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Guess what? I wouldn't be chuckling so soon, you're screwed as well, so are your kids btw.
Y'all had your chance to apply the brakes to a few things and change some others and yet y'all were off doing whatever...
Good thing I don't have any kids then, right?
The millennials are not far off from overtaking the boomers as the big voting bloc in this country. We'll have a lot of work to do to un-**** things, but we'll get it done.
I'll go along with the OP. I have tried to learn a little about why the pension disappeared, but I always end up reading some diatribe condemning some President or another. Bottom line is, accounting rules killed it. But that means accounting rules can bring it back.
The 401(k) is a failure, for the most part. And unnecessary, too. We're comfortably retired without one.
The poster who made comments about someone just barely passing high school:
That was me. But I have done very well in life. Some of the good students in my high school class have done very well, but not all. Some good students fell flat on their face. On average, the young people with good working instincts and good financial instincts have done well.
It wasn't "accounting rules" but largely actions by federal government (creation of Employee Retirement Income Security Act), failing to rein in some very bad apples (government and private pension plans that were abused), and a few other issues that lead to the decline of defined benefit pension plans.
It is important to remember defined benefit retirement plans really didn't take off in the USA until WWII.
To get around wage freezes enacted by federal government during war time employers looked for other ways to attract and retain employees. Two "benefits", employer provided health insurance and defined benefit pensions were the answer.
These schemes (with federal government's blessing) allowed employers to offer their employees *compensation* that does not show up on their books as wages per se. Federal tax laws helped both along so that by the 1960's a majority of American workers had one or both; this applied to both private workers and civil servants along with unions.
Employer provided health insurance is still with us (if only just), but defined benefit pensions simply were "too expensive" for businesses/corporations to continue. Well that is their story and it is one they are sticking with regardless.
Basically blame is placed on global competition from workers in countries who either don't have pensions, and or schemes are government funded or whatever via payroll tax deductions form all workers. Many of the European countries such as France, Germany and GB follow this model.
Part of the problem with defined benefit pension is that they make promises to today's workers for something that will happen far into the future. Thus it is easy for a company, local government or whatever to make promises (such as schweet labor deals with a union) that include outsize pensions. San Diego did this and it became a disaster.
Problem is sooner or later that promise has to be paid (or at least comes due). By then those who made such deals are usually no longer on the scene; but current CEO, mayor, governor or whoever is stuck trying to find money in order to meet the promised obligation.
The other thing of course is all that money just "sitting" in an account doing "nothing" (excess pension reserves) is just too tempting. This and or when fiscal times are bad governments/companies cut or skimp on paying into pension funds. The rest is as they say history.
Social Security needs to be reformed in order to reflect modern times; that is just a fact.
Many other western nations have already done so and or are considering such measures. However the USA is just too far away politically and socially as a nation for a sane and rational conversation on this matter to take place.
Women's rights groups will fight to the death against any changes that affect SAHM, widows, and so forth. Meanwhile it is painfully clear we don't live in an "Ozzie and Harriet" world any longer. Unmarried nor never married women actually often get less out of SS than a woman who never worked a day in her life, but married *well*. Many of these women devoted their careers to the "caring" or "nurturing" professions such as teaching, nursing, social services, and so forth that don't really pay very well. If they're lucky they end up with a small pension, SS and perhaps a bit of savings.
Social Security needs to be reformed in order to reflect modern times; that is just a fact.
Many other western nations have already done so and or are considering such measures. However the USA is just too far away politically and socially as a nation for a sane and rational conversation on this matter to take place.
Women's rights groups will fight to the death against any changes that affect SAHM, widows, and so forth. Meanwhile it is painfully clear we don't live in an "Ozzie and Harriet" world any longer. Unmarried nor never married women actually often get less out of SS than a woman who never worked a day in her life, but married *well*. Many of these women devoted their careers to the "caring" or "nurturing" professions such as teaching, nursing, social services, and so forth that don't really pay very well. If they're lucky they end up with a small pension, SS and perhaps a bit of savings.
And many who married well ended up getting dumped midstream, left to raise the kids and toil at jobs that don't pay all that well.
Unless it was a government job, rarely do these jobs include pensions, even meager ones.
If they are lucky, they'll retire with a paid-off condo or small home, a bit of savings, Medicare, and Social Security check.
They'll spend their reclining years praying that the place won't fall in around them as they can't afford repairs and hoping that in the end they won't burden their children with their care.
The sad truth is that there are too many people who are having an increasingly hard time of saving on their own, so when pensions disappeared, they are left with nothing but a SS check, which is often not enough to get by. Going forward SS will also shrink, so the situation is only getting worse.
Some European countries have laws which mandate the worker, and the employer to invest a percentage of the salary to a private fund, so when the worker retires, he/she will live off of that money as opposed to government SS checks.
The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991, the study found, and the same group accounts for a far greater share of all filers.
Driving the surge, the study suggests, is a three-decade shift of financial risk from government and employers to individuals, who are bearing an ever-greater responsibility for their own financial well-being as the social safety net shrinks.
Are you EVEN an American?
" so when pensions disappeared, they are left with nothing but a SS check"
When pensions "disappeared", they wre REPLACED WITH 401Ks.
"a study found' and you are probably naive enough to BELIEVE EVERY SINGLE STUDY EVER DONE. Especially if it is printed in the NY Times.
"Although the actual number of older people filing for bankruptcy was relatively small"
Kinda' blows a hole in your misleading title , " Bankruptcy Booms Among Older Americans
In the last financial meltdown, a lot of people lost a big chunk of what the planned to fund their retirement on.
Many put off retirement until they could rebuild their funds.
So with the banking regulations being gutted, how long before it happens again?
Look at Wall Street complaining about rising interest rates. Wall Street is like Vegas. The house never loses in the end.
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