Aug. 3, 2012 – Far from being ‘gold-plated,’ the average pension paid to municipal employees in Ontario provides adequate retirement income of about $28,000 for those who retired last year, says John Pierce of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS).
The vice-president of public affairs was reacting to recent media coverage of comments about OMERS being a ‘gold-plated’ pension system, one that taxpayers can’t afford. Not so, counters Pierce, who said the average pension for all 100,000 of its retirees is $18,000.
He called accusations about ‘gold-plated’ pensions silly and an example, to some extent, of public sector bashing.
The average OMERS pension provides 30-40 per cent of best earnings, and over the past 20 years, two-thirds of the money in OMERS has been earned through investments. The other third comes from employer/employee contributions, which are split evenly.
Pierce said that rather than targeting DB funds like OMERS, effort should be made to copy its success so that more people have pension coverage.
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