Cutting Retiree Benefits

The cuts involve the ailing Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, an independent agency of the federal government.  This portion of the Wikipedia article explains how the PBGC is funded.

Excerpt from the Washington Post article Congressional leaders hammer out deal to allow pension plans to cut retiree benefits:

A measure that would for the first time allow the benefits of current retirees to be severely cut is set to be attached to a massive spending bill, part of an effort to save some of the nation’s most distressed pension plans.

The rule would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers, many of them part of a shrinking corps of middle-income employees in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets....

Note the following example:

Whitlow Wyatt, 70, retired with a $3,300-a-month pension in 2000 after working more than 33 years as a long-haul driver. He could face pension reductions of 30 percent or more if Congress permits trustees of the hard-pressed pension fund to slash benefits.

Read the entire article HERE.

Just imagine what havoc these cuts would work upon the personal budgets of many already-retired, elderly retirees under the age of seventy-five!  Retirees who are over age seventy-five or disabled are exempt from the cuts.

The root of the financial troubles of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is an inverted pyramid of support for the pension plans.  There used to be four active workers or members for each retiree, but now the ratio is one active worker or member for every five retirees.

Meanwhile: Boehner gives $16,928 for each of the 56,000 youths, young adults and children who crossed the border during the 12 months up to October 2014.