As inflation drags on, retired teachers are big losers.
On February 1st my teacher retirement check will reflect my 3% raise over 2021’s pension check.
Meanwhile the cost of goods and services continue to rise. It’s a trend that has lasted months.
It is closer to 7%.
We were told that inflation was just a temporary blip. Now the Fed is worried enough that they are considering action to slow the economy in fear of run-away inflation.
Retirees on Social Security have a benefit that is tied to inflation. January 1st will see a 5.9% bump in Social Security checks.
Teacher retirees in the Illinois Teacher Retirement System receive no or reduced Social Security and their pension check has no inflation trigger.
It literally takes an act of Congress - actually the Illinois state legislature - to increase our pension beyond the current 3%.
The current average teacher pension in Illinois is reported to be around $58,000.
Any math teacher reading this is laughing since they know that averages conceal more than they reveal.
Thousands of retired teachers across Illinois don’t get anywhere near $58,000. If your retirement check was $40,000 last year, that 3% increase on February 1st will put $100 a month more in the bank.
If the increase matched inflation you would see a deposit of an additional $230 instead.
Illinois TRS has a good history of teacher pension increases on its web site.
Note that the legislature didn’t make the yearly 3% increase compounded until January of 1990 in response to inflation that some years was above 11%.
It seems to me that in light of the current threat of continued inflation that is double that of our pension increase it is time for the legislature to change the law.
Just as with Social Security we should have an inflation trigger, an increase to our pension that matches the CPI or other government inflation measure.
And please read this NY Times obituary. Karen Ferguson, who died this week at the age of 80, was one of the good ones.
“It’s one of the great secret scandals of our country,” she told Harvard Law Bulletin, that people “can work a lifetime and still not have enough money for retirement.”