Waiting in the wings while Madigan and Cullerton figure out if they can make a deal on their versions of pension reform are a group of Republican legislators who want to turn our defined benefit pension into a Vegas-style gamble with 401(k)s and 402(b)s and defined contributions.
Don’t be fooled by some Illinois politicians’ saccharine prevarications about stabilizing the public employees’ defined-benefit pension plans. What some of them really want to do is reduce and weaken them so they are inevitably eliminated. Defined-benefit plans are lucrative opportunities for corporate predators.
Watch the 13-minute 60 Minutes: 401k Recession segment, especially an interview of a lobbyist for the 401(k) industry named David Wray (who is also president of the profit-sharing 401(k) Council of America); then read about the differences between a Defined-Contribution Savings Plan and a Defined-Benefit Pension Plan and Cash-Balance Plans.
“What kind of retirement plan allows millions of people to lose 30 to 50% of their life earnings?”
Skokie Organization of Retired Educators (SORE) – IEA member Gerry Berkowitz reminded me that PBS will be showing their Frontline program on the 401k and 402b scams on Sunday at 8PM, The Retirement Gamble.
UPDATE: Retired write that Frontline “The Retirement Gamble” is also on Saturday, 6/22–from 2:30 AM-3:30 AMon Channel 11 (for retirees also insomniacs).
Fred Klonsky 
Central Florida will get BOTH programs this weekend, hopefully.
You should look into the scams that surround the money management biz general including defined benefit. There have been quite a number of defined benefit plans go broke over the years or have benefits drastically reduced as a result of bad market decisions, scams etc. What Ill has is this constitutional guarantee. What happens if Ill goes broke?
The scam impacting our defined benefit pension plant has been the failure of the state to meet their payment obligations. Otherwise it has performed exceedingly well.
Dollars to doughnuts, if defined-benefit plans are lucrative opportunities for corporate predators ,they are also lucrative opportunities for our legislators–many who probably already have their fingers in that pot and hope to make a quick profit at retirees’ expense.
to much $ involved for it not to be the case, but how are retirees paying, you have guarantees, the taxpayers pay the graft as usual.
Anonymous,
You make accusations and assumptions, but include no evidence to support them. As to how retirees are paying, you clearly have no clue as to how retirement systems work. That becomes a handicap when engaging in a discussion of pension systems. When I said that TRS was performing exceedingly well, I was referring to return on investment. That is a fact that you can check by going to the TRS website. If the state’s promised payment obligation was met, TRS would now be 85-90% funded as opposed to the current 40%. Let me explain about paying in and paying out. The member of the pension makes payments for the years that they work. In our case, 9.4% plus additional contributions to the retiree health care system. Then when the employee retirees they don’t continue to pay into the system. They get a return from the system. To ask what the retired members of TRS are now paying in is like asking what those on Social Security are paying to Social Security. After years of paying in, they now get a return.