Reply to Ford says pensions are a plan of the past

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In addition to eliminating the ability to job hop, you lose your pension if you are terminated.  I work in an environment where some have pensions and some don’t. It’s painful when someone who has a lot of years in loses their job. And while it’s simple to say, don’t do anything to make that happen, sometimes people make mistakes or have bad managers, etc and it happens.

I definitely think retirement benefits are something to fight for but I’m not sure that pensions are so desirable and that they are not antiquated. [/quote]

Don't they get vested after some time? That's awful. In government, once vested, even if you are fired for misconduct, they can't take it away, except in some states that have laws that say you can lose your pension if convicted of crimes involving your official duties, which is fair.[/quote]

Yes I think in most cases they vest after a relatively short period of time, like 5-10 years. Basically protects the employer from really terrible employees -- if you can stick it out 10 years without getting fired, you probably aren't going to be fired for gross misconduct.

I'll also say that at least in state government, no one ever gets fired. I mean, you'd have to embezzle money or something. There is TONS of dead weight. They'll deny promotions but some people don't care, and there are a lot of people who just want to find a government job with minimal responsibilities, which they will then do poorly, until they can get their pension at 50 and then retire.

For this reason, I wish we just had a more robust social security program that operated like pensions do in other countries. When you work, you pay in. If you don't, you don't. Employers could fire employees without destroying their retirement, but people would be motivated to work because the more you work, the bigger your payout in the end. Social security is kind of like this, but it's so little money that it doesn't really serve as a proper motivator because most people couldn't live off of it.

I'm fine with 401ks and other investment programs (and am engaged in more than one myself) but if we're talking about how best to facilitate people having enough money to live off of past the age of 65 or so, I actually think government sponsored programs that are not tied to a specific employer could be really beneficial.[/quote]

I don’t think social security is nothing. You and your employer both put 6.2% in. Getting 2-3,500 a month each isn’t bad, especially if you’re married and get double that. It’s absolutely enough to live on. Save money, pay off your house and it will be enough. You also get Medicare. [/quote]

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