see #12, happy fingers strike again
Posted on 02/23/2014 8:23:59 AM PST by Signalman
Thousands of retired and current Detroit workers face pension cuts as deep as 34%, and some say they aren't sure how they'll make ends meet if the plan announced Friday is approved.
"They have worried me from the day they started this mess. You sit on pins and needles all the time," said 69-year-old Donald Smith, who retired in 2005 after decades of work as a civilian detention officer and other general city jobs.
For Smith, the cuts could mean a loss of around $300 a month from his $889 in monthly pension benefits, even as he already struggles to pay for rent, groceries and medical bills. Between his pension and Social Security, Smith currently lives on less than $23,000 a year.
"If they go and cut that, how am I going to live off of that?" he said, "I can't live on what I get now."
At the same time, retirees could face increased medical bills due to proposed deep cuts to their retiree healthcare benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Sorry, Too late.
“I don’t understand how you get a public employee pension AND social security. I thought that if you got a public employee pension you didn’t even pay into social security.”
Many retired public employees found employment full time in the private sector and worked many years after retiring from public service and paid into SS. Those employees then earned sufficient SS credits to get some SS retirement benefits, although they are penalized by a reduction in those SS retirement benefits.
A Public Pension and Full Social Security Benefits? No Way
Social Security benefits can be reduced for retirees who receive a pension from the federal, state or local government.
September 10, 2010
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published in the August 2010 issue of Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. To subscribe, click here.
Perhaps you had two careers. In one job, you were a government employee whose earnings were exempt from the Social Security payroll tax. You also worked in the private sector, paying into the Social Security system. When you retire, you’ll get your public pension, but don’t count on getting your full Social Security benefit.
Under federal law, any Social Security benefits you earned will be reduced if you were a federal, state or local government employee who earned a pension on wages that were not covered by Social Security. Reductions also apply to Social Security spousal or survivor benefits that are claimed by government pensioners.
David Walrath, a lobbyist for the California Retired Teachers Association, says many government employees don’t realize their Social Security will be squeezed until they apply. “People will get their annual statement with a benefit number, but they’re not told they’re subject to an offset,” says Walrath, with the consulting firm of Murdoch, Walrath & Holmes, in Sacramento, Cal.
The two rules that cover government employees are the “windfall elimination provision” (WEP) and the “government pension offset” (GPO). The WEP applies to workers, and the GPO applies to government pensioners who are applying for Social Security spousal and survivor benefits.
Patricia Kohlen got hit by both. Kohlen, 61, paid into a public pension system for 28 years when she worked as an elementary school teacher in Atascadero, Cal. She also worked part-time as a secretary and paid Social Security taxes through that job.
Just before Kohlen retired with a disability in 2003, her statement showed that she was due $247 a month in Social Security disability payments. The windfall provision reduced the payments to $108 a month. Her monthly teacher’s pension is currently $1,930.
Read at: http://www.kiplinger.com/printstory.php?pid=7016
Welcome to my world of 30 years as LE supervisor. That seems very much in line. Take 1/4th off the top for property taxes alone and tell me it’s easy to live off the remainder. No government freebies here.
I am sure my father (who is still working at the age of 74) will feel real sorry for this guy who retired at 60 (rolling eyes)
This is nothing compared to the weeping and gnashing of teeth that will come about when Social Security runs out of money, and it will. There is no way that the unemployed rising generations can fund the ever-increasing life span of the elderly.
I got squeezed out at 60 when our company was bought by “private equity” and the “consultants” came in to “rationalize” our work force LOL.
Now I know that doesn’t happen very often in municipal employment, like I said for this Detroit guy the devil is in the details.
That is B.S. It may be too late to use your methods to accumulate wealth but somehow that wealth has to be protected. If you have a failsafe way of doing that let your fellow Freepers know. Like I said the market can collapse, gold can collapse, currency can collapse, housing can collapse, society can collapse but evidently you found a way to avoid these things.
You should have tried the fire department. Depending on the city many of them retire millionaires after 20 years. And with their schedule they have the time to run one or two businesses on the side.
He's 69 now and retired in 2005. ??????
It isn’t about accumulating wealth.
It is about acquiring self sufficiency.
I suppose you are right about it not being too late.
If you have a couple of million to spend now, you can probably duplicate, before the collapse comes, what it took me 20 years to build with my own hands.
And of course nothing is failsafe.
You're right. A 1/3 cut to a $100,000 pension is nothing. But a 1/3 cut to $10,000 pension would be inhumane.
Detroit should use a sliding scale of some sort.
I realized this was about pension cuts after I hit “submit.” You’re right...getting your pension whacked is terrible and not something you really prepare for. My apologies.
Very true. I’m very afraid they are going to steal our lifetime savings because we “won life’s lottery.” I have no idea how we’d make it if (when) they do that. It’s starting with this week’s announcements of reductions in the amount you can save tax-deferred.
see #12, happy fingers strike again
“I don’t believe that I should be held responsible for voting for people that I knew were thieves.”
Well, a few weeks ago some high end financial guy wrote just that about the citizens of Detroit in the NY Times, no less.
I wish I could think of his name, which was slightly familiar to me iirc. It wasn’t Robert Reich, I know that. But some other lib dem.
He actually wrote that what was happening in Detroit was like a natural catastrophe and other than voting (for his party btw) for all these decades the folks there bore no responsibility for what was happening.
It was so immensely stupid that even the readers/commentators at the Times were giving him heck over it.
And let’s please not ever let the media off the hook. They have a constitutionally mandated responsibility to inform the public but do we think the Detroit Free Press ever ran stories revealing: Dem Pols make phony promises, no one should believe a word they say?
Of course not, no more than they ran stories revealing: Obama lying about keeping you insurance/doctors, etc.
Instead we have in depth, front page coverage of a prank Romney played in High School, they’ll flood the zone over Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, and they’ll just make up stuff about McCain having an affair. Three examples chosen from innumerable others.
So, if we are placing blame, and blame needs to be placed, let’s not let the 4th Estate off the hook.
And that was my point in the first place. We shouldn't be knocking this poor schlub because he didn't know his pension could be reduced. I do agree that if his "I can't live on what I get now" statement is not just rhetoric, that is on him.
As far as accumulating the wealth that you did, I applaud you and hope you are able to make the most of it. I'm happy with my lower financial position in that it takes care of my wants and needs.
I do agree that if his “I can’t live on what I get now” statement is not just rhetoric, that is on him.
Then I guess you get your ASS back to WORK there, “Donald”!
No, a certain segment of Americans are in on the scam—the selfish, greedy, and treasonous ones.
As was pointed out by a poster, this guy probably worked in a bunch of “patronage” types of jobs where he did very little real work that had any skills to them.
He did his time, and voted democRAT thinking they would take care of him for his loyalty. Retiring at 60 instead of going to 62, I’m sure was a nice perk, but now that the city is bankrupt, and there is nothing left to graft, the pensions are now unfunded.
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