Having been raised in a single parent home with a government employed mother, I know first hand that it is extremely difficult to raise a family on a government salary. Like another commenter said, these plans also are paid for from the government paycheck in part by the workers, reducing their current salary. Often, these government workers are also raising families and putting their kids through school. Without such a pension plan, this would not be possible and many (especially single parent) families of government working households would be stuck to a threshold close to the poverty line. The reality is that just because over the course of 30-some-odd years of hard work they accumulate enough pension to live a middle-class life style, does not make them millionaires, especially when you take into account healthcare deductions, the cost of living, their childrens' education, and any mortgage/car payments. The least we can do is support the people that protect, educate, and serve our communities. It is not necessary to bring light to their supposedly vast troves of wealth (sarcasm) when there are plenty of millionaires and billionaires who acquire their wealth through questionable means.
(Also I don't approve of the fact that comments on the article itself are disabled, sidenote.)