Posted on 10/12/2015 12:06:25 PM PDT by Lorianne
Some 407,000 Teamsters are learning a painful lesson: Their private-sector pensions aren’t as safe as they once thought.
Pay attention, government workers — and taxpayers — in New York and New Jersey.
Last week, letters informed these Teamsters they’re facing cuts in benefits of up to 60 percent. Why? Because their pension fund is going broke.
The Central States Pension Fund covers workers from more than 1,500 trucking, construction and other companies in 37 states. Thanks to trucking deregulation, declining union rolls, aging workers and weak stock-market returns, the fund is now paying out $3.46 in benefits for every $1 it takes in. That’s $2 billion a year in red ink.
At that rate, doom arrives in 2026, sinking Central States and maybe even the federal fund that’s supposed to insure such private-sector pensions. Retirees would get even lower benefits — or maybe nothing at all.
Which is why Congress and President Obama last year gave “multi-employer” funds like Central States the green light to restructure if necessary — and slice benefits.
At least a few big pension systems are sure to follow Central States.
And so the retirement security countless workers have long counted on went poof.
Government pensions aren’t immune. Yes, many state constitutions bar pension cuts — and if the funds sink, politicians would find it easier to hit up taxpayers in a crunch than anger unions and their members by trimming benefits.
Easier at first, anyway. But when the well runs dry, what’ll happen?
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The Post has known the truth about pensions for years and failed to inform their readers.
I wonder if upper management at The Post green lighted this story in order to get out in front of their own pension problems?
——Thanks to trucking deregulation, declining union rolls, aging workers , weak stock-market returns——
and theft to make contributions to DNC candidates
Google “Theresa Ghilarducci”.
THAT’S what they are going to do.
A few years ago the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers merged with the Teamsters... Hows that workin’ out for ya?
Gee, I’m glad they’re not backstopped with my tax dollars.
Public Defined benefit plans will mostly all collapse. Blame all the cheaters over the past 25 years who managed to get 8 hours of overtime per day for their last 3 years and now at 50 years old are retired in Florida making 80,000 a year with full medical.
Yep, I despise that woman.
I think everyone thought the stock market would go up 10% a year forever.
The ground prep is well underway.
There’s been an uptick in lefty media chatter lately
that refers to the “failed 401K system”.
No one will listen.
Even to this day almost no one pays attention the national debt, much less is alarmed by it.
Everyone has just given up; content to just wait (and prepare) for the inevitable collapse.
And guess who is a Hillary Clinton adviser?
Teresa Ghilarducci.
Not a shock. Tailor made for her.
It bails out the unions and allows them to redistribute all of the retirement funds to make things “fair”.
That is what happened in states like Illinois. On paper, they were close to being 100% funded before the Nasdaq implosion at the turn of the century. During the big run up they quit making the employer contributions to the state pension systems. When when the SHTF, they borrowed from the pension plans and have never recovered. If they were a private business, they would have been required to make the employer's share of SS at all times.
Don’t bank on that...
union pension funds pay for everything from new state office buildings to sports stadiums....
try a different tactic...
sue them...
team owners, the state, everyone....
State and local plans have different problems from federal plans. State plans suffer from the ability to spike benefits by working overtime, too high of a payout, early retirement ages, and depending on investments to make the plans solvent. Add in some plans where the governments have skipped payments and you end up in big trouble.
Federal plans, which were reformed back in the 80's, have lower payouts of higher salaries. The most obvious issue is that unlike most state and local plans, the federal government as a whole operates at a deficit. For all of the torch and pitchfork types, you will be in happy to know that one of the largest holders of federal debt is the federal employee thrift savings plan, a 401k type investment plan. When the government defaults, those employees will be stuck holding the (empty) bag.
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