That is some of the best advice a young person entering the work force could take. Start early and keep at it for 30-40 years. You can build a real nest egg without much sacrifice. Compounded earnings is an almost magical thing. After about 30 years, I had hit the point I was earning more in my retirement account than I was earning in salary.
Mississippi (PERS) is short 26 billy. Is that bad?
- Thread starter thedoubledeuce
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Naww mane we gonna fire us some federal workers. Chainsaws n shlt
Political appointees, true
Speaking of which, seem to be a lot of state workers around here. Do you all have the same disdain for your bureaucracy as you seem to have for the federal one?
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It's to maintain the fiction that SS is not welfare. It causes a pretty awful gap where a single person effectively pays a higher marginal tax rate at $50,500 than they do at $256,000 (that ignores the standard deduction, so really can bump all those numbers up by at least that amount). That's eminently reasonable if you are actual taking those taxes and funding their retirement benefits. Pretty abhorrent doing what we currently do, where we just spend that money. If we could knock that $50k to $184,500 range down to 30%, and then bump that $184,500 to $201k up to 30%, or maybe 30% and 32%, it'd be a lot better. That would probably be a drastic reduction in revenues though.
| Income range (single) | EE SS | ER SS | EE Medicare | ER Medicare | Fed income tax | Medicare surcharge | NIIT | Total on wages | Total on investment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $0 – $12,400 | 6.20% | 6.20% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 10% | — | — | 25.30% | |
| $12,401 – $50,400 | 6.20% | 6.20% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 12% | — | — | 27.30% | |
| $50,401 – $105,700 | 6.20% | 6.20% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 22% | — | — | 37.30% | |
| $105,701 – $184,500 | 6.20% | 6.20% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 24% | — | — | 39.30% | |
| $184,501 – $200,000 | 0% | 0% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 24% | — | — | 26.90% | |
| $200,001 – $201,775 | 0% | 0% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 24% | 0.90% | 3.80% | 27.80% | |
| $201,776 – $256,225 | 0% | 0% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 32% | 0.90% | 3.80% | 35.80% | |
| $256,226 – $640,600 | 0% | 0% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 35% | 0.90% | 3.80% | 38.80% | |
| $640,601 and above | 0% | 0% | 1.45% | 1.45% | 37% | 0.90% | 3.80% | 40.80% | |
Gotcha. Makes sense. Do we even have the accounting history to figure out who would owe what under that system. Each entity would have had to keep up with that pension liability under governmental accounting rules maybe?
It would damn near fix the 75 year shortfall.
That is exactly how it has to happen, otherwise you will never discover what is actually needed. The federal workforce is a black hole of bloat and every program and employee is essential... Right up until the Govt shuts down, then most of the work force is sitting at home while the "essential" employees are required to keep working.
political appointments to jobs that could benefit from being merit based seem problematic at every level. I see it often. Cleaning up a huge public sector mess right now that is directly related to 1) regime change and 2) general public sector hiring your buddy practices
What is needed is usually hired over time. This “bloat” is grossly overinflated, as we found out last year. The true problem is spending…..which is controlled by elected officials, not some bureaucratic bloat.
When the government shuts down, things don’t get done. To think all these people go to work and do nothing is an interesting thought.
Buddy practices is generally ALL at the top leadership levels. Can’t pull that off anywhere else.
But who gets blamed? The actual workers. This fairy tale ‘bureaucracy’.
I've witnessed it for over 20 years. I'll give you tiny example of Gov't efficiency. (I apologize for this Glfr like reply) We had a committee called the IDS when I started that consisted of all the helping agencies on base (Mental Health, Health Promotion, Child & Youth, etc) whose goal was to meet monthly and come up with resiliency initiatives and report those to the Base Leadership quarterly. The chair of the IDS rotated quarterly from one of the helping agencies. Same meeting, same results for years; without policy to give something some teeth, the mission always comes first and nothing gets done.
Fast forward to about 12 years ago and a permanent position for the Chair of IDS was created at a GS-12 and renamed from IDS to CAT (Community Action Team). Same meetings, same results.
Fast forward to two years ago and a brand new office was setup to oversee the whole thing with a GS-13 Chief and four GS-12 "Coordinators and Analysts"...same meetings, same results. So now we have an office with a salary cost (not counting benefits) of over 500k annually that is "delivering" the same tired **** as ever. Gov't solution is never to actually fix something but to throw more money at it.
I'll add that when it comes to getting something done, you better know the rules and regulations better than the so called "experts" at various offices or you will never get anywhere because they all try to say no as fast as possible or spout off regs that they have no actual knowledge of other than the surface.
You mention “base”. Military is another animal completely. Not really government bureaucrats. $400 toilet seats and all, but nobody wants to talk about that.
Disagree. That’s a talking point. If DOGE couldn’t do it, at some point, you start wondering.
Boomers??? Have you listened to the crazy stuff the Millennials / Gen Z are popping off about? While we are discussing this...please explain the irresponsible comment?
It's pretty typical for young people to be stupid, particularly with respect to politics. The older millennials should be out of that phase, but the youngest ones are thirty. In an ideal world they would no longer be stupid, but we have extended adolescence so long now that they are basically the equivalent of a 25 year old from a few decades ago.
Boomers don't have that excuse. That age cohort was the largest voting group for 40 years. They had the excuse of being young and dumb when the 1983 bull **** took place. But even though they would be the ones at theory in risk of having their social security cut, as a group, they basically put zero pressure on fixing social security when it would have been relatively easy. They mostly took the approach that makes it clear they think younger voters will be the ones to get screwed, so they rewarded irresponsible politicians. They certainly weren't alone in this. But to the extent a voting bloc can be responsible for something, they bear a disproportionate responsibility for the shape we're in.
Why is it irresponsible to vote in politicians that will put us on a path to a financial crisis? And to punish politicians that have the temerity to try to put us on a responsible spending path that could be covered by historical tax rates? I don't think I can explain that to you if you need it explained.
I would assume we could recreate that at least going back decades because you need that employment data to determine current beneficiaries, some of whom could have been working 60 years ago if they have been drawing a retirement for 30 years. Unless once they retire and the benefits are calculated, they don't keep the backup, which would seem to create a big opportunity for fraud.
Not sure how big of a lift it would be to do that though.
I actually thought Mississippi governmental entities reported GASB 68 based on historical employee census, but apparently it's just a snapshot allocating the overall underfunding based on their current contributions and accruals, not their actual contributions to that underfunding.
What revolutionary and new ideas are two entire generations 'popping off about'?
I am curious to hear what crazy new ideas exist.
And of course they are new ideas, since otherwise it would be stuff that some GenX and Boomers also 'popped off about' when they were younger.
I blame Millenials and Gen Z for being $40 trillion in debt and the unfunded obligations of PERS. it's their fault and their socialist ideas. They do have some crazy ideas but they are not the reason we're in this mess.
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