Originally Posted by
boxboy
A little example a mechanic who has been here 20 years and is 55 years old.
Has a high 5 or 100K per year was expecting 50K per year at retirement age of 60. He will now be lucky to get 40K per year a 20% reduction over a lifetime. You can't recover from that.
Now imagine a United captain who has worked there for 30 years. He was expecting somewhere in the 180k-200k range at retirement. Now he's lucky if he gets 30K. A huge, huge reduction in benefits. As well, where the mechanic described above can probably work past 60 if he so desires, currently that same United captain must stop work the day before his 60th birthday. So you tell me, just based on the numbers, whose in worse shape? How do you recover from that?
By the way, for someone whose pension was taken back (stolen) in 2005, the maximum benefit for someone that retired at 65 was $45,614 a year, whereas if one retired at age 60, the maximum was $29,649. The above from the Federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.