Forced retirement account

[ValleyJim]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? VA

Hi all,

I work for the state of VA and have not had a raise in 4 years now. They did give us a bonus last year but that is all we have gotten. Now they have decided that they are going to give us a 5% raise.

Here is where things go screwy in my opinion. I am a corrections officer and one of the benefits of working for the state is they put 5% of your gross salary into the state retirement system for you. The state has been borrowing money from the state retirement system for the past few years now to balance their budget. Now the retirement system is in trouble. So they are telling us that instead of them putting money into the system for us that we have to take the raise that they have given us and it will go into the retirement.

They have given us no choice in this. So basically the politicians have screwed the pooch and we are getting stuck bailing them out.

My question is can they force me to contribute to ANY retirement plan? It doesn't seem that any employer should be able to force any employee to put the money that they have earned into any retirement plan.

Thanks for reading all of this!
Jim

 

[cbg]

There's another way to look at it, which is that there is no requirement that the state ever give you a raise.

 

[ajkroy]

Ha. What do you think Social Security is?

 

[davew128]

Ha. What do you think Social Security is?

A legalized Ponzi Scheme.

 

[eerelations]

There's another way to look at it, which is that there is no requirement that the state ever give you a raise.

Which means that the raise they give you can be any size they want it to be (including 0%), and that they can put said raise anywhere they want (including your retirement fund).