What is a Boomer? (2015, retirees, allowance, grandfather)
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My theory, which is linked to some other stuff, is that companies look at their turnover and see that much of their workforce doesn't stay long enough to vest so they just say, "why bother" to set up a defined benefit plan.
The State of Maryland increased the vesting time for teachers in the State Retirement System from five to ten years several years ago. The reason, once you got through the bloviating, was that a lot of teachers were leaving between years six and ten and had a vested pension. They also raised the employee contribution from 5% to 7% with the additional 2% going to the General Fund and not the pension system. Privately it was called the "Teacher Tax".
The major private sector employers in my local area are an F500 chemical company, a grocery store, and a hospital system. There’s a big credit union too. None of these offer pensions, and haven’t in decades if they ever did.
I’ve worked for a defense contractor, hospital system, a F500 financial services firm, multiple manufacturing outfits, a fintech company, a bank, and now a local government. The government and the F500 company in Iowa were the only ones with a pension. I worked in Iowa in 2012 - no idea if they still do, but their benefits were close to the government’s overall
I’ve worked at around ten private companies. These were big organizations, one with over 150,000, most others well over 10,000. Only one offered a pension plan.
Other than a grocery store chain, the local hospital system is the biggest employer in my area. They were putting more contingencies on even their 401k matching, and that match is was contingent every year on “system performance.”
I have posted this information a couple times previously. I personally know a few people that either currently work for companies that offer retirements or retired from them. The list is not exhaustive; it's just the Top of the heap.
Try UPS, Conoco, Deloitte and Touche (and all the below listed) for starters. I personally worked for two of them for a few years (Chevron and Intel).
These generation tags are bunk. Dunno why people are hung up on them.
If professional sociologists can pick out and define clear characteristics that each 'generation' exhibits, then I am curious, having been born in 1959, how would I be any different if I were born in 1965?
If professional sociologists can pick out and define clear characteristics that each 'generation' exhibits, then I am curious, having been born in 1959, how would I be any different if I were born in 1965?
Differences are exaggerated for purposes of making the sociologists' own points. If one cohort doesn't differ much from another, then there's no material about which sociologists would write their academic papers... no conferences, no books, no grants, no careers.
Cynicism aside, I am reminded of a perennial topic on this forum: memories of what people were doing, when Kennedy was shot, in 1963. As the years advance, the cohort of persons who were alive back then, ages and dwindles. A decade or so ago, lots of people chimed-in to such threads, saying that they were enlisted in the military, or maybe school-teachers, young parents, college students. Now it is more likely to read testaments of how so-and-so was in elementary school in 1963. A decade hence, such threads will be threadbare... in 2033, a person who had freshly qualified for Medicare (the definition of "normal" retirement?) would have to have been born in 1968.
So the difference between having been born in 1959 and 1965 is quite literally this: the 1959 baby might have some dim memories of mom and dad somber and crying when Kennedy's death was announced. For the baby born in 1965, it's just history.
I think the cultural/socio background when someone is teens/20s has a great deal to do with one's sense of generation, birth years aside. If social change is accelerated in some period, that period really stands out- like the late 60s. "A generation" can feel about 3 years under those circumstances.
I have posted this information a couple times previously. I personally know a few people that either currently work for companies that offer retirements or retired from them. The list is not exhaustive; it's just the Top of the heap.
Try UPS, Conoco, Deloitte and Touche (and all the below listed) for starters. I personally worked for two of them for a few years (Chevron and Intel).
Doubt it all you want. You're just dead wrong.
So have I. It's ignored because everybody "knows" that the Baby Boomers all have pensions, never had a recession, or double digit inflation, interest rates and unemployment and didn't see entire industries collapse and could make enough in a two month minimum wage part-time job to pay for college.
brightdoglover, agree about a few years can make a difference. As a first year boomer, the Happy Days ended in 1963. New era began 1964, difficult to change as the 1960's moved on.
From, it to me, more formal, lived by certain standards ? to almost no rules at all. When one went places, ie "the city", one dressed a certain way or an airplane flight, dress, heels as you walked on the tarmac to board the aircraft. Shoes, purse must match !
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