Does the Economic Crisis Endanger Teacher Pensions?
My phone rings and computer pings, questions: are our pensions in jeopardy? The inquiries are probably the result of two posts that have been making the rounds,
One post, from the Reason Foundation entitled “New York City’s Pension Debt Could Push It to Bankruptcy (May, 2019)” and the other from the Marron Institute at NYU entitled “The New York City Teachers’ Retirement System Fiscal Issues and Risks (March, 2020)”
Whether its COVID-19 or teacher pensions you always have to ask the source of the information. There are a range of sites that “assess” organizations. Mediabiasfactcheck identifies the Reason Foundation as, “…often publishes factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes) to favor conservative causes,”
The Reason Foundation is an American libertarian think tank…. its largest donors are the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation ($1,522,212) and the Sarah Scaife Foundation ($2,016,000), The Koch brothers are vigorous opponents of unions and climate change deniers.
We can dismiss the “bankruptcy” claims.
New York City did approach bankruptcy in 1975, the city, unknown to all but the insiders, was in serious financial straits and flirted with bankruptcy. I was the kid on the UFT contract negotiating team. Over the summer we met every few days, exchanged bargaining demands; seemingly we were edging closer to a CONTINUE READING: Does the Economic Crisis Endanger Teacher Pensions? | Ed In The Apple
