Pensions: A Promise is a Promise... Unless it's Inconvenient

Sunday, 23 December 2012 12:22  
By Mike Alberti, Remapping Debate | News Analysis

In 2008, when George Glover decided to retire from his job as a program coordinator for the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training after 33 years, he did so with the expectation of receiving a 3 percent cost-of-living increase in his state pension every year. A statistician by training, Glover had planned methodically for his retirement, making spreadsheets, doing the math. Between Social Security, his state pension, and the adjustments for the cost of living, he figured he would be able to pay all his bills and have a little left over.

“I’m what you might call meticulous,” he said. “I never make a decision without running the numbers first.”

Then, in 2011, the Rhode Island legislature, claiming that the state’s retirement system had become unsustainable, passed a sweeping law — euphemistically dubbed the Rhode Island Retirement Security Act — that made drastic modifications to the pension scheme.