Government begins first step in pension confiscation and denying retirees their earned benefits
SecretsOfTheFed.com
5/5/2015
One of the best open secrets in working for a public entity during one’s career is the ability to double dip on retirement and pensions plans. For example, if someone joins the military at age 18 and stays in for 20 years, they are guaranteed a percentage of the average of their highest three year pay period. Then, as the ‘retiree’ would only be 38 years old, if they were hired into a civil service position, or even as a U.S. Postal worker, they would be eligible for a second pension if they retired after another 20+ years with that organization.
But in the private sector it appears now that workers will not be given the same accommodation as a hidden rider placed within the most recent budget bill by Congress will allow the government to take or confiscate up to 60% of a workers earned retirement if they fall under the parameters of a multi-employee union.
A provision included in the $1.1 trillion spending bill that passed in the final days of the last Congress creates the possibility that certain current and future retirees could have their pension payments reduced by 60% — a prospect that experts say has been virtually unheard of until now.
“I think that this kind of takes an important step back from what has always been just a bedrock principle that you can’t cut back on benefits that have already been earned,” said Gregg Dooge, an attorney at Foley & Lardner in Milwaukee who has practiced pension law for 30 years.
The Rest…HERE
