Private sector employees contribute 6.2 percent of their gross pay to Social Security and their employers contribute another 6.2 percent. Self-employed workers contribute 12.4 percent. |
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About 75 percent of U.S. police, firefighters and EMTs prehypertension or hypertension, according to a 2008 study published in the American Journal of Hypertension. The study attributed the numbers to several factors including the physical and emotional stresses of the job and obesity rates. |
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Statewide in 2008, 12,933 of the 186,700 retired public employees, including city, town and state workers and teachers, received accidental disability benefits. That’s 6.9 percent. |
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The number of private employers who match their employees’ contributions to 401(k) plans is shrinking. Those that still do typically contribute 50 cents for each dollar contributed up to the first 6 percent of an employee’s pay. |
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Social Security paid disability benefits to more than 9 million people in 2008, about 90 percent of them were considered disabled workers. Mental disorders was the diagnosis for about a third of the people considered unable to work. |
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Massachusetts is one of the 15 states in which public employees don’t pay into Social Security and don’t collect it. People who contributed to Social Security while working in the private sector then went into the public sector, lose as much as 55 percent of their Social Security benefit if they are also collecting a public pension. |
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From June 2003 through June 2008, the rate of accidental disability retirements among State Police was 27 percent, or 90 out of 335 retirements. |
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Both public and private sector employees in Massachusetts have 1.45% of their pay deducted for the Medicare portion of Social Security. |
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In 1983, 62 percent of American workers were covered by a defined benefit retirement plan and 12 percent had defined contribution plans. By 2007, the numbers had flip- flopped, with 17 percent covered by defined benefit and 63 percent by defined contribution plans. |
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The average municipal retiree on the South Shore’s annual pension in 2008 was between $19,000 and $21,500. The average accidental disability retiree on the South Shore’s annual pension in 2009 was about $31,500. |
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