has anyones pension been reduced?

[97guns]

im at my moms house watching football and my brother calls, she is talking to him right now, sounds like he is complaining about having his pension reduced or something. he is retired from the grocers union and gets around $2000/mo. with a very good medical package. will post the details when i find out, anyone else get their pension reduced or know of anyone?

[97guns]

so i just got the scoop on my brothers pension, he was getting $2400/mo and its getting whacked to $1800/mo. starting immediately, a rather large 25% haircut.

they are also reducing his medical benefits but she wasn't sure of the details, right now he pays nothing monthly but thats probably no longer. they gave him no advance warning, he just found out with this months check

he also told my mom that his neighbor down the street was dropped by kaiser medical, she did not say why but he is a retiree of IBM and im sure he had kaiser through them.

some whacky things happening

[hamchan]

Found this:https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...55819444,d.cGE

[cardtrick]

I have a pension through my company but it's 100% funded. I won't be sticking around for the next 40 years or so but plan to roll it over into an IRA when I leave. Almost no risk that our company will cut benefits. There are no medical benefits however.

I wonder if it's only public pensions that are seeing cuts? Aren't private employers required to 100% fund pension plans?

[Blessed]

My friends husband has had a reduction almost years almost yearly since 2008. He retired from the teachers union.

[KTP]

I think private pensions are considered near bankrupt if the funding falls below 80% while public pensions live in a fairy tale land where funding is at 40% and 80% would be considered great.

It isn't a hard to understand situation for some pensions where the employee only contributes 2% and the pension pays 75% of average final 4 year salary.

As an experiment, try contributing only 2% to your 401K then after 30 years go buy a COLA annuity (if you can find one). You may be surprised how little a month you can get out of a private annuity with your 401K balance.

[cardtrick]

I think private pensions are considered near bankrupt if the funding falls below 80% while public pensions live in a fairy tale land where funding is at 40% and 80% would be considered great.

It isn't a hard to understand situation for some pensions where the employee only contributes 2% and the pension pays 75% of average final 4 year salary.

As an experiment, try contributing only 2% to your 401K then after 30 years go buy a COLA annuity (if you can find one). You may be surprised how little a month you can get out of a private annuity with your 401K balance.

Regardless of what the employee chips in, the employer can figure out how much they need to put in so they can pay the promised benefits. If that's too much money they have to come up with, they should keep what the employee already accrued and cut future accruals. That gives employees a heads up that they need to start putting away their own money for retirement.

I don't/can't contribute to our pension plan. Our company puts in all the money. It's a percentage of total compensation and the percentage increases with age (not years of service). Min return is guaranteed at 4% per year. There is a cash balance and an accrued monthly benefit. You're guaranteed to get at least the cash balance if you leave the company before retirement. Pretty sweet deal.