The Milwaukee Post

March 31, 2017 • Milwaukee County Post • 9 By GOV. SCOTT WALKER Wisconsin's economy is in the best shape it's been since 2000. Think about that. Tommy Thompson was still governor and Bill Clinton was president. The unemployment rate went down to 3.7 percent in February. The last time it was that low was November 2000. Our state also added 7,600 private-sector jobs last month, according to initial esti- mates. Without a doubt, we are working and winning for Wisconsin. More people are working in our state than ever before in history, and more than 200,000 private-sector jobs have been created since December of 2010. Importantly, manufac- turing job creation has led the way and our state is in the top 10 in the nation for manufac- turing jobs since we took office. Job creation is strong, and wages are up, too. As we near record-low unemployment levels, I hear from employers all the time who tell me they have plenty of job openings, but not enough skilled workers to fill them. That's why we'll continue to be focused on worker training and education as we move forward. In our state budget, we provide more funding for K-12 education than ever before and additional investments in worker train- ing programs — as well as in our technical colleges and in the University of Wisconsin System. Our investments in education today will have a direct impact on our future workforce. Public assistance, as well, should be a trampoline and not a hammock, which is why we believe it makes sense to require able-bodied adults who are on welfare to get job training, at no cost to them, so they can get off the sidelines and into the game. We want to move people from government dependence to true independence through the dignity that comes from work. All of this is great news for working fam- ilies across our state, but you know what? We're not done yet, and we won't be satisfied until everyone who wants a job has a job. Together, we are working and winning for Wisconsin. (Scott Walker has been Wisconsin's gover- nor since 2011.) Vote no on questionable Milwaukee County wheel tax To the editor: In reference to the upcoming Milwaukee County referendum to increase the regressive wheel tax to $60, I have three questions: ■ Why was the referendum widely pub- licized only two weeks before the April 4 election? ■ Why didn't the county executive pro- pose a wheel tax when he was running for re-election? ■ And why do the county executive and some members of the County Board hate the taxpayers of Milwaukee County? Vote no on Tuesday. Don Carlson Greenfield OPINION LETTERS TO THE EDITOR By OWEN B. ROBINSON The Wisconsin Retirement System is a great example of government working well. Thanks to decades of prudent man- agement by both Democrats and Republicans, it has provided an ample retirement income to generations of Wisconsin's public employees and remains one of the only fully funded public pension systems in the nation. The operative word in the phrase "pru- dent management" is "management," and that is what state legislators need to contin- ually do. Making sensible small changes in the present makes massive sweeping changes unnecessary in the future. Sen. Duey Stroebel, R-Saukville, and Assemblyman Tyler August, R-Lake Geneva, have reintroduced a bill that would raise the minimum retirement age for most new public employees from 55 to 60 and from 50 to 52 for public safety workers. Doing so would add additional solvency to the WRS and reduce pension contributions by the taxpayers by an estimated $59 mil- lion now and millions more in the future. Most public employees in the WRS can receive their full retirement benefits beginning at 65, but they can retire early at 55 and take a fraction of their retirement based on their years of service. For example, if a public employee begins working at 25 and takes early retirement at 55, that employee would receive about 90 percent of their full retire- ment benefit. If that same worker only had five years of employment, his or her retire- ment benefits would be less. What Duey and August are proposing is simply to slightly raise the minimum age at which an employee would be eligible for early retirement. Retirees would still be able to retire early if they are eligible and retire with their full benefits at the same age. And it would only apply to new employees. Current employees would not be impacted. The reasoning is simple. People live longer. In 1960, the average life expectancy in the U.S. was 69.77 years. In 2012, it was 78.74 years. In other words, retirees are receiving many more years of retirement income than they used to. And more of those retiring early at 55 are spending more time in retirement than they worked. It is not only fiscally sensible to raise the mini- mum retirement age, it is fundamentally fairer to the taxpayers, most of whom will not retire in their 50s. Opponents of the bill argue that raising the minimum retirement age will make it more difficult to hire new workers. While that is theoretically possible, most 20-some- things are not looking hard at the mini- mum retirement age of the pension system when considering a job. And if they are, they are probably not the kind of employ- ees that the taxpayers want. The opponents also argue that raising the minimum retirement age would increase government spending because the taxpay- ers would have to pay an older employee for longer at the higher end of the pay scale instead of being able to replace them with younger, cheaper employees. This argu- ment neglects the fact that the taxpayers also funded the retirement of the outgoing employee. Thus, the taxpayers are on the hook for the current employee, the recent retiree, and perhaps even the retiree who had the job before both of them. No, it is a better deal for the taxpayers to hold onto a seasoned employee for a few years longer and pay them for the value they provide the taxpayers. Duey and August's bill is the smallest of possible tweaks to the WRS to help keep it solvent and fair. Also, since it only applies to new employees, incoming employees will be able to decide for themselves if it is enough for them to turn down the job. Frankly, the state should go further by rais- ing the normal retirement age and perhaps indexing it to life expectancy. Or if state Republicans are really interested in long- term reform, they should move to a defined contribution system for new employees. (Owen B. Robinson is a West Bend resident whose column appears occasionally in The Milwaukee County Post. He can be reached at owen@bootsandsabers.com.) Tweaking the state retirement system Robinson State's economy in the best shape since 2000 Walker Raising the minimum age makes sense as people live longer

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