Welcome to the latest edition of This Week in Pensions! As we do most weeks, we have gathered the best stories about pensions and retirement security from the previous week. This is the news you need to know in the fight for a secure retirement.
Here are this week’s top stories:
- Surprise pension bill wins final approval in Kentucky legislature. Teachers outraged by Daniel Desrochers, John Cheves And Jack Brammer: in the span of seven hours yesterday, Republican legislators in Kentucky released a 291 page pension bill without analysis and rammed it through both chambers of the state legislature. They took a bill that was supposed to deal with sewage in Kentucky and replaced the language with language from the Kentucky Senate’s pension bill. This is not only damaging to retirement security for public employees, but is a perversion of the democratic process.
- Underpaid Oklahoma school teachers deserve respect by Shawna Mott-Wright: a public school teacher in Oklahoma warns of the damaging effects of low teacher pay and poor benefits. After being tossed around for years as political footballs, Oklahoma teachers are tired of being pawns in political games. “Our lawmakers need to be held accountable, and they need to look toward a better future for our schools.”
- Report refutes Brownback claim that ‘rural recession’ caused budget woes by Sherman Smith: a new report from the Kansas Center for Economic Growth places the blame for Kansas’ economic problems squarely where they belong: on former Governor Brownback’s massive tax cuts. After Brownback forced through his tax cuts, the state has experienced years of lost revenue that have threatened funding for priorities like education, roads, and public pensions.
- Trouble in candy land by Damian Paletta: with Easter coming up on Sunday, the Washington Post covers the fight of workers at the company that makes Peeps to protect their pensions. While this story focuses on workers in the private sector, it highlights many of the challenges facing both public and private sector workers as they fight to maintain retirement security.
Also this week, we released our latest animated whiteboard video. We expose the failed politicians behind the so-called Retirement Security Initiative and how they use John Arnold’s money to attack public pensions nationwide.
Be sure to check back next week for the latest news in the fight for a secure retirement!