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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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 average state retiree’s annual pension was $23,014 in January 2008. |
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As of May, 319 of the 52,508 retired teachers statewide were on accidental disability, or 0.6 percent. |
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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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In Quincy, from June 2003 through June 2008, the rate for police was 26 percent – 10 out of 39 officers retired on accidental disability. |
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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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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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The average annual benefit to people collecting disability through Social Security was about $13,500 in 2008. |
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Heart disease caused 45 percent of the deaths that occurred among U.S. firefighters while they are on duty between 1994 and 2004, according to a study from Harvard University. Heart disease caused 22 percent of the on-duty deaths among U.S. police officers during that same period. |
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