All around the world it is an issue, governments struggling with the pension commitments they have made. The reason these things happen is because the promises made were, quite simply, unreasonable. Take a pension for New York teachers, after 30 years of service many New York teachers are able to collect 60% of their final salary as their pension. Now life expectancy is 77 years, so you could have someone who went into teaching at around 25 years old, retiring at 55, so these public employees paid a pension contribution rate of maybe 4% a year for 30 years to collect 60% of their final salary for twenty years. I am sorry but that math doesn't even make sense.
Now as an example I put these numbers into a spreadsheet, starting salary $50,000.00, over 30 years average annual increases of 3%, could be too generous there, many current New York teachers are signing on for yearly increases under 2%, a pension contribution rate of 4%, perhaps a bit low for a national average but the difference isn't a dramatic one, and a yearly return on investment of 4.5%, too low if you like risk but a guaranteed pension shouldn't need to live off risk, o.k. our public employee retires after 30 years at 60% of their final salary, the balance continues to earn the 4.5% a year, now this particular employee has used up all their money in 3 years! And they could live another 17. If they do collect their pension for 20 years the system has had to pay 1.7 million dollars to keep their pension going. How can people expect that sort of pension, these things are going broke for a reason.
A big problem is that these pensions were touted when the stock market was doing well, inflation was insuring that future payments wouldn't be much of a burden, and there wasn't such a large pool of retirees to support. They were not only solvent, but showing surpluses. But that was an aberration of the circumstances just mentioned, it doesn't ignore the fact that by their very nature these pension funds must become insolvent.
Now some pension funds are doing well, take Nebraska's for instance. But the ones that are aren't what the typical pension fund is. Nebraska's is more of a traditional 401k, and it is required by law to be solvent. So in Nebraska the pension fund manager simply hands a bill to the legislature if the fund ever has a shortfall, which the legislature is required to cover. Now this may sound like a very sensible thing, but I find that it masks the problems pension funds are doomed to experience. Would taxpayers be willing to accept public pensions if they knew that they could very well cause increased public spending every year? A big problem with these things is that they are guaranteed, and they must invest in risk to remain solvent. If something is going to be backed by public taxes it should require zero risk to remain solvent.
To be reasonable if you are going to get a lavish pension you should have to wait for it, not get it early, that is simply logical.
I would also say that first responders should still be able to collect these pensions. If someone may die on any given day when they show up to work doing something nice for my community then I don't mind them getting a pension. O.k. few firefighters die in service, they don't have to incur the costs of having masters degrees, and a lot of them aren't the sharpest tacks in the drawer, but I think they have signed up for something that is honorable enough to warrant a pension even if we have to ante up for it. If the costs incurred to become a teacher are an issue then the answer is to raise their pay, not offer them some system which will be a burden on public expenses for years to come. I am all for higher pay for public servants if that is required to keep their ranks filled, higher pay now is cheaper than years of pension payments.
So it sucks, you wouldn't have become a teacher, or a mass transit employee, or a government accountant, if it weren't for the pension. But you know what happened, the people who signed you up for this were in essence signing you up for a differed salary offered by politicians who wouldn't be in office when the bill came due. Probably not a wise move. Especially when most politicians of any party aren't the best people at finance. They signed you up for what amounts to a Ponzi scheme, and like all Ponzi schemes this one is collapsing under the pressure of demands outstripping supply. Get out while you can, negotiate an end to the pensions while getting your money back with interest, or roll it into a traditional annuity or 401k, you'll put the funds at risk, or not have the retirement you hoped for, but you will get your money back. Because these days you wont find much sympathy from taxpayers, and the idea that something publicly funded can also be "iron clad" is going to under go some serious revision.