but it's a pittance....less than $100 a month. I was at the company just at 5 years when they ditched the pension and went to a 401K. It helps though.

contribution from another employer I retired from. I started required minimum distribution from the contribution plan this year.

It depends on the plan.

The amount that I will be drawing in a few months will basically cover my Medicare Supplemental policy premiums. I worked for them for 8 or 9 years from the mid-80's to the early 90's.

(I also have a very good 401K from another employer...I'll be waiting a few years before I'll need to start drawing on that. The last several years that I worked that job - as a part-timer - I was putting 70% of my salary into the 401K.)

We'll also be waiting to draw Social Security until they make us start taking the benefits.

My employer contributes 4% of my salary no strings attached, and will contribute up to an additional 4% via a 50 cent on the dollar match.

I worked there ten years and so was vested when I left.

Luckily I never expected it to amount to much. I am getting less than a third of what it should be, thanks to a bankruptcy or two and throwing off the pension obligation. I genuinely feel for the employees who stayed there thirty years or more, who were counting on a decent pension, and then saw it cut by two thirds.

I also wish people would stop worshipping at the Altar of Pensions Past. Not every company had them, and often you had to work for thirty or more years to get it. But most people never stayed a lifetime at one company. So in reality, even when a lot of companies offered define benefit pension plans, only a smaller percentage of the workers ever retired with an actual pension.

I do believe federal law requires that an employee be vested after five years, an improvement from when it could take ten years to vest. But companies need to be absolutely required to properly fund them.

The real crisis that is looming is that cities, counties, and states are drastically underfunding their pension obligations. And often those jobs didn't pay into Social Security, so those retirees will have nothing at all to fall back on, unless they saved money of their own all along.

an employer I left when I was 32.

I can only imagine if I'd had one my entire career. Pretty much stuck with the slot machine 401k which terrifies me.

At Royal Dutch Shell. Didn't quite qualify for it however, and they are no longer offering a defined benefit plan to new hires.

Not much, but I love having it.. It covers the taxes on my house

But the big company that bought the big company that bought us out assumed responsibility for the plan.

the business we do.

paying into the plan the whole time, and then I retired at age 58. The pension covers my mortgage, car, health care, groceries, etc. with enough left over for occasional travel.

With our plans, our 401K and social Security we will see little change in our income when we retire. But we make decent money. Many don’t.

But for new employees after 2009 they don’t. It is all 401K and social security.


Which is why social security should guarantee a living income. We can change it. Most Americans would support it.

we just live on love

and we have a pension plus 401K. We will have our Part B and Part C with the company as well, so we don't have to purchase any supplemental health insurance. If he predeceases me, I'll still have it until I die.

He dodged several bullets during multiple episodes of downsizing, and hated his job at times, but now we are both retiring in June and will have no worries. We'll also have our Social Security - he'll get it in about two years, I'll start in five.

We absolutely realize we are fortunate. Many of our close friends do not have this comfort going into retirement.

of the federal employee equivalent of a defined benefit pension plan. My husband worked as a staff psychiatrist part time for the VA long enough to qualify. He had been collecting benefits which included health insurance that covered both of us and our youngest son until he aged out. After my husband died last December, I applied for survivor benefits and recently was informed that not only will I be collecting a gross benefit of almost $2k/month, but that the health insurance benefit will also continue. They deduct about 1/3 the cost of the monthly premium from the monthly benefit and the feds pick up the other 2/3. The medical benefits are so good that when I had a $70,000. hip replacement last fall, Medicare and the supplemental policy paid everything. I've never gotten a bill for any balance from the hospital or the docs.

Between the widow's benefits from Social Security and the civil service benefits, it will make a huge difference to my financial comfort for the rest of my life. I will not need to withdraw from my IRA until I'm required at 70 1/2 to take RMD's.

There is no other reason than greed that people in the private sector aren't similarly covered with retirement benefits that allow them to live a comfortable retirement.

I have a VA 100% disability with Aid and Attendance and Social Security and my wife has Social Security for a total of $83,200/year tax free.

and will have 30 years this October (I'm 59). It'll take care of almost all of our living expenses so I'll probably wait until 70 to take SS. I also have a 457 plan through them and I can roll that over into a state-run annuity (with COLA and right of survivorship) if I need more guaranteed money. The NC plan isn't as generous as some other plans (it'll replace 50% of my income) but it is well-run and well-funded.

I now collect an annuity from a company I worked for (for 9 years) back in the '80's. They send me $195 a month for the rest of my life.

That's why I also have IRA's, annuities, and other investments
that pay interest and dividends.

I don't make all that much per year, but I do OK.

Together they total a little over $600 a month. I also receive Social Security and have a fairly hefty IRA which I don't have to draw on until 2021. I own my home and have no debt and haven't had any debt for years. My saving grace has been that I don't fritter money away on unnecessary stuff. I don't use charge cards. My enjoyment comes from experiences, not things. I started saving in an IRA when I was in my early 30's and have never touched a 401k or IRA for anything over the almost forty years I've had them. I was always content with a rather modest home and compact car.

I feel sorry for those people who will struggle in retirement if it's not due to their own unwillingness to live within their means.

it is expected that my husband's company will do that soon....

but, thinking about it, most of us here are older and retired. I think we are of the last folks that had defined benefit pensions available. We are probably not representative of DU as a whole.

I have an old fashioned US Civil Service Retirement System pension, based on 40 years with the Fed govt and paying 75% of my final average three years salary for life, with COLA adjustments. Probably the best of the best. That plus a bit of Social Security and some investment income and IRAs make for a pretty comfortable retirement for the wife and I. I am pretty fortunate.

Looking forward, fewer and fewer people will have the retirement option opportunity I had. Not many DB pension plans available, and I don't have much faith in people being able to plan and save for their retirement using IRAs. 401Ks or other self-directed plans. I don't see a good future retirement for them.

the reasons the Retards hate gub'mint.

My dad was local truck driver and had a good defined pension (Teamsters Union). But those have pretty well gone by the wayside.

It really disturbs me that at one time not very long ago, a sizable majority had defined pension benefits whereas it's probably a vast minority today. There are a lot of factors that went into this, but chief among them in my admittedly limited view is owner/stock-holder greed.

I'll receive a few hundred a month but nowhere near what is needed to survive. If I want to look at it as a silver lining I can 80 and out in a few years and find a different job to keep paying in to SS. I can also use my pension expense to invest and build a bigger nest egg until I retire from the second job.


I have a coworker turning fifty next year and she is going to 80 out. She breeds St Bernards and makes more money doing that then working but our job has decent benefits. She's breeding next year full time and has a horse she's using to stud. She said she will have the farm paid off, is working on a smaller lake cabin that will include solar and raised garden beds for her retirement home, etc. She acknowledges she will be one of the last of our generation who will be able to do this with a state job.

And I thank God every day. If Wolf has lost last fall I might have changed my retirement plans as you know any Repug Governor is just itching to screw us.
DH does not, just his 401k. If I die first half of my retirement check will go to him for the rest of his life.

Last edited Tue Apr 2, 2019, 03:07 PM - Edit history (1)

9 1/2 years. Also had another DB that went under I have been receiving benifits from the PBGC for that one for 9 1/2 years.

Worry every day that Trump will fuck with it.

With my current employer. 16 years in and hoping to work another 12 (retire at 68). My pension will be 1.5 percent times 28 times my average salary for the 28 years. I am working that long so that I keep my healthcare until my spouse qualifies for Medicare. I doubt my employer will let me. I also have IRA and 401k. My wife has a small IRA. She will get the spousal half of the total SS I will get.