Quote Originally Posted by OneGuy67 View Post
Ahh, but BPTactical and Rellik74, these people here do not want to hear the truth about us state employees and how close we are to losing our homes with all the pay deductions and furloughs. They want to believe we have a great nest egg in PERA and are making more money than the private sector. They want to believe we are lazy and rolling in money.

I'm personally paying over twice what my Social Security payment would have been if I was in private sector, towards my retirement and the state is paying the same as SSI employer payments. Our health insurance sucks balls and has high premiums for crappy benefits.

For those who would jump on the wagon and say they are unemployed or underemployed and would change places with any one of us, yes that is true. I am grateful for the job I have and having steady income coming in, but having said that, I cannot keep working 70-80 hour weeks (we don't get overtime pay) for 2006 wages and 2011 costs.

you are up to par with the private sector. I know this for fact. if you are paying a bit more than you would for social security, you should feel good that you will get a nice retirement. social security is a sinking ship. PERA does a very good job and although they struggled in the downturn, they are coming back strong. My dad and mom both retired as teachers in the last couple years. I can tell you I would much rather be making less money and getting a fully funded retirement plus health care benefits for the rest of my life than the bullshit social security and medicare out there now.

Personally I want social security to be optional. I would instantly opt out.

I talked with my wife about this as well as she is a teacher and involved in PERA. she has better benefits at a lower cost than what I am offered in the private sector, she pays 4% less into PERA account than I put in my 401K and will receive a much better % of her income when retirement comes around.

I know they are talking now about more furlough days or pay cuts, at least for the teachers, but I am sure the effects will be seen across the board of all state/federal employees. The problem is they aren't giving furlough days to the people that really need them...the TSA. they should all take a permanent vacation IMO. federal funded child molesters is a better title. CMA (child molesters administration). I watched them a few weeks back have a definitely gay male TSA agent do a full groping pat down of a roughly 16 year old boy. made me sick.