America doesnât have a retirement system.
Iâd rather have control of my retirement than a company or the government.
Tell Fox. They seem to feel that we have a retirement system that can be âfixedâ. You are one of the lucky ones. While you hate them both, you still keep them. Retirement used to be a 3 legged stool - social security, pension and savings/investments. The 401K was introduced to the masses and it effective became most peoples savings and it replaced Pensions. So two of the 3 legs were removed. And many good conservatives want to abolish social security, making retirement a unipod. As much as you hate your union, I bet that pension that you donât need kept you from leaving for something that gave you more control over your retirement investments. Usually people had some loyalty to a company because of the pension.
My son just started his big boy job a few months ago and knows that he is not getting a pension, which is fine with him. Heâs putting $500 a month into his 401k and his company is kicking in $250. He put in $1,400 a month his first two there, I told him to knock that down to $500 for now and put more in savings. He also has a Roth IRA he opened a few years ago. Being an adult and planning for your own future isnât that complicated.
Thatâs the nice thing about a 401K over a pension, youâre not attached to a job because of the pension, youâre free to find a better job and take the money in the 401K with you. Also IMO everyone should have a Roth IRA, itâs a great wealth builder that you own.
Why didnât you find a different job instead of staying in a union you hate?
I liked the job, the company and most of the people I work with. The pension is part of my compensation and I was forced to contribute to social security and will happily accept both. People without a pension need to take responsibility for their own retirement, or they can choose not to save and have nobody to blame except themselves for their crappy retirement.
Pensions are often not guaranteed and not fully funded. They are also not portable.
My dad gets half his pension check from Teamsters/PBGC and half from UPS. His friend that also did over 30 years with UPS, retired a few years before my dad. He only gets half his pension check. My dad delayed his retirement waiting on the new contract where UPS guaranteed the pension. The problem was the teamsters mis managed and raided the funds. Many old times got the big old FU from the union.
That reminds me of the story several years ago when then-NFLPA President Gene Upshaw essentially said his duty was to the current NFLPA and not former players.
A lot of steel workers and coal miners got the shaft (pun intended) when their pension funds went belly up. Just a year or two ago the taxpayers gave the teamsters a $36 BILLION bailout and many states pensions are way underfunded. A lot of pensions arenât sustainable.
State and local governments have the power to tax and there is no law requiring their pensions to be fully funded, so many arenât. The next generation of taxpayers will be paying the pensions for todayâs workers.
My wife worked for Ford and left a few years after our kid was born, about 10 years ago they offered to pay out her pension now or wait until she was 60 or 65 and get a monthly check. I told her to take the money and run, they paid her out in a lump sum into her 401k so there was no tax liability. Now we just sit back and watch it grow and donât have to worry about what might happen to the pension fund.
It seems thereâs a lot of passing the buck to the next generation when it comes to pensions and social security. I like having control of my retirement money.
I couldnât read it other than it was an opinion piece by Bernie Sanders.
I will assume it is garbage.
You do have control unless something changed?
I didnât open the link because it sounds too dumb.
You donât have control over your pension, the company, government or union does.
It is, itâs an opinion piece from Bernie. His solution is always big government and redistributing wealth.
100%.
Companies go bust and arenât always properly insured, and government constantly steals via inflation and sweetheart deals to special interests.
Good luck with that plan. The imminent ratio of workers to retirees tells me that pension beneficiaries will be taking haircuts.
Probably not nominal ones, with a reduction in absolute dollar amounts, because that would result in angry voters. But failure to keep up with inflation seems an extremely likely outcome. Much more gradual and sinister that way.
I said youâd rather have control of your âretirementâ, not pension. But I get your point.
We could increase the homestead exemption and create private accounts instead of SS