I’m from a USPS family. My grandfather was a postmaster for 30 years, my grandmother a clerk for 20. My mother and her husband also both postmasters, working 20 years for the USPS. 3 years ago at age 54 and 51 my mother and her husband both retired, having put in the require 20 years. This means for the next 30 odd years they’ll be living off their pensions and enjoying the USPS’s insane health plan (when I was in HS, I know the monthly cost was $12, not sure what it is now but its undoubtly inexpensive.)

This is what’s breaking the USPS as well as most government jobs – the 20 year career. Get a govt job, put in 20 years, retire with a guaranteed pension and health plan. My brother is with Borders and Customs, and he’s already counting down his 20. With rare exceptions, nowhere in the public sector will you find someone putting in 20 years then retiring at 52. Both my mother and her husband are in excellent health and they’re actually busier now than when employed. Both could have easily worked another 10-15 years, which would have allowed them to continue to contribute into the system vs just living off it. Instead their taking advantage of the offered early out and took it.

This work 20 yrs and then live off pension is one of the reasons govt agencies are bottomless pits. In the past with short lifespans they may have been sustainable, but now that people are living into their 80s or longer, it’s bankrupting the system. Perhaps that’s how obamacare is going to help fix the problem…once you get past 72, you simply won’t receive life sustaining care…

And to answer the coming question, I broke the generational pattern, became an MD (pediatrics)

As for the retirement age, the answer is that it’s been government’s attempt to establish social policy, same as most other labor laws. When it was originally set, it wasn’t actually much of a problem. Odds of living to 65 were small, and the costs were spread out amongst lots and lots of people. I think I’ve seen figures of as high as 50 workers to 1 retiree, but even recently it was 20 workers to 1 retiree (Social Security, which uses the retirement age to start dispensing benefits). Properly calculated and managed, a pension isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But both of those need to be true and in the last 20 years or so we seem to have been bad at dealing with both of those necessary parts. To match the same relative point on the lifespan curve, retirement now would need to be well into late 70s-ish, possibly even early 80s. I’m not sure we get out of the current mess without tweaking that.

Personally, I prefer the self-funded retirement plans (IRA, 401(k), 403(b), etc.). Ideally I’d like to see the required retirement age go away completely, and you are eligible to start drawing on your retirement funds after something in the 68-72 range.

Ever!

Seriously though, if I only received mail once a week, I’d be OK with that.

Every city and county in the state has seriously underfunded – or unfunded – pensions. The cities and counties have been buying off their employees with fat pension deals and just kicking the can down the road. There’s an unfunded liability there – and I don’t know exactly what the number is – that will make the measly $50B or so that they’re in the hole now look like the good times.

Stop permitting unions to have so much power over the management, then the actual cost of running the agency will come down. We have all safety and labor laws in place, so why do we need unions?

Besides, there is one question I’d like to ask of you all here. Why do we set the retirement age? Wouldn’t it be more prudent just to let employees work until they drop dead? After all, if Supreme Court Justices can have a lifetime appointment, then I don’t see any reason to prevent an ordinary employee from working as long he or she can until no longer fit to perform the duties on the job.

I think this is where Obamacare comes in.