What Judges Know: The Fault for Underfunded Pensions Lies With Politicians, Not Workers
Note: Jordan Marks is the executive director of the National Public Pension Coalition.
Advocates of gutting public pensions are running into the same wall over and over again.
From California to Illinois to New Jersey and beyond, pension gutting efforts are being overturned by judges who recognize that breaking promises to workers isn’t just regrettable, it’s illegal. Pension opponents castigate the courts as the enemy while conveniently ignoring why legal protections exist in the first place—to protect public employees from politicians who spent years playing politics with their retirement savings.
Until the Great Recession, politicians were able to hide these mistakes behind a booming economy.
For decades, elected officials across the country skipped pension payments, often while funneling money into pet projects. Until the Great Recession, politicians were able to hide these mistakes behind a booming economy. But by 2008 the economy had plummeted, shining the spotlight on this financial malfeasance.
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