Retirement Benefits Key to Keeping Teachers, Kentuckians Say

For the last two years, periodically various mainstays have suddenly become scarce—including K-12 teachers. A recent survey has found that retirement benefits are considered one of the antidotes to the talent bleed.

The pandemic was “one of the greatest challenges for K-12 public school personnel,” says the National Institute of Retirement Studies (NIRS), observing that “employee burnout is growing and the K-12 worker shortage has reached crisis levels.” The report’s authors warn that even as the pandemic wanes, the shortage will not. Part of the reason, they say, is that “many K-12 employees are leaving the profession earlier than expected and fewer are pursuing a career in education.”

So what would help arrest the exodus? Kentucky residents surveyed by the NIRS strongly believe that retirement benefits are a potent tool in attracting and retaining teachers. An overwhelming majority—92%—hold that view. 

There is similarly strong sentiment among Kentuckians regarding more specific aspects of retirement benefits offerings: 

• 91% contend that teachers and school personnel should have a pension so they can have a secure retirement after a career in education;
• 91% believe that school personnel should have employer-provided health care benefits while they are working and also after they have retired;  
• 91% hold that K-12 pensions should include a COLA similar to the one applied to Social Security benefits;
• 89% consider a strong pension program to be important because Kentucky school teachers and school personnel do not receive Social Security; and 
• 87% think that more generous retirement benefits will help curb and reverse the teacher shortage.

Kentuckians put some of the onus on state legislators, the NIRS found. Bluegrass State lawmakers must continue catch-up contributions to the teacher pension plan, say 92%, and almost as many believe that they must ensure that all teachers and school personnel in Kentucky receive the pensions they earned. Furthermore, 92% say that the state should be required to make annual required contributions to the pension fund on time and in full.