Don’t try to link pensions, poverty

In his Sept. 23 letter to the editor, Bill Loebbaka argues that the $100,000 eliminated from a program to help the poor could easily be replaced “by just eliminating one overpaid pensioner.” Since Mr. Loebbaka elsewhere in his letter writes the pensions are gained “with little or no contribution in only a few years,” he obviously knows little about how public pensions are earned and administrated in Illinois, but he has to know that the only way a pensioner is eliminated is to die. Is this the solution that Mr. Loebbaka is hoping for in order to solve the problem of poverty? Is the gentleman going to wish for individual pensioners to die, or is he possibly calling for more direct action?

Mr. Loebbaka, since 1953 the state of Illinois has saved a total of near $30 billion by underfunding the five public pensions in our state, on average $625,000 a year. The state’s underfunding has resulted now in an unfunded liability that has grown to over $80 billion because the individual funds did not have that money to grow through their investments. Public workers do contribute to their pensions, in the case of teachers, 9.4 percent, and those teachers in Tier 1 need to work 34 years to gain their full pension. And, Mr. Loebbaka, do you really think that if the state of Illinois found itself with an extra $100,000 that the first thing that it would do would be to put the money into a program to fight poverty?

Bob Lyons

Hoffman Estates