The Post In Which I Reveal the Size of My Pension
Very few American workers have pensions. One of the reasons is that few people stay at a job long enough to be vested. And employers are abandoning pension plans because they find it impossible to honor their obligations. I worked for 11 years at a large university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You know the one. Founded in 1636. Al Gore went there. Its name begins with an “H.” Anyway, when I left for a new job, I got my pension statement. It was a pitiful $36,000. As we know, the age of the pension for American workers is over. A new book by business writer Roger Lowenstein addresses this issue. It’s called While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis.
So besides my generous pension, I have a 401K plan, a few IRAs, some Fidelity funds, and some cash savings. I’m curious, do you have a pension?
June 9th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Yes. Spent it. All $6000 (six measly thousand) bucks of it.
The new reality is that people are on their own. Retirement wise. I don’t even figure Social Security into my retirement calculations.
I married a younger man. That’s my retirement plan. :,)
June 9th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Boomie, Why did you choose to spend it rather than save it?
June 9th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Rhea,
I had to sue my employer to get it. When I left my position (not voluntary-I was eliminated due to age discrimination) , they wouldn’t let me rollover the money into my own account. I didn’t want them keeping the money till I turned 65 because who knew if they would still be in business by then, nor was I allowed to decide how it was to be invested.
When I finally got the money, because of all the litigation, I suffered a severe medical setback and wound up in the hospital on a death bed. They would have loved to see me die. But I hung on, got better and won my case.
As soon as the money cleared, I gave myself the biggest, grandest party ever! Bought new furniture (which I still have today) and yes, I invested the rest of the settlement. But that $6000 was won against all odds and I wanted to enjoy it right there and then!
June 9th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Wow, Rhea. You could live on that. For a few months.
I got a miserable $4,000 dollars from the state of Hawaii for ten years of what they designated as part time work although it was full time teaching. They have given themselves some special dispensation so they did not have to pay into my social security.
So my SS payments for all my years of work in the U.S. come to a miserable $411. a month, from which $200. are extracted for Medicare Plan B. What a racket.
But we put up with it because we bought the right wing Koolaid about how we should not have to take care of each other, especially not THEM, the feckless and unworthy. We did not mean ourselves, of course. We always thought WE, being worthy, would be taken care of.
If I had the sole economic responsibility for myself instead of being married to a high salary male worker I’d be dumpster diving by now.
June 9th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Interesting, how both Boomie and Hattie credit their marriages to their economic survival. Living on the edge. Things should not have to be so precarious.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Rhea,
I don’t know about Hattie, but despite the fact that I have 2 college degrees, I never made a decent salary. I’m in the ophthalmic industry. I was the 2nd woman to be admitted into the school and for 3 years I was mentally ‘tortured’ by all the men. Things like that don’t happen today and I am sure it is partly due to us women breaking the way for the next generation. My daughters both earn way more than I could have.
Nonetheless, there is still a glass ceiling, as Hillary Clinton so eloquently expressed lately. My husband and I work as a team. He has the power to earn big bucks. I have the knowledge to invest it and make it grow. I can’t earn. He can’t invest. Only together do we make it all work. I don’t know what will happen when one of us is gone. How long can I make the money last? Will he foolishly piss it all away? Our advantage is that DH is younger than me. He can keep on earning long after I can’t BUT I can still keep on investing it regardless of my age.
My parents were the same way. My dad earned, my mother invested. Mom died 30 years before dad. He was able to live the rest of his life on what she invested. BUT back in 1998, dad got cocky and started investing on his own at the age of 85. He lost 1 million dollars with the dot com disaster. My sister stopped him. Luckily for him, dad still had 6 million to go.
Is a woman less of a person because she doesn’t earn as much as a man? or can we be treated the same because brain power should equal brawn?
Regardless of my marital status, I’m certain my brain power would have guided me on to the path of success. I don’t see my DH as a crutch. I see him as a partner.
June 9th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
well, let’s see. i worked for knightridder for almost 20 years. when i left the paper i was told my pension would amount to about $300/month.
of course, knightridder no longer exists. i have no idea how to get that $300 when the time comes, or who to get it from….
June 10th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I’m in boomie’s situation. Two college degrees and never a decent salary. I worked in the fields of religious publishing and higher education. I have two IRA accounts from 2 of the jobs amounting to a piddly $17,000. I am not currently employed. Hubby (also younger) is the director of a non-profit and while he does contribute to an IRA, still the keywords here are NON-PROFIT. I’ll have to go back to work when the kids are in school in order to accumulate some more and pay for college. We’ll have to work till we die. No retirement for us. Hopefully the kids will turn out to be geniuses and get full scholarships to quality institutions of higher learning. One can be a doctor with a geriatric specialty and the other one can own a nursing home.
June 10th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I’m feeling positively wealthy with my $36K pension compared to other folks here. But I have no spousal income. Ahhh, there’s the rub.
June 11th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Not only do I NOT have a pension, I live with my two teenage children who eat like fiends on less than your pension. And you know exactly where I live! So you can imagine how poor we are.
I’d KILL for a pension. No IRA, no 401K (spent when I was out of work for a year during the dotcom bust), no nothing. Just my SSDI.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:27 am
I have worked full time for the USPS for 25 years and at 62, still am. My husband is self employed in construction. My government retirement plan will be our primary retirement. Our investment over the years has been land–real estate. If he did not have construction work, he worked on the land. Although we are not farmers, we have a small income off our acreage to supplement retirement. It has been a good plan—except. If we have a crisis or need a lot of money quickly, we will have to sell off parts of the land, which due to development has become valuable. This is a downfall to our strategy we are attached to this acreage in a way that is hard to explain.