OK, I guess we have been ‘talking’ at cross purposes.
And I don’t have wealth. You probably have a lot more than I do.
What I have is self sufficiency. I won’t describe it further, so publicly. But should the entire government collapse and society go completely feral, I can still live comfortably.
Some of the problems with this scenario is the make-up of the union itself. This guy was probably either a Teamster or AFSCME member. He paid union dues every month, relied on his union to negotiate a contract and did his thing. As for those on the site saying he probably worked political patronage jobs...well unless there is proof... hold on.
His annual wages were probably pretty good with his highest years averaging over 50k a year. HOWEVER, his union president was making well over 250k, his business manager was making over 6 figures and the job he wanted to do was controlled by another union and he wasn’t able to bid on it. Kind of like a police officer bidding on a firefighters position.
His sole purpose was to pay dues so his local president had some “juice” with the National union (which had the same issues at a greater scale). Ever wonder how a teacher can make 80k a year, but the state president (who doesn’t spend a day in the classroom) knocks down close to 500k?
This guy worked with the expectation that his pension would be pretty decent after 20 years. That’s what his union told him. Unfortunately, his 401K portfolio isn’t looking quite as “fat” as his union hierarchy.