Colorado went from defined benefit pension plans to 401 k s about nine years ago. Here is an article from 2 days ago.

Longtime State Pension Chief Resigns, Calls 401(k) Experiment a 'Failure'

http://www.governing.com/blogs/view/longtime-state-pension-chief-resigns.html

quotes -
Public pensions are not the story. The real story is that Americans in general are unprepared for retirement. They typically have no resources to support them if they should become unable to work, let alone sustain them in retirement. The 401(k) experiment is a failure. The social service cost implication of this situation is not being acknowledged and will become a huge burden in the future.

Predicting that handing over pension funds to Wall Street turned out to be a failure is about as hard as predicting Christmas will be on Dec 25.

Did You Know...
About 90% of funds used to pay NYSTRS benefits come from investment returns and employee contributions?

Being unprepared IS the problem.

Why should this be a "social burden"?

What ever happened to personal responsibility?

Government requires 401(k) plans to be invested in the stock market. That's about as safe as a 2 year old with a loaded gun. You save all your life to have it destroyed in a stock market crash. Then what do you do? Food stamps and welfare. Pensions are safer and cost less in the long run.

Twocats is a teacher and has her pension and medical paid for by the taxpayers and has no concept of finances in the real world.

Do you have any issue with Congress and their salary ($174,000/year), benefits that include better medical coverage than any of us will ever have, and retirement, all fully paid for by taxpayers and at a much higher level than for teachers? Or do you believe Congress deserves it because they benefit society more than teachers?

Keep in mind that Congress gets the package after only 5 years of service. Basically, a single term is about enough to receive better benefits than most working Americans will hope to ever get.

Do you always rely on emails for facts?

http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/s...get-full-pensi/

http://www.aarp.org/work/employee-benefi...ally_get.1.html

Ha, you're funny. I actually don't use email. Nothing but spam anyway. I used the US Senate Website itself for my facts.

Facts from AARP are just like chain e-mails. AARP should be taxed just like another for profit company.

Post your PolitiFacts and AARP websites all you want and call those facts but I got my information directly from the US Senate website, where it states Congress gets pension benefits after 5 years of service. Considering a Senator serves a 6-year term, that means they get pension benefits after only serving 1 term.

I posted them because they break down the facts derived from the Senate website. Misleading to not include the required time served, percentages, age to collect as well as the contributions.

The pension fund is in the condition it's in because funds have been stolen by politicians to offset their large spending on their pet projects.

The politicians give their cronies waivers so their cronies can keep earning a pension and still hold high paying state jobs.

Exactly. Talk about lack of personal responsibility.

show us the numbers

what is the earliest age that tier 1-5 retire at?
what is percentage they contribute per year out of their salary?
how many years do they have to contribute?
do they receive 60% of their final salary for their pension?

A good investment plan is diversified. Aren't gold, silver, bonds and mutual funds traded at the stock exchange? I did not know I could put my 403(b) money in money market accounts. Can I do this through my local credit union?

Right because going back to college and investing in an education to contract with a state agency that offers a pension plan is totally irresponsible.

Gold and silver are traded on the commodities exchange. Bonds and mutual funds are traded on the securities exchange.




What does your 403(b) have to do with a 401k?

I am trying to learn about both since I have money in both. I'm not an economics whiz like this guy.
Planning for retirement raises a number of difficult questions. I’ll admit that I often get confused coming up with answers. And I’m an economics graduate who started investing in high school and enjoys reading financial articles. I have sympathy for anyone that feels overwhelmed or confused by the experts.

I think the main problem is that experts tell you what to do without telling you why to do it. Cookie cutter advice fails with a task as individual as retirement planning. We need to separate fact from judgment, and that’s what I’ll try to do in this article.

In regular accounts, you can generally invest in whatever you want. You can buy any publicly traded stock, or you can withdraw the money and invest in your friend’s private company–a real consideration for entrepreneurs.

In a 401(k), you are limited to what your company offers.

http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2008/0...et-the-experts/