Whose non-government relatives have pensions?

[Anonymous]

I have an 80K pension. Private company.

[Anonymous]

Interesting...my Dad worked for GE for 35 years and was retired at "60", worked as a consultant for them for a couple of years and collects his GE pension. He's 87 now.

More interesting is that my wife's company has a pension plan as well and she started there went it was still active and is eligible. She's been there over 20 years. We are working through all the different collection scenarios based on when she retires, when she starts to collect, etc. Her company is in the petroleum industry and is public.

[Anonymous]

Many private companies had private pensions up to the 1990’s. Many even covered health insurance. Health insurance was eliminated when Congress passed a law that required companies to account for the future costs of providing health insurance to their retirees. The unintended result was that companies decided they did not want that liability on their books. So they started eliminating offering health insurance to retirees.

[Anonymous]

While rare in the private sector (only ~15% of workers have access), many large corporations, specifically in utilities, manufacturing, and finance, as well as government and unionized positions, still offer traditional defined-benefit pensions.

Companies with notable pension plans include Accenture, PepsiCo, Bank of America, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Procter & Gamble, Shell, and AT&T.

Companies Offering Pensions (Private Sector Examples)

Manufacturing/Consumer Goods: Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Abbott Laboratories.

Finance/Insurance: Bank of America, The Hartford, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, USAA, Prudential.

Energy/Utilities: Shell, Consolidated Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, NuStar Energy.

Retail/Services: Costco Teamsters (unionized), Accenture.

A number of health insurance companies also offer - BCBS, Kaiser, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My sister retired from Disney at the end of Jan. She receives a pension. Her husband started at Disney as an hourly employee. He receives a pension for his service. He then moved to a salary role and also retired with my sister. He gets a second pension for his salary role. I don’t understand all the details but he’s getting 2 pensions from Disney.

Did she retire when she wanted? My sister retired last fall. She wanted to work a few more years, but they moved her job to Poland.

[Anonymous]

My mom had a small pension from the JCC.

[Anonymous]

My wife works in healthcare with pension

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yah, there was about one generation of corporate life where that was the norm. It's over now.

The only exception I know of is some of the better unions. Local IBEW (electrical workers) and carpenters I know have nice pensions, had nice careers, and generally a much better package than middle class office workers.

My son is joining IBEW.

Yep this is spot on.

There’s some exceptions like partners at Deloitte (and I’d guess the other Big 4?) get an annual pension and forced retirement starting at 62

I know at one Big 4, not Deloitte, that equity partners are forced to retire at 60, but end up with a big pension. Non-equity partners can work as long as they are bringing in revenue, and also get a pension, but not as big. They also don't make as much money while working.

Yeah at Deloitte the pension was the average of your 5 highest earning years or something if you’re an equity partner. For a lot of people that was / is a $2M+ annual pension. It’s a huge problem for the business today and going forward having those massive pensions over their heads as opex.

Did employees pay in? A pension that is set up correctly shouldn't become a problem. People got into trouble when companies either underfunded them from the beginning or put them in the stock market.

Employees don’t pay in (or didn’t when I was there - left in 2023).

[Anonymous]

I have family members who are in unions (laborers, carpenters, iron workers) and who participate in multi-employer pensions, which I understand in concept but can imagine is fairly complex.

[Anonymous]

My mother was a school teacher in a tiny district on Long Island. She gets about $8k/month, plus social security, plus they reimburse for all the Medicare supplements. Thankfully she gets all of this as she’s now in memory care

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting...my Dad worked for GE for 35 years and was retired at "60", worked as a consultant for them for a couple of years and collects his GE pension. He's 87 now.

More interesting is that my wife's company has a pension plan as well and she started there went it was still active and is eligible. She's been there over 20 years. We are working through all the different collection scenarios based on when she retires, when she starts to collect, etc. Her company is in the petroleum industry and is public.

GE notoriously nearly went bankrupt.

[Anonymous]

My mom worked at an NGO and got a pension.

[Anonymous]

My mom had one as a nurse. Every for profit hospital she worked for had them. It was the non profits who didn’t have them in her case (but still paid the top administrators millions)

[Anonymous]

My retired neighbor worked for a print shop. They were unioned so has has a small pension.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yah, there was about one generation of corporate life where that was the norm. It's over now.

The only exception I know of is some of the better unions. Local IBEW (electrical workers) and carpenters I know have nice pensions, had nice careers, and generally a much better package than middle class office workers.

My son is joining IBEW.

I am not a union worker but am at a utility with many and we have both a pension and 401k. People stay their entire careers.