February 24, 2014
The NYT has devoted considerable print space to the problems of public sector pensions, often seriously exaggerating the size of the problems. It has also often overstated the generosity of the benefits, for example by failing to note that many public sector workers do not get Social Security, which means that their pensions will be their entire retirement income.
Today it went long on the exaggerating problems side of the picture telling readers that:
“The difference, $63 billion, is Nycers’s [New York City’s main public employee pension fund] shortfall. That money has to be made up before today’s city workers retire — within 14 years, on average. As a result, New York’s contributions to Nycers are rising every year, squeezing the city budget and making it harder for the city to provide public services.”
This is not true. There is no legal requirement that city make up this shortfall over the next 14 years. Also, as the article itself points out, this calculation of liabilities is based on the use of risk-free discount rate. The pension fund is of course free to use whatever discount rate it likes to calculate its liabilities. But if the fund gets the return as would be expected from the mix of assets it holds, it would need roughly $23 billion today to make up its shortfall, just over one third of the amount advertised in the article.
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