Not everyone has that. In fact, in several states teacher pension system kicks people off of social security. Not Kansas, but still pretty garbage tbh.
You think it's shitty for someone to not be allowed to benefit from Social Security when they didn't contribute to it? The states don't kick people off Social Security. The federal government does.
The states set up agreements with the federal government so that people in their pension systems don't have to pay the Social Security portion of FICA taxes. The money that would have gone to Social Security then goes to fund the pension system. My wife's mom had this when she taught in Nevada. The return on what she put in for NVPERS is a lot greater than what she would have got from Social Security.
The teachers in a state that did not opt in to social security are at the whim of their state government not fulfilling their obligations and that is a much more likely scenario than Uncle Sam.
Illinois is a state that opted out and it worked out fantastically for my father in law, but I would be at least a little nervous if I were a mid career teacher. But even Illinois isn’t the state that I am thinking of as being a worst case scenario, that would be Kentucky where the state has perpetually underfunded the pension, teachers have much lower average salaries and a much less generous pension than most illinois teachers and on top of that the state seems even more hell bent on not funding it than Illinois.
Also since you brought up Nevada my sister in law worked there for a few years, the Clark County education funding was a nightmare although I honestly don’t know how specific that was to LV vs the rest of the state. I will ask her about what the LV pension looks like for someone that leaves before fully vested, which is another huge issue.
In Kansas I have a decent pension, social security, and have saved money for retirement with a Roth. Teachers don’t get a great salary, but the financial security of knowing that I have 3 different retirement savings is good piece of mind that is worth more than the actual cash benefit and I also love the job.
So again, while it doesn’t impact me I think it is a pretty bad deal for a lot of teachers (though some have no doubt done better).
My wife's mom worked in CCSD and her pension check clears every month. I haven't read anything about NVPERS being underfunded.
If states are paying less to a pension than they would pay for the employer's contribution to Social Security, then I agree that is shitty.
However, I have a pretty low level of sympathy for public employees when it comes to the financial viability of their pensions. In most cases, they have been promised benefits which are actuarially unsound often times through what I consider to be corrupt bargains between elected officials and public employee unions. It's not my fault you believed fantastical promises. However, I would be ok with public employees that have pensions in place of Social Security being guaranteed the Social Security equivalent in any court cases that are going to come in terms of public pensions and state bankruptcies.
I made the conscious choice to work at places that have defined contribution rather than defined benefit primary retirement plans. If you sign on to a defined benefit plan, you knew that going in. You also knew the risks and thus should suffer the consequences if those risks come home to roost.
