Originally Posted by JustJess

Just to be the devil's advocate, however...

You should share the benefits of the surplus with those who work for it, shouldn't you? Why, especially knowing that they'll have deficits shortly, would they decide to give big discounts to riders etc rather than settle the contract with their workers? It's bad form to crow about a surplus and then try to cheap out on your employees.

I do believe the 3% per year is reasonable, but I also think that the retirement age doesn't need to be 62 (most places you can't get your money until 59 1/2 however). The MTA dropped that, however. And I do think it's reasonable to run the MTA like a regular business. At our hospital, we're not-for-profit. When we make money, that money is invested back into the hospital and we all get cost of living increases - from 3- 5% depending on how well we did - and we all contribute to the costs of health care. We DON'T contribute to our pension plan, however. We can add to it by doing a 403(b) thing (non-profit's 401(k)), but we don't have to.

We're running fine... so it seems to me that they should split the differences down the middle like reasonable folks.