In the July 12 op-ed “Towns have too much power, but not the power they need,” Edward L. Glaeser suggests that younger municipal workers need higher immediate pay and smaller defined benefit pensions. Of course, young workers are not collecting pensions. They are simply contributing regularly to them for their future retirement years.
Glaeser advocates “experimentation” with defined-contribution plans. Yet he fails to acknowledge that our nation’s 30-year experiment with 401(k)-style plans landed with a thud when the Great Recession hit. Many have watched in horror as their personal retirement “experiments” lost most of their value.
Another term for such experiments is “gambling.”