After 30 years of service.

rickyp wrote:Freeman

After 30 years of service.

A pension worthy of Greece. retire when you might be as young as 50, with 95% of your pay and medical benefits to boot.

Sine the average police officer lives another 24 years, its a hell of a rich pension. Especially if they are indexed, and they are aren't they?

a copy of an April 2010 study by the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which covers 1.6 million public employees. It compared life expectancies for male police officers with male workers and retirees who were not in the public safety field.

Whether a person was age 50, 55, 60 or 65, the life expectancies of the police officers were slightly higher than for other workers. For example, men age 60 who had taken regular retirement were projected to live to age 82.7, versus age 81.9 for workers who were not in the public safety field. (Firefighter rates were close to those for police officers.)

Even when CalPERS added in all the men who had retired as a result of work-related injuries, the life expectancies of the police officers were essentially identical to other public employees. The life expectancy for someone age 60, regardless of why they stopped working, was 81.8 years, just a tenth of a year lower than for regular workers

rickyp wrote:fate maybe you should read your source...there's no source for life span there.
But I did look it up it appears that 58 for cops is a myth.

a copy of an April 2010 study by the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which covers 1.6 million public employees. It compared life expectancies for male police officers with male workers and retirees who were not in the public safety field.

Whether a person was age 50, 55, 60 or 65, the life expectancies of the police officers were slightly higher than for other workers. For example, men age 60 who had taken regular retirement were projected to live to age 82.7, versus age 81.9 for workers who were not in the public safety field. (Firefighter rates were close to those for police officers.)

Even when CalPERS added in all the men who had retired as a result of work-related injuries, the life expectancies of the police officers were essentially identical to other public employees. The life expectancy for someone age 60, regardless of why they stopped working, was 81.8 years, just a tenth of a year lower than for regular workers

.

As usual, you are acting in an ignorant fashion.

From the article I linked:

Turning our attention back towards the forgotten police shift worker, sleep deprivation must be considered a serious component of another potential killer; job stress. The cumulative effect of sleep deprivation upon the shift-working policeman appears to aggravate job stress, and/or his ability to cope with it. Even more troubling is the prospect that the synergy of job stress and chronic sleep indebtedness contributes mightily to a diminished life expectancy. In the U.S., non-police males have a life-expectancy of 73 years. Policemen in the U.S. have a life expectancy of 53-66 years, depending on which research one decides to embrace. In addition, police submit workmen's compensation claims six times higher than the rate of other employees, and commit suicide two to six times the national average. Hey, and that's just death and injury from "natural", "accidental" and self-inflicted causes! Add the fact that 2/3's of U.S. policemen slain feloniously are slain during hours we generally associate with darkness, and we have yet another concern for our embattled, shift working officer - staying alert enough to prevail when attacked.

Isn't it interesting they use CalPers and Oregon data to refute the claim of a cop in Rhode Island?

rickyp wrote:steve

Isn't it interesting they use CalPers and Oregon data to refute the claim of a cop in Rhode Island?

No. Its intersting what sources the Rhode Island cop used however.... Since they were not valid.

So Fate; you're saying that this actuarial study is biased and can't be believed, because Politfact is refering to it?

Have a look and explain how that could be please.If you can't then we can accept that cops and firement are retiring after 30 years work with pensions that will be paid out to them for almost as long as they worked. And thats simply not sustainable.

1. Firefighters and other public employees do NOT receive Social Security. This is a cost savings to the cities and counties that employ firefighters, but retired firefighters can't collect this benefit that is available to almost all other Americans. The lack of Social Security benefits and the payroll savings to local government is rarely mentioned in discussions about public employee benefits.

2. Firefighters work a 56 or 72 hour work week - Atleast 40% more hours than the average worker. They work 24 to 72 hour shifts, and respond to emergencies at any hour, night or day, 365 days per year - even on holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving when virtually no one else is working. Because of this, their hourly wages are relatively low for a skilled profession.

3. Firefighters have shorter life expectancies than the average population and are three times more likely to die on the job, due to inherent risks, physical and mental stresses, and exposures to toxic and carcinogenic compounds released in smoke. (source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, University of Cincinnati).

4. In a public defined benefit retirement system, when a firefighter dies, their retirement contributions go back into the"system" to pay for other living retiree's benefits, unlike a private sector 401K where the retiree's family keeps 100% of their retirement contributions upon their death.

5. Firefighters pay more into their retirement system than other public or private sector employees. In Marin, firefighters pay 9-15% of their salary towards retirement. By saving more towards retirement, they earn more once retired - no different than a 401K in the private sector.

6. Firefighter retirement benefits are not paid by the cities, counties or state. Benefits are paid by the retirement system, which s not a government agency, from employee and employer contributions while the employee was working, and from market growth and interest from investment of those contributions.

7. Like the rest of the population, aging firefighters are at significantly higher risk of injury and illness - it is a young person's profession. Due to the extremely strenuous nature of the job (with little or no "warm up time,") firefighters suffer higher rates of disabling occupational injury . The older the firefighter, the more likely these injuries become, and recovery times (and cost) increase. These injuries are expensive to taxpayers and firefighters, decreasing quality of life and requiring expensive treatment, overtime pay to replace the injured worker which stresses already low staffing levels. Relatively low minimum retirement ages are a recognition of these factors above all else (much more so than the more widely reported life expectancy issue).

danivon wrote:I agree that policing and firefighting are jobs that would require earlier retirement and will more likely result in need for healthcare. I also think that because of that, and the emotional appeal of their case, unions can over-egg things and politicians will likely pander to them for popular support, which may result in fiscal laxity.

In the meantime, I look forward to the next time DF defends unionised employees by linking to sources based on union factsheets.

danivon wrote:The difference is not in life expectancy, it's in pensionable expentancy. If someone retires 15 years earlier but lives 5 fewer years, they still get 10 more years of pension payments.

Similarly, if they retire earlier there's less time to build up the funds to pay for that retirement period. It's quite plausibe that many police and fire officers retiring now will live past 80 (while they may be prone to injury and illness, they are also more likely to have been fit and healthy people to have got the jobs in the first place), meaning many are likely to be on a pension for longer than they are contributing into it.

I don't begrudge that, but let's not deny reality here.

freeman2 wrote: It's not fair and I just don't how know you can expect private sector employees to keep paying for generous public employee pensions through their taxes when they are not getting those benefits themselves.

My real gripe is that pensions have been taken away in the private sector (I am sorry RJ-- I just completely disagree that accepting benefits obtained by unions but being otherwise anti-union is acceptable behavior) 401K plans for private section employees are worth 1/10 or 1/20 of these pensions.

It's not fair and I just don't how know you can expect private sector employees to keep paying for generous public employee pensions through their taxes when they are not getting those benefits themselves.