Welcome to the year’s final edition of This Week in Pensions! We have gathered the best stories about pensions and retirement security from the previous week. This is the news you need to know in the fight for a secure retirement.
Here are the top stories from this week:
WY Retirees Face Steep Health Insurance Increases by Eric Galatas. In this article for Public News Service, Galatas writes about the elevated health care costs Wyoming’s retired public employees are facing. In December, the cost of their health coverage increased by 12 percent, taking a significant bite out of many retirees’ pension benefits. “There’s a lot of state employees and retirees that don’t make a lot of money,” said Joe McCord, a retired public employee. “They’re living on a very small amount of money. And it needs to be adjusted – that health insurance needs to work for the people.”
State retirees need an inflation adjustment by Owen Jones. In a follow-up piece to an op-ed written by Verna Kay Garcia for the Casper Star-Tribune, Jones writes a letter to the editor about why the state’s retired public employees need an inflation adjustment. Similar to the points brought up in Galatas’ article about the rising cost of health care, Jones highlights the fact that there hasn’t been an inflation adjustment in the state in 12 years and urges retirees to contact their representatives in the state legislature to support this much-needed measure.
More Americans are working into old age by Aimee Picchi. Picchi reports on why more Americans are staying in the workforce past the conventional retirement age of 65. According to the U.S. Census, “between 2014 and 2018, the share of seniors age 65 to 74 who are employed reached almost 26% between 2014 and 2018, up from 25.2% in the prior five-year period.” Picchi points out that a lack of retirement savings is a major reason why many older Americans remain in the workforce because “for people who earn less than $50,000 a year, the typical total retirement savings is a meager $3,000.”
Be sure to check back in the new year for the latest news in the fight for a secure retirement!
