TOP FIVE: From pensions and farmers to loans and guns

Our weekly Top Five feature offers big stories or views from the past week with policy and legislative implications.

1. South Carolina workers will have to pay more for pensions, The State, Dec. 13, 2016

This certainly won’t go down well with state employees, who now will have to pay more to get their pension benefits.  The state’s pension system, buckling and short billions due to unrealistic expectations for returns and other problems, will raise rates to cover retirement.  An excerpt:

“S.C. employees will pay 9.16 percent of their paychecks, up from 8.66 percent, according to an increase approved Tuesday by the State Fiscal Accountability Authority.  The workers’ employers — including taxpayer-funded state agencies, school districts and local governments — also will have to pay more. Their rates will increase to 12.06 percent of a worker’s salary, up from 11.56 percent.”

2.  Stronger dollar could hurt Palmetto State farmers, Scott Miller, Clemson University, in Southeast Farm Press, Dec. 12, 2016

Agriculture, the state’s number one industry, could feel a pinch in the year ahead with a stronger dollar.  Why?  Because a stronger dollar means U.S. commodities and agricultural products will be more expensive overseas, which should hurt exports.  The state exported almost $1 billion in goods in 2014.

3.  S.C. students default on student loans more than national average, NerdWallet on SFGate, Dec. 15, 2016

A federal study shows 13.2 percent of students at South Carolina post-secondary schools who were to start repaying student loans in 2013 were in default by the third year – the nation’s 12^th highest average.  The national rate is 11.3 percent.

4.  Tougher gun laws proposed at Statehouse, WIS TV, Dec 14, 2016

Among the bills pre-filed in the legislature this week are calls for tougher restrictions on guns.  One bill seeks a 28-day waiting period for background checks of people who want to buy guns.  An excerpt:

“I feel optimistic in ‘17 we will have an opportunity, especially because of the tragedy in Charleston and how that hits home for so many people for all of us. Really if we had better background check laws, Dylann Roof would not have been able to legally possess a firearm.” –S.C. Rep. Beth Bernstein, D-Columbia.

5. How to make colleges more diverse, David Leonhardt in The New York Times, Dec. 13, 2016

Answer, according to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg:  Make top colleges more open to working class students.  An excerpt:

“Porterfield emphasizes the benefits that colleges will get from working together — like learning how to find students or find budget savings to pay for scholarships. No doubt, this collaboration will help. But I think the public commitment matters more.

“The truth is that colleges have long had the ability to enroll more middle-class and poor students. They’ve chosen other priorities: sports teams; new buildings; ethnic and geographic diversity; admitting alumni children.  Now, to their credit, college leaders have acknowledged that their student bodies are too affluent. Students, professors and the media should hold them to their commitment.”

[EDITOR’S NOTE:  Thanks again this week to Dale “Dusty” Rhodes of Richmond, Va., for tipping us to several of these stories.]