Many CalSTRS Retirees who were career adjunct instructors in California’s Community College system continue to report that their pension benefits are insufficient to even pay for rent in their area. It is easy to see why this is. Since CalSTRS benefits are based primarily on two factors — service credit and final compensation — and since both factors are difficult for adjunct instructors to catch up on, the benefit of CalSTRS to adjunct instructors is very limited, with many career adjunct instructors reporting that they will never be able to fully retire.
To illustrate the difference in retirement benefits, I want to compare the benefit levels provided to two hypothetical college instructors. One, a middle-column adjunct instructor who earns 30 service credits and whose average final compensation is calculated at $44k, and two, a middle-column full-time instructor who also earns 30 service credits but whose average final compensation is calculated as $119k. I set the calculator to assume that there is no beneficiary in either case and I ignored any other compensation that they might be receiving at retirement (sick leave, etc.) I also set the calculator to assume that each instructor is retiring on their 65th birthday. The differences between these two individuals are stark. Whereas the full-time instructor receives $7140 per month in retirement benefits ($85,680 per year), the adjunct instructor will receive only $2640 per month in retirement benefits ($31,680 per year), despite both instructors devoting the same number of years to their craft.
| Instructor | Service Credits | Avg. Final Compensation | Monthly Retirement | Yearly Retirement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full-Time | 30 | $119,000 | $7,140 | $85,680 |
| Part-Time | 30 | $44,000 | $2,640 | $31,680 |
| Difference in Retirement | $4,500 | $54,000 | ||
Of course, there are those who will say that this is entirely fair. After all, the adjunct instructor may have worked as many years of their life as the full-time instructor did, but they did not earn as much money so they contributed much less over their lifetime. But this overlooks the fact that the lower lifetime earnings was entirely the result of working for an exploitative, two-tier system that never compensated the adjunct instructor fairly. And at any rate, CalSTRS doesn’t make any attempt to base the pension off of lifetime contributions anyway. Instead, they base it entirely off of “final compensation” — the highest average annual compensation earnable during any period of 36 consecutive months of paid employment covered by CalSTS, or, rather, the amount of money that the employee would have earned if they worked full-time hours at their average rate of pay over their highest three consecutive years of their working career. This calculation — the notorious “earnable” — may be more or less equitable for full-time instructors, but it is woefully insufficient for adjunct instructors.
The “earnable” is designed to prevent full-time instructors from having their overtime compensation counted towards their earnings for retirement purposes. This seems fair when you consider how generous the pension plan is for full-time instructors. But, for adjunct instructors, it often makes their attributed earnings significantly less than their actual earnings. An adjunct instructor who works 140% of load, for example, will earn roughly $62k per year at average earnings in the CCC system. But they would only be credited with about $44k in earnings for retirement calculations.
How can this problem be fixed? I would propose that both aspects of the benefit calculation be improved upon for individuals who have part-time status. First, since adjunct instructors often have inconsistent loads semester over semester, it makes no sense to force them to do load averaging over an arbitrary period like a year. They should be permitted to earn more than one service credit per year so they can catch up for lean periods when they have better periods. But this change will have only a modest effect. For example, when I gave our adjunct instructor 20 more years of service credit, the calculator raised the benefit to $4,400 per month, which is still only roughly 60% of the full-time instructor’s benefit, and the full-time instructor has 20 fewer years of service.
The biggest impact that could be made to the retirement calculation for adjunct instructors would be if CalSTRS calculated the earnable as the salary that the employee would have earned if they had taught a full-time load at the salary they would have earned at the step and column that they would qualify for on the district’s full-time salary schedule. So, if the employee has 20 service credits and an MA+30, they might be credited as being on step 21 on the middle column of the full-time faculty salary schedule for retirement calculation purposes. This represents true parity, and it would equalize the retirement benefits of adjunct instructors vis a vis their full-time colleagues. To meet objections that this would give a large retirement benefit to some people who only worked as an adjunct instructor in a supplementary way, the state could offer this calculation only to individuals who have more than 20 service credits so that it would primarily benefit career adjunct instructors, who could reasonably be expected to have no other major retirement savings.
It is important that we also remember our existing retirees. To be of any help to our existing retirees, CalSTRS would need to recalculate their retirement benefits. If our adjunct retiree had their retirement benefit recalculated at $7140 per month instead of $2640, that would mean an improvement of $4500 per month going forward, as well as a large amount of money to be given as back pay. If they are already ten years into their retirement, then that would mean they are owed $540k plus interest. Then, the retiree could be given the option of either taking their accumulated pro-rated difference as a lump sum or else amortizing it over a certain number of years to reduce tax liability. It is important, when we correct injustice, that we remedy it for all who were affected by it. And that surely includes our existing retirees who were working for decades under an exploitative system.
Caleb Castaneda is an Instructor of Philosophy at Crafton Hills College, Chaffey College, and Victor Valley College. He is a member of CCFA and SBCCDTA (CTA), and AFT 6286 (CFT).