Come To Scranton And Retire In Your 30s!
As the average American and Scrantonian work to insure that they scrape enough by to have a half-way decent retirement, we see countless people needing to prolong the year when they can retire. The past decade featured a weak economy that saw wages staying flat or in many instances decline. The government, like the government of Scranton, is responsible for attempting to stave off the harshness of economic tail winds. After all, why do we have government if not to secure our own interest and support the people? The interest of the people in Sranton have been sorely neglected while the Scranton government has “innovative” ways to insure that they do not suffer any losses. Yes, the Scranton people will bear the pain while the Scranton government will be sure to do everything in its power to avoid sharing any of the burdens. So we wonder, when do Scranton government employees retire?
A whole life time of living on the system
It is no secret that people are living longer. That means that we can expect people to live for what may amount to be a whole life time longer. The current life expectancy is 78 years for people living in the USA.
Keep this in mind when I explain to you how the Scranton government is under cutting the Scranton people. While the city features crumbling roads, homes, businesses and prospects, the Police and Fire department live very good lives. Their wages are rising, have Cadillac health insurance polices and retire earlier than all of us. As I explained In the article The Scranton Government Pay Package, the best job in Scranton is working for the government. Yes, while the private sector is dying in Scranton, Government is booming on tax payers money. Now, consider that typically a uniform government employee is suppose to work a total of 25 years and be age 55 to retire. But the loophole comes in when you factor in disability. That’s right. You can retire much earlier when you are on disability and receive the same amount of payments as a pension. Exactly how many uniform retirees are on disability in Scranton? In the police department you have 50% and in the fire department you have 58%!
| Municipality | Plan type | Percent Disabled | Total Paid Disability |
| Allentown | Fire | 6.5 | $291,144 |
| Police | 3.6 | $195,039 | |
| Total | $486,183 | ||
| Bethlehem | Fire | 4.4 | $80,720 |
| Police | 8.4 | $288,609 | |
| Total | $369,329 | ||
| Erie | Fire | 6.5 | $317,931 |
| Police | 7.9 | $438,958 | |
| Total | $756,889 | ||
| Harrisburg | Fire | 0 | $0 |
| Police | 7.4 | $274,938 | |
| Total | $274,938 | ||
| Lancaster | Fire | 9.2 | $202,655 |
| Police | 9.1 | $227,840 | |
| Total | $430,495 | ||
| Scranton | Fire | 58.3 | $3,003,152 |
| Police | 50 | $2,209,488 | |
| Total | $5,212,640 | ||
| Wilkes-Barre | Fire 1 | 10.4 | $80,738 |
| Fire 2 | 11.5 | $78,983 | |
| Police 1 | 9.4 | $71,458 | |
| Police 2 | 23.5 | $97,730 | |
| Total | $328,909 |
These retirees who are on disability do not have to retire at age 55. In fact, they retire much earlier with some doing so in their thirties. According to investigative reporter Terrie Morgan-Besecker:
…you had some people retire in their 40s, some in their 30s. When an actuary does the evaluations on the pension funds, they assume that people are going to be retiring more towards their 50s. So when you have someone retiring when they’re 30, the fund is paying out a lot more money for a lot more years than anybody anticipated.
This results in an underfunded pension which is now underfunded by 80% which the tax payer has to pay for.
And you have Scranton government employees retiring in their 30s while the life expectancy rate is almost 80 years old.
That is a whole 50 years without having to work. They do not need to lift a finger because the Scranton Tax payer has them covered. This is not only completely unfair but it is unconscionable. Especially considering that many Scrantions are elderly. Furthermore, these government employees do not even pay the requisite 15% for social security that all the rest of us have to pay. Somehow the elderly and the rest of scrantonians are responsible for paying the early retirement of government employees. This nonsense needs to stop! There is nothing that can conceivably make such a high handed assault on the public trust acceptable. It is no wonder the good people of Scranton think of the Scranton government with disgust and contempt. The Scranton government is not interested in serving the Scranton people. It is obvious who they serve. The good news is we will be putting a stop to this! The free ride is over. #SaveScranton
