Posts tagged pension reform
Commentary: Australia’s Not-So-Super Retirement System
July 23, 2026 // In Australia the accountability problem is exacerbated by unions’ sway over a particular type of super fund. Known as industry super funds, these were originally set up by employers and unions to steward the savings of workers in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2025, ISFs controlled more than 40% of Australian superannuation assets. Under Australian law, employers and unions appoint directors to ISF trustee boards under what is called the equal representation model. Union leaders say this ensures that workers have some indirect influence over decisions made by ISF boards and managers. That claim is difficult to square with trends in union membership. The proportion of Australian employees who belong to unions fell from 51% in 1976 to 13.1% in 2024. Unions long ago lost the authority to serve as legitimate proxies for Australian workers.
Op-ed: California doubles down on pension debt — and dares Congress to bail it out
July 23, 2026 // On July 1, California’s Assembly Appropriations Committee advanced AB 1383, a bill that guts the pension reform Sacramento passed in 2013 to keep its own promises honest. It would drop the public safety retirement age from 57 to 55, invent a new 3%-at-55 benefit formula, and let cities bargain away the cost-sharing rules that reform required. CalPERS already carries more than $179 billion in unfunded liabilities. California’s total state and local pension debt tops $200 billion. Sacramento’s answer, apparently, is to promise more.
Opinion: California’s public sector unions are trying to undo pension reform
July 22, 2026 // In 2012, Democratic then-Gov. Jerry Brown made real progress by championing and signing the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act (PEPRA). It was a significant reform that adjusted benefits for new hires. By reducing abuses like “pension spiking” (by which some employees juiced payouts), raising the retirement age for many, and requiring the new hires to pay a larger share of their own pension costs, the reform sought to save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.
Illinois needs responsible Tier 2 pension reform
November 22, 2024 // Illinois is at risk of getting in costly trouble with the federal government over its Tier 2 public employee retirement benefits. Here’s a solution that doesn’t make the state’s monstrous public pension debt even worse. Illinois’ public pension problems are facing a new threat impacting the newer hires covered under the more modest “Tier 2” retirement benefits: the state can either add $280 million a year into their plans or face the feds demanding over $856 million a year.
Opinion: President Biden Helping Unions Undermine California’s Public Pension Reform
December 21, 2021 // With PEPRA, as public employees retire and are replaced by new hires with redefined benefits, the gap between what the pension system has in assets and what it needs to pay out in future decades will narrow.
What unions aren’t telling Illinois teachers: Your pension is in trouble
November 1, 2021 // Barring reforms, the Teachers’ Retirement System could eventually run out of money and be unable to pay promised benefits to retirees, all while making it more expensive for teachers to live in Illinois.