NewsTrust - Retirement - Most Recent Stories

How America's Retirement Crisis Is Crushing the Hopes of a Generation of Young People

Sun, 26 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Joshua Holland - May. 26 (News Analysis) - The crucially important but largely missing context of today's debate over so-called “entitlement reform” (read: slashing Social Security benefits and shifting more healthcare costs onto seniors) is that we stand at the early stages of what's shaping up to be a massively painful retirement crisis.

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7 Chilling Facts About Retirement in America That Should Make Obama Tremble Before Cutting Social Security and Medicare

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lynn Stuart Parramore - Apr. 09 (Opinion) - We are headed for a catastrophic retirement train wreck. A Wall Street-driven financial crisis has stripped millions of people of things like jobs, pensions and home equity that were supposed to deliver a dignified retirement after a lifetime of hard work. The crisis has also provided certain interests the opportunity to make false claims about the “unaffordability” of vital social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare that help the 99% make it. These opportunistic “ Raiders of Your Lost Retirement” do not give a hoot if you starve in your golden years – this is about money to them

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Fiscal trouble ahead for most future retirees

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Michael A. Fletcher - Feb. 17 (Special Report) - For the first time since the New Deal, a majority of Americans are headed toward a retirement in which they will be financially worse off than their parents, jeopardizing a long era of improved living standards for the nation’s elderly, according to a growing consensus of new research. Read full article >>

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Lawmakers want to know how Mitt Romney built a $100+ million IRA

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Kos - By Jed Lewison - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - Individual Retirement Accounts were designed as a tax-free way for middle-class Americans to plan for their retirement. The annual contribution limit is $6,000, but somehow Mitt Romney managed to to build his IRA into a $100+ million treasure chest.

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AFL-CIO's Trumka Calls for Labor Movement Separate from Parties: 'I've Had a Snootful of This S---!"

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By John Nichols - Jun. 14 (News Report) - “We can’t simply build the power of any political party or any candidate. For too long we’ve been left after the election holding a canceled check and asking someone to pay attention to us. No more! No more!” the federation president, a former United Mineworkers union chief, shouted above the cheers of the nurses.

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Treasury to tap pensions to help fund government

Mon, 16 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Zachary A. Goldfarb - May. 16 (News Report) - The Obama administration will begin to tap federal retiree programs to help fund operations after the government loses its ability Monday to borrow more money from the public, adding urgency to efforts in Washington to fashion a compromise over the debt.

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How Raising Retirement Age Screws the Poor

Fri, 13 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Kevin Drum - May. 13 (News Analysis) - Whenever someone talks about how life expectancies have skyrocketed and we can't afford long, leisurely retirements anymore, show them this chart.

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Appeals court blasts VA mental health care system

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Paul Elias - May. 10 (Special Report) - Noting that an average of 18 veterans a day commit suicide, a federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to dramatically overhaul its mental health care system. In the strongly worded ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it takes the department an average of four years to fully provide the mental health benefits owed veterans. The court also said it often takes weeks for a suicidal vet to get a first appointment. The "unchecked incompetence" in handling the flood of post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health claims is unconstitutional, the court said.

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The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Dave Eggers, NÍnive Clements Calegari - May. 01 (Opinion) - When we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition. And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources. Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.

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Pensions: 70 or bust!

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Apr. 08 (Opinion) - Put aside the cruise brochures and let the garden retain that natural look for a few more years. Demography and declining investment returns are conspiring to keep you at your desk far longer than you ever expected. This painful truth is no longer news in the rich world, and many governments have started to deal with the ageing problem. They have announced increases in the official retirement age that attempt to hold down the costs of state pensions while encouraging workers to stay in their jobs or get on their bikes and look for new ones. Unfortunately, the boldest plans look inadequate. Older people are going to have to stay economically active longer than governments currently envisage; and that is going to require not just governments, but also employers and workers, to behave differently.

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Britain, France Offer Previews for U.S.

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Houston Chronicle - Oct. 29 (News Analysis) - The social contracts that have governed the world's advanced, industrialized nations since World War II are being called into question and, in some cases, radically revised. Great Britain and France offer us a vivid preview. Americans will be facing similar decisions about government budgets, taxes and retirement benefits - and soon.

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Health Overhaul Overlooks Retirees

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Ellen E. Schultz, Jessica Silver Greenberg - Oct. 09 (News Report) - Thanks to a little-noticed clause in a 1996 law, retiree-only health plans are exempt from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that went into effect last month.

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Actuaries Insist We’ve Got to Retire Later

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Emily Badger - Sep. 23 (Special Report) - Early retirement, bah! The people who measure our life spans say Social Security should be less something that kicks in at 65 and more something Americans tap for, say, their last 20 years.

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U.S. Retirement Deficit Reaches $6.6 Trillion: 'God Help the Poor Gen Xers'

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Laura Bassett - Sep. 16 (News Report) - America's retirement crisis has reached epic proportions, according to a recent study by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research. The study estimates that the current retirement income deficit, or the gap between the retirement savings of U.S. households and what they need to have in order to maintain their living standards past retirement, is a whopping $6.6 trillion -- five times the projected federal deficit for 2010. "The key sources of income retirees are relying on are either under attack, in the case of Social Security, or disappearing, in the case of traditional pensions," said Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the Economic Policy Institute, at a press conference on Wednesday. "The early Boomers are better off than the late Boomers, and God help the poor Gen Xers. Seventy percent of them are on a track that leads to a fallen standard of living in retirement." According to the latest retirement income data, half of 65-and-older households have an annual income of less than $29,744 -- about half the median income of younger households. Traditional pensions are disappearing in favor of 401(k) plans, which allow employers to shift much of the cost and all of the risk to their employees, and on top of this, Congress is considering cutting Social Security to balance the federal budget. Maria Freese, director of government relations for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said that the $6.6 trillion estimated retirement deficit is a "conservative number" and that the crisis could become far worse if Social Security is compromised. "There's an old saying that goes, 'When you're trying to get out of a hole, the first thing you have to do is stop digging.' The last thing you want to do is to buy a bigger shovel, and that is unfortunately what we see happening with many policy makers here today in Washington," Freese said. "Instead of exploring ways to strengthen Social Security and improve our private pension system, the only discussion we hear these days are the various ways Congress could cut Social Security, and presumably they're hoping nobody notices." President Obama has appointed a National Committee on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to look into various ways to reduce the national deficit, including possible cuts to Social Security, despite the fact that Social Security has not contributed a dime to the federal deficit. Eisenbrey warned that future generations planning on collecting Social Security will be in trouble even without the proposed cuts to the program. "Social Security, our one nearly universal pension plan, is scheduled to replace a much smaller share of pre-retirement income in the future than it has in the past," he said. "That's without the fiscal commission or Congress doing anything more. An average earner who retired at 65 in 2002 gets benefits that replace 39 percent of his pre-retirement income. By 2030, this will fall to 28 percent due to a higher normal retirement age, higher medicare deductions, and income taxes levied on Social Security benefits." Political action group Retirement USA announced the retirement income deficit Wednesday morning as part of "Wake Up, Washington!" month, a speak-out on retirement security that will run from September 15 to October 15, 2010. Organizers of the event hope to call the attention of voters and policy makers to the magnitude of America's retirement crisis before elections in November. "The number should be a wake-up call," Freese said.

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Attacking Social Security

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Aug. 16 (Opinion) - Critics of the program claim that its future is in peril. But their math doesn’t add up, and underneath their hostility is ignorance of the realities of life for many Americans.

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The latest blow: Smaller payouts for new retirees

Sun, 16 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Laura Cohn - May. 16 (News) - Although Delphi filed for bankruptcy in 2005, Hollis thought his benefits would be protected. And even when he was forced into early retirement nearly two years ago, at age 54, as a result of the downturn in the automotive industry, he didn't worry. He should have. Early last year, Delphi announced that it was terminating health- and life-insurance benefits for retirees.

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The Great Pension RipOff

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

nlg-laboremploy-comm.org - By Claude Piller - Oct. 26 (Opinion) - New national level accounting rules have changed the way government entities show on their financial statements the long term costs associated with retiree health care and other post-employment benefits such as: prescription coverage, vision, life insurance, disability insurance, long term care, and group legal plans. Now fully implemented, these rules have had a deep effect on the appearance of public sector budgets, compelling either cuts in pay for public sector workers, bonding issues, concessionary bargaining, or a combination of all three. This article addresses the other side on this ongoing rip-off -- the effect of the maladroitly named Pension Protection Act in the US and the recent changes in European Union pension law.

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Don’t Expect Retirement Help

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Renuka Rayasam - Jul. 31 (News) - Despite recent gains in stock prices, ravaged retirement savings are a big worry, both for employees and for employers that want to help their workers save for retirement. It will take years to rebuild.

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Why Boomers Can't Quit

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Stephen Gandel - May. 20 (Special Report) - Even before the financial crisis, many baby boomers hadn't saved enough for retirement. Then stocks plummeted. In 1998, the average 50-year-old who had been working for at least 10 years had a 401(k) balance of $85,000, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Factor in the recent market drop, and more than a decade later, that worker's 401(k) has grown to just $93,000. In short, we keep getting older, but our 401(k) balances, they stay the same.

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Social Security in Peril, But Not Crisis

Tue, 12 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Tom Jacobs - May. 12 (Special Report) - Miller-McCune writer Tom Jacobs did a three-part series last year that takes an in-depth look at Social Security including a history of the program, what needs fixing and where we go from here.

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Still Not Wise

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

3 Quarks Daily - By Beth Ann Bovino - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - Most Americans continue to rely on the government to provide for their retirement. But with everyone unsure about future Medicare and Social Security benefits, including our politicians, Americans are doing little to increase their wealth before retirement. More retirees may seek more post-retirement work to cushion the blow, a so-called bridge job in early retirement. Unfortunately, health and labor market conditions often prevent even those who intend to work from doing so. In addition, in a weakening economy, bridge jobs could be harder to find.

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UAW: health care trust needs automakers' cash

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Business Week - By Jeff Karoub - Oct. 07 (News Report) - United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said Tuesday that the union isn't willing to accept more overtures by cash-strapped Detroit automakers to delay payments to a trust fund that will take over retiree health care costs in 2010.

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