Longest Pensioner Retired in 1950 After 20 Years on the Job

After Providence Journal reporter Kathy Gregg tweeted that “only 24,297” ballots went out to retirees to vote on whether to accept the pension settlement, I took a look at RI Open Gov’s pension module.  Gregg says she counts 31,829 retirees in the state system.  RI Open Gov lists 27,864, but if you take out “beneficiaries” (people who inherited workers’ pensions), it drops to 25,108.  The ballots being sent out may also subtract those who get to vote through some other means, like a retiree group set up specifically to negotiate the terms of the settlement.

While I was playing with the spreadsheet, though, I noticed Elizabeth Blythe, who appears to have retired in 1950 after 20 years with the state police at the age of 36.

Think about that.  In 1950, Harry S. Truman was president.  World War II was a recent memory, the United Nations and NATO were new, and the United States had just airlifted supplies to West Berlin in response to a Russian blockade and responded with military force to the North Korean invasion of South Korea.

The cycles of history move slowly, but it’s amazing to know that Rhode Island is still paying for employees who haven’t worked for the government in almost as long as my children’s grandfather has been alive.  With modern medicine, we can be sure that Ms. Blythe’s future counterparts will not be quite so few in number when my children are doting on their own grandchildren.

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