{"id":4082,"date":"2020-03-16T10:09:04","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T14:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/?p=4082"},"modified":"2020-03-16T10:09:04","modified_gmt":"2020-03-16T14:09:04","slug":"the-exasperating-politics-of-pensions-and-trust-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/the-exasperating-politics-of-pensions-and-trust-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"The exasperating politics of pensions and trust funds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Kosar-pension-fund-03-2020.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4083\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/the-exasperating-politics-of-pensions-and-trust-funds\/kosar-pension-fund-03-2020\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Kosar-pension-fund-03-2020.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"512,341\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Kosar pension fund 03-2020\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Kosar-pension-fund-03-2020-300x200.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Kosar-pension-fund-03-2020.jpg\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4083 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Kosar-pension-fund-03-2020.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"512\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Kosar-pension-fund-03-2020.jpg 512w, https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Kosar-pension-fund-03-2020-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/a>Across the United States, myriad pension and trust funds are in trouble. Serious trouble.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S Postal Service\u2019s retiree health benefits fund is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rstreet.org\/2019\/12\/16\/the-postal-services-130-billion-problem\/\">underfunded by $70 billion<\/a>\u00a0and will be depleted in 10 years. In Illinois, the state\u2019s teacher pension fund is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/finance-and-economics\/2019\/11\/14\/americas-public-sector-pension-schemes-are-trillions-of-dollars-short\">60 percent underfunded<\/a>. Kentucky\u2019s public pension is so underfunded that some employers have to fork out an 85 percent premium on payroll \u2014 meaning, as the\u00a0<em>Economist<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/finance-and-economics\/2019\/11\/14\/americas-public-sector-pension-schemes-are-trillions-of-dollars-short\">reports<\/a>, \u201cemploying someone on $50,000 a year requires an extra $42,500 of contributions.\u201d Meanwhile, Rhode Island\u2019s Providence Employee Retirement System is way underwater and will be\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/crr.bc.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/slp_15-1.pdf\">tapped out in 15 years<\/a>&#8230;. (<a href=\"https:\/\/spectator.org\/the-exasperating-politics-of-pensions-and-trust-funds\/\">Read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Across the United States, myriad pension and trust funds are in trouble. Serious trouble. The U.S Postal Service\u2019s retiree health benefits fund is\u00a0underfunded by $70 billion\u00a0and will be depleted in 10 years. In Illinois, the state\u2019s teacher pension fund is\u00a060 percent underfunded. Kentucky\u2019s public pension is so underfunded that some employers have to fork out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[165],"tags":[222],"class_list":["post-4082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budget","tag-american-spectator"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBCzY-13Q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4084,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4082\/revisions\/4084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}