Explaining pensions August 18, 2006
Posted by irishmadness in Retirement.add a comment
As Doris noted below, I didn’t make it back Wednesday night. But I’m back now.
Last night, I spent several minutes trying to explain pensions to my guy (aka WG), since he’s considering early retirement for a few reasons. The benefit of working at the same company since he was a teenager means he’s got a lot of years of service and can think about this. But trying to explain that he needs to find out what level of benefits he gets now vs. waiting to get more years of service was tough. (We won’t even mention the problems with explaining how pension benefits top out after X years.)
He needed me to explain it so, as he put it, he knows what he’s supposed to ask his HR person. I didn’t do a great job at the time, since I wasn’t expecting the discussion. (He’s mentioned early retirement before, so that wasn’t news. It was the nuts and bolts part I wasn’t expecting. We digressed from a discussion about annual salary.) So I e-mailed him this afternoon with clearer (I hope) explanation.
The discussion did get me thinking though, especially with the bill that just passed Congress. I haven’t read much about it yet, but it’s on my to-do list. How many non-union companies still offer pensions? And how many will continue to do so?
