USPS Halts Pension Contributions

We got here 'The CHICAGO PENSION SYSTEM ' A employee is in a low paying dirt job for 19 years .they are a pey-on in the system . They are a street sweeper .
He makes $20,000 a year .
For his last year on the job he is made Chief Area District Assistant Manager at $60,000 a year pay . . After retirement his pension is filed with state of Illinois as District Manager at a pay of $60,000 a year . He gets a managers retirement of $30,000 a year . He is a happy retirey . Guess who he votes for and shows up at the union meetings .

The FES (Federal Employees Retirement System) is a 3-tiered system: 1-Social Security which all employer's contribute to at the same % as Employees; 2-Employees Savings Plan, where the Employees contributes up to 10% (??) of their salary each pay day, (that is max, they can opt for less, but with a minimum contribution, & 3-USPS contribution , up to 5% of Employee Savings Contribution). The co-pay of SS taxes, (which includes Medi-care Taxes) is mandatory under law. I would suspect that the 5% match contribution is mandatory as well, but can be changed with agreement of Unions & Management & the Governing Oversight Board of Governors, The nonpayment (I am assuming) is for the Match of savings & not the mandatory SS/Medicare.).

The Employee's savings plan is similar to an IRA/401 etc. as those funds are market invested & dependent upon a positive return to grow the Employee's financial base for retirement.

The Congress mandated that the USPS pay forward health insurance premiums for retirees to the tune of $1Billion Dollars/annum. This occurred right after the USPS stated to make a profit annually of close to $500 M per annum. The excuse was to shore up Medicare & SS benefits. From the day that was Congressionally approved, the USPS has been in financial straits & unable to recover. Within the last 10 years, the USPS deferred making those payments. Bad Management, lack of product/marketing planning to adjust to electronic communication (letter mail), the USPS has been on the financial downslide.

clarification on USPS contribution to Employee Savings Plan: USPS will MATCH employees' savings deduction up to 5% of salary. This is the deferred payment I believe the USPS has announced.

How about USPS ends the nonprofit discount and makes those organizations pay the commercial bulk rate price. A lot of nonprofits are huge junk mail generators, partly due to the extremely low prices they pay for postage.

For that matter why not raise the cost of bulk rate postage and help curb some of the commercial junk mail.

Finally, the USPS should be doing more to stop all the counterfeit Forever stamps that are constantly being sold on Facebook and ebay. Every one of those fake stamps that gets used is costing them money in lost revenue.

Under current law, the USPS cannot declare bankruptcy as it is defined by the Supreme Court as a government agency. So even if the USPS stops its operations, the federal government would remain on the hook for its existing debts, including any pension obligations.

As someone else noted in this thread, the federal government could not disclaim this debt without violating the impairment of contracts clause.

This issue could be a foreshadowing in miniature of what might happen as the federal government's debt continues to spiral ever upward.

This video actually explains much of the problem which is NOT loss of business. The good stuff is in the middle and end:



Quite interesting and informative.