy, given the strength of public sector unions in many parts of the country. Many governments have therefore been reducing salaries and benefits for new employees. Kentucky last year adopted changes that will allow public employees to retire as early as age 57 if they have worked for at least 30 years; previously, they could retire at any age after 27 years of service. New York Governor David Paterson has proposed setting a minimum retirement age of 50 and requiring workers to put in at least 25 years of service, up from 20 currently. He also wants to limit annual cost-of-living adjustments to 1.5 percent and require new hires to contribute 1 percent of their salary for retiree health benefits. And several states, including Florida, Illinois and Oklahoma, have begun to replace traditional defined benefit pensions with defined contribution accounts for new hires.

联盟领导人认为，所定义的福利制度是共同的责任，而工人愿意公平地分担维持充足的资金的成本。“In a critical situation when budgets need to be balanced, to the extent we need to contribute something — particularly to preserve traditional defined benefit plans — you’ll find that our members are realistic about the situation,” asserts Richard Ferlauto, director of corporate governance and pension investment for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the nation’s largest public employees’ union, with 1.6 million members. But Ferlauto and others are adamant that workers shouldn’t bear the full burden of fixing the pension problem. They contend that some of the most severe budgetary and pension shortfalls, in states such as California, Illinois and New Jersey, reflect inadequate tax revenue and a failure by government to make necessary contributions. “Our state income tax is only 3 percent. It should go up,” says Ken Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association. Late last month state lawmakers rejected a proposal by Governor Patrick Quinn to raise the tax rate to 4.5 percent.

公共部门养老金问题的规模正在使改革日益紧急。根据波士顿大学的退休研究中心，由于股市崩溃，州和地方养老金计划已被普遍存在2007年10月以来的投资组合规范 - 如果市场所生产的总数，资产倒塌的价格低于1.2万亿美元8％的年度返回，最重要的计算假定。这些计划现已在资产中有约2.3万亿美元，负债3.6万亿美元。为实现典型的30年摊销期限的全额资金，计划从2010年到2013年将总捐款增加了2050亿美元。相比之下，截至6月30日止年度的实际捐款达到了1070亿美元，2007年。

直到2014年，去年市场崩溃的全部力量将留下。这是因为养老金计划通常顺利，他们的资产价值观，这项精算率依赖于五年来确定缴费率。因此，去年的市场损失摊销的成本将在2014年至2039年的捐款中需要额外的1020亿美元。

The growing cost of providing pensions has been borne almost entirely by employers in recent years. From 2002 to 2006, for instance, public employees who also have Social Security paid an average of 5 percent of their salaries in pension contributions. Employers, meanwhile, saw their contributions rise from an average 6 percent of payroll in 2002 to 8.5 percent in 2006, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. Girard Miller, a benefits consultant with PFM Group, reckons that employer costs would have to rise to 12 percent of payroll by 2012 to keep up with obligations. “Unless there’s a dramatic rally in the stock market, we could see a doubling of employer costs from 2002 to 2012,” he says. “That’s unsustainable. There will have to be a rebalancing. We’ll clearly see a paring of benefits for new employees, layoffs, and in some cases the only way will be to gouge younger workers to pay benefits to older employees.”

The situation in some localities is particularly dire. The Cincinnati Retirement System’s annual contributions for pensions and health care for city employees could jump from 86 percent of payroll this year to 132 percent in 2013 to put the system on track to achieve full funding, Cavanaugh Macdonald Consulting of Kennesaw, Georgia, told the system’s board last month. San Jose, California, projects that its pension contributions for police and firefighters will jump from 23 percent of payroll this year to as much as 58 percent in fiscal 2011 and 70 percent in 2013 to close a funding gap. In Detroit contribution rates for police and fire pension plans are projected to double, to 50 percent of salary, over the next three years. Most of these governments lack the resources to make such increases and are likely to boost contributions by less than their actuaries recommend, which would only exacerbate the funding shortfall.

国家预算也被挤压。根据A的预算中心和华盛顿政策优先事项的报告，十六州今年颁布了今年的税收增加了17次，并考虑到它们。与此同时，至少有36个州已削减公共服务资金，包括对低收入居民的教育和援助。尽管有这些措施和收入约1400亿美元的联邦刺激基金进入其库房，但各国在未来两年内面临超过3500亿美元的综合预算差距。“刺激计划使各国在任何地方到天气最糟糕的是，”宾夕法尼亚州州长Ed Rendell，他也是国家州长协会主席，告诉II在最近的一次面试中。“如果橡胶将击中各国的道路就是刺激措施。如果经济又恢复，那么它将是一个艰难的局面。“

提高更多收入存在实际限制。许多州，包括加州和新泽西州，都有限制财产税增加的法律。城市和各国也不会对跌倒销售和所得税做出多大。“市政当局将在收入收集中面临挑战，”孟菲斯的投资公司摩根克朗曼委员会＆“失业率”的市政信贷战略家迈克罗斯注释了迈克罗斯。公司有税收损失。消费者正在收紧，伤害销售税收。“然后有政治需要考虑。纳税人，他们的退休储蓄蹂躏和他们的工作保障受到威胁，没有情绪，无法深入了解公共工人的利益远远超过自己的福利。“提高税收的政客将被选为办公室，”戴维斯断言。他应该知道。 In 2003, following a spike in energy costs and an increase in California’s vehicle registration tax, he became only the second governor in U.S. history to be recalled.

Cutting budgets to finance public sector salaries and benefits is not likely to be any more popular, particularly as the biggest source of potential cuts is education.

因此，公共员工可能会面临最大的挤压。虽然基本的养老金福利公式 - 员工的工作数量和他或她的最终薪水转化为每月年度 - 在大多数司法管辖区的活跃工人中无法改变，政府可以从其他补偿元素中努力节省重要节省。冻结或降低工资，消除生活成本调整和要求工人为养老金和退休人员保健福利提供更多，可以立即节省预算，并在长期义务中产生重大减少。加州财政责任基金会副总裁Marcia Fritz是一群致力于养老金成本的集团，称，鼓励工人留在工作岗位上将产生一些最大的预算福利。她表示，如果员工在额外的五年内额外减少，提供福利的成本，谢谢员工的捐款和减少福利付款。

Some public pension fund officials urge patience, arguing that the markets and the economy will improve in time, averting the need for major changes in benefits and contributions. “Required increases will be forestalled by a couple of years, and the hope is that markets and fiscal conditions will recover by then,” says Keith Brainard, research director for NASRA.

The idea that public funds can earn their way back to health seems unlikely, though, especially as many funds are looking to invest less aggressively than they have in the past. Many funds ran short of cash last year and had to sell stocks at depressed levels to finance benefits and meet capital calls from private equity and real estate funds. Going forward, more funds are likely to put a premium on liquid assets, including cash, even though they pay lower returns. The board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System was due to approve plans this month to allocate 2 percent of its $185 billion portfolio to cash. The Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System and the South Carolina Retirement Systems are decreasing risk by reducing exposure to equity futures in their portable-alpha strategies. Liquidity concerns will only grow as a spike in baby boomer retirements makes a growing number of public funds cash-flow-negative.

对工人支付和福利的削减削减可能是对资助危机的显而易见的解决方案，但鉴于公共部门工会的裁判，它并不容易。例如，在5月，伊利诺伊州的教师强迫奎因州的奎因撤回提案，以将养老金捐款增加2％，占薪水的2％至11％。伊利诺伊州教育协会的斯旺森说：“我们制定了全面的努力，有数千元和数千名与立法者会面会面，”伊利诺伊州教育协会的斯旺森说。其他政治家，由养老金问题的规模判处，已经寻求推迟行动，这是一个可能只会加剧一些系统的慢性损害的一步。在新泽西州，省长Jon Corzine于3月赢得了一项法案，将允许城市从今年从今年推迟到2012年的一半养老金捐款;5月，尽管该系统的605亿美元资产占其负债的一半仅限其负债的一半，但他仍将州的养老金捐款削减了1.5亿美元。费城的养老基金采用精算士兵的养老基金，以节省1.72亿美元的养老金捐款，延长了5年来平滑资产价值的时期，并延长了从20年从20年到40缴纳未债务的摊销期限。

Rendell说，Rendell说他希望看到跨国养老金制度所刺激的策略。“从长远来看，它并没有帮助他们，但它肯定有助于他们在接下来的几年内得到了，”他告诉II。“没有它，我不知道市政当局是否可以生存。”

对批评者来说，延迟贡献是一个错误的方向，并减少未来的福利 - 因为它可能是政治上的衡量标准 - 没有接近财务所必需的措施。

Indeed, Kirkegaard believes that the funding situation is far graver than official estimates, which are based on the assumption that assets will grow by 8 percent a year, with liabilities discounted by 8 percent annually. “In general, public accounting for pension and health retirement benefits uses constructs that might be regarded as economic fictions,” notes Orin Kramer, chairman of the New Jersey State Investment Council. “We use discount rates for which people in the corporate world would go to jail.”

Plug in more realistic numbers, financial economists say, and unfunded obligations explode. Valuing liabilities at the risk-free U.S. Treasury rate of less than 4 percent, reckon Robert Novy-Marx and Joshua Rauh of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the amount of pension promises made by states will more than double, to approximately $7.9 trillion, in 15 years. Unfunded liabilities of state pensions are north of $3.1 trillion, they estimate.

Kent Smetters, an associate professor of insurance and risk management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, whose estimates of Social Security funding as a deputy assistant secretary of economic policy in George W. Bush’s Treasury Department earned him a reputation as “Dr. Doom and Gloom,” expects states and cities to begin lobbying for a federal bailout of pension obligations by the end of this year. “They’re going to have to start reaching out for dollars, and as the midterms approach there will be political pressure for this to happen,” he predicts. Smetters expects that a federal pension bailout could reach $1 trillion — or more than the $787 billion economic stimulus package that Congress approved earlier this year.

Some states have already begun appealing to Washington. California is lobbying federal officials to backstop at least $13 billion in short-term municipal notes this summer. In November the mayors of Atlanta, Philadelphia and Phoenix appealed — unsuccessfully — to the U.S. Treasury to be allowed to use a portion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to provide loans to cover unfunded pension liabilities.

4月，南卡罗来纳州长马克萨福德总统巴拉克·奥巴马政府的批准，向联邦刺激措施达到联邦刺激措施的一些28亿美元，达到南卡罗来纳州退休制度的270亿美元。

但是，州养老基金的大规模联邦救助极度似乎非常不可能。除了对联邦赤字的担忧外，还有一些国家成功地资助了他们的养老金，不会希望看到华盛顿纾困。“只要铲资到加利福尼亚而不是其他国家，它就不会责任，”戴维斯说明了。

在过去的几十年公共雇员s have used their considerable political clout to boost wages and benefits. Now the pendulum has begun a long swing in the opposite direction.