Retirement plans and living standards for nearly half a million South Carolinians are in the hands of state politicians.

On the line are cost-of-living increases, the number of years public employees must work before they earn retirement pay and future contribution rates, all of which stand to change as the state's top elected officials try to figure out a way to deal with the retirement system's $17 billion funding mess.

Risky investment strategies and too-generous retirement benefits over the years coupled with the recession have been blamed by fiscal watchdogs as the reason the state's pension plan has long-term stability problems.

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

Filed under: * Culture-Watch • Aging / the Elderly • * Economics, Politics • Economy • Credit Markets • Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market • Personal Finance • Pensions • Stock Market • The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007-- • Politics in General • State Government • * South Carolina

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