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Home Type Curated

Meal Ticket No More: The ‘Gold Standard’ Private Pensions Exposed Now as High-Wire Busts

by John F. Wasik
October 3, 2022
in Curated, Opinions
Private Pension

  • Not All “Survival Food” Supplies Are Created Equal


Although so-called defined-benefit pensions were long considered the gold standard of retirement plans – promising guaranteed regular payments for life – corporate churn, financial pressures, and outright fiscal malfeasance have made many of them less secure than the employee-guided, non-guaranteed 401k stock investment plans that many companies now offer. Many affected workers and retirees – potentially 33 million in more than 25,000 federally protected defined-benefit pension plans – are among more than 70 million Baby Boomers (those born from 1946 to 1964) retiring at an accelerating rate, with only some 40% already retired.

That means the first federal backstop for such pensions created by Congress in 1974 – the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation – is being kept busy dealing with troubled plans, with about 1,600 terminations annually in recent years. All told, more than 145,000 plans shuttered from 1975 to 2019, with the PBGC becoming trustee for almost 5,000 of them.

 

 

And the private pension problem still festers: The Great Resignation of older workers in the pandemic era threw Social Security earnings and retirement savings off track, making the issue of failing pensions even more pressing to those with a claim to them.

What is the government doing about it, and what can affected retirees do to protect themselves? Some tips:

  • Documents are king in this process – i.e., paperwork saying you were vested and owed a pension. You may first need to track down your former employer.
  • The PBGC provides a list of “trusteed” plans that it has taken over. If your plan is being managed by the agency, then that’s your first stop, although you may have no way of knowing that. You can call the agency at 1-800-400-7242.
  • The PBGC’s pension search directory is another resource. You can also try the PBGC’s “My Pension Benefits” portal.
  • The PBGC has an “Advocate” office that offers “pension tracing services.” Call (202) 229-4448 or [email protected].
  • If your own work records are long gone and the above steps prove fruitless, your last resort for proving your claim to a pension might be a Certified Itemized Statement of Earnings from Social Security, listing when you worked and for whom. That will cost $122 and likely take 120 days to process, Social Security says. It gives a number to call, 1-800-772-1213, but only after that four-month wait period.

When a company files for bankruptcy, a plan may be also terminated by a court or continued without PBGC intervention – if there are enough assets in the plan. It’s helpful to know what kind of termination an employer chooses when electing to shut down a defined-benefit plan.

  • Standard Terminations. The majority of plans are shuttered under this category, which means “a plan that has enough money to pay all benefits owed to participants and beneficiaries . . . For each participant or beneficiary, the plan administrator either purchases an annuity from an insurance company or, if the plan permits, pays the benefit owed in another form (such as a lump sum),” according to the PBGC.
  • Distress Terminations. This is when the employer or “controlled” group can’t fund future benefits and meets certain PBGC rules. Then the “PBGC takes over the plan as trustee and uses its own assets and any remaining assets in the plan to make sure that current and future retirees of the plan receive their pension benefits, within the legal limits.”

The Labor Department maintains a list of the most underfunded multi-employer plans, but it provides little direct help for workers looking for unclaimed pensions.

Promised Grounds Proverbs 24 Blend

Finding plans that have shut down may be easier than finding some that still have money in them and owe benefits. There are more than 16 million retirement accounts sitting out there (including 401ks) – typically with balances of $5,000 or less, according to the Government Accountability Office. It’s not a simple matter to do a search engine query to find them. Congress has authorized the PBGC and other agencies to set up a user-friendly “lost and found” database or “registry” of pensions, but it may not be up and running for a few years.

What about bolstering underfunded plans? The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was kind to the multi-employer plans generally offered to union members, to the tune of billions of dollars in assistance. Under the ARPA, a Special Funding Assistance Program was embedded in what became known as the “Butch Lewis Act.”  It supports about 250 most “severely” underfunded plans, the PBGC stated in its fiscal 2021 Annual Report.

Before the pandemic and the ARPA, some 1.3 million workers were in troubled multi-employer plans. But now, observes Karen Friedman, executive director of the nonprofit Pension Rights Center: “If your plan is accepted and qualified for the special assistance, most people won’t have to worry (this is for multi-employer plans only).”

For now, many retirees are in the same boat as Jesus Nunez, a former Checker Motors worker in Burbank, Illinois, who is now working to recover his pension with the help of Anna-Marie Tabor of the Pension Action Center at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

In these uncertain financial times, you need a company you can trust with stewardship of your life’s savings. We recommend self-directed IRAs backed by physical precious metals provided by Augusta with ZERO Gold IRA fees for up to 10 years.

“There’s often a complete lack of transparency,” Tabor said of what’s become painfully obvious to those adversely affected. “Some people have no idea what happened to their pension plans.”

Editor’s Note: This is just another reason we are so bullish on precious metals to protect retirement and wealth. The sponsors we hand-selected are America-First companies who, unlike the vast majority of precious metals companies out there, do not donate to Democrats or have ties with proxies of the Chinese Communist Party.

This article was adapted from a RealClearInvestigations article published Sept. 14. This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.






Why One Survival Food Company Shines Above the Rest

Let’s be real. “Prepper Food” or “Survival Food” is generally awful. The vast majority of companies that push their cans, bags, or buckets desperately hope that their customers never try them and stick them in the closet or pantry instead. Why? Because if the first time they try them is after the crap hits the fan, they’ll be too shaken to call and complain about the quality.

It’s true. Most long-term storage food is made with the cheapest possible ingredients with limited taste and even less nutritional value. This is why they tout calories so much. Sure, they provide calories but does anyone really want to go into the apocalypse with food their family can’t stand?

This is what prompted the Llewellyns to launch Heaven’s Harvest. They bought survival food from multiple companies and determined they couldn’t imagine being stuck in an extended emergency with such low-quality food. They quickly discovered that freeze drying food for long-term storage doesn’t have to mean sacrificing flavor, consistency, or nutrition.

Their ingredients are all-American. In fact, they’re locally sourced and all-natural! This allows their products to be the highest quality on the market, so good that their customers often break open a bag in a pinch to eat because they want to, not just because they have to due to an emergency.

At Heaven’s Harvest, their only focus is amazing food. They don’t sell bugout bags, solar chargers, or multitools. They have one mission – feeding Americans in times of crisis.

What they DO offer is the ability for people to thrive in times of greatest need. On top of long-term storage food, they offer seeds to help Americans for the truly long-term. They want them to grow their own food if possible which is why they offer only Heirloom, Non-GMO, Non-Hybrid, Open-Pollinated seeds so their customers can build permanent food security on their own property.

Visit the Heaven’s Harvest website and use promo code “Patriot” for a discount today!

Tags: EconomyLedeMoneyPensionPrecious MetalsRetirementTop Story
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