March 27, 2012
The people who have been working for more than a decade to have states use their public employee pension systems to provide pensions to workers in the private sector will undoubtedly be happy to see the NYT’s piece on the topic this morning. However they will be surprised to have the idea referred to as “new.”
At the top of this list would be the Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle, Washington, which has been promoting “Washington Voluntary Accounts” since 2000. They even got legislation approved a few years back, but the fiscal crisis resulting from the recession nixed the start-up funding.
There was a similar effort in California in 2007 to piggy back pensions on its CALPERS system. Connecticut and Maryland’s legislatures were also close to approving comparable measures. Anyhow, it’s great to see the NYT finally take notice now that some efforts are being made in New York on this issue, but it would be good if it did its homework.
(Here‘s one of my papers on the topic.)
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