TALKING POINTS-FACTS WHEN TALKING TO OTHERS ABOUT PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PENSIONS

• Minnesota Public Employee Pension Funds serve ½ million – one in 10 Minnesotans. 90% of public retirees stay and pay taxes in Minnesota.

• Minnesota Public Employee pensions paid out over $2.5 billion in benefits to 129,000 Minnesota residents in 2007. These benefit payments had a positive impact on the Minnesota state economy of $3.3 billion.
  

• 92 percent of the Americans believe the U.S. faces a retirement crisis and 61 percent of the people age 44 to 75 fear exhausting retirement savings more than death
  

• Minnesota Public Defined Benefit pensions keep retirees self-sufficient and off public assistance.
  

• Women and racial and ethnic minority groups are more at risk in retirement than their white male counterparts for two reasons: first, they still make less money over their careers, and second, they have less access to workplace retirement plans. 75 percent of Minnesota teachers are women. 
  

• Shared sacrifice. The 2010 Minnesota Public Employee Pension Reform Bill 1) implemented a two-year suspension in cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), followed by a two percent COLA until the fund is 90 percent funded; 2) lowered deferred member COLAs to twp percent; and 3) lowered refund interest rate to four percent.

• The 2010 Pension Reform Bill and strong market returns helped improve funding. The bill cut Teachers Retirement Association costs by $1.75 Billion.

• Experts also agree that Americans are most likely to be self-sufficient in retirement when they have access to a strong “three-lane highway” to retirement: a traditional pension, Social Security, and individual savings like 401(k)-type plans. For decades, large shares of Americans had access to this “three-lane highway” to retirement