In America today, a government worker can retire at age fifty and collect ninety percent of their base salary for life. This is not some rare fantasy. It is reality for many career federal, state, and local employees, especially those in law enforcement, fire departments, and political circles. Some do thirty years and walk away with a guaranteed six-figure income and full health benefits until death.
Let’s do the math.
Say a public worker retires at fifty with a final salary of one hundred and ten thousand dollars. A pension paying ninety percent brings in ninety-nine thousand dollars a year. Add in the fact that many of these pensions have cost of living adjustments built in, and the figure rises over time. Now assume she lives until eighty-five. That is thirty-five years of payments, totaling over 3.5 million dollars in income. All of it taxpayer-funded. None of it dependent on stock market performance or business risk.
Now add health care. According to a 2023 Kaiser Family Foundation study, the average annual cost of comprehensive retiree medical coverage exceeds twenty-two thousand dollars. Multiply that by thirty-five years and you have another seven hundred seventy thousand dollars in value. In total, we are talking about a retirement package worth over four million dollars for one person.
You, the average taxpayer, are on the hook for this. And what do you get?
According to the Federal Reserve’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances, the median retirement savings for Americans aged fifty-five to sixty-four is one hundred eighty-five thousand dollars. That is all. For most people, that buys them about seven thousand dollars per year in retirement if they withdraw conservatively. On top of that, Social Security pays the average retiree just twenty-three thousand dollars a year.
You get unstable 401k plans, shrinking employer contributions, and an ever-growing retirement age. They get security and predictability.
This is not just inequality. This is two separate economic systems operating under one government.
Public pensions are often shielded from the same cuts and volatility that private workers face. Why? Because the people making the rules are in the system themselves. Legislators vote on benefit structures that will eventually apply to their own retirements. Public unions bankroll campaigns, and politicians return the favor through sweetheart contracts that the rest of the country has to finance.
Meanwhile, inflation eats your savings. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices are up nineteen percent since 2020. But your paycheck is not. Your savings are not. Your future is not.
When the pension obligations become unsustainable, the politicians will not reduce the payouts. They will raise your taxes. They will cut your services. They will pass the pain to the private sector.
They have built a life raft for themselves and left you to tread water.
This is not a conspiracy. It is a documented, systemic transfer of wealth from workers to bureaucrats. From risk-takers to paper-pushers. From the productive to the protected.
If you want to survive what is coming, do not depend on promises. Rely on numbers. Read the budget. Track the payouts. Understand how your labor is being used to fund someone else’s luxury.