Outliving Pensions

Out living your pensions, we, who had a good pension 20 years ago when we retired, have seen our monthly pay slowly drain away. With a pension there is no savings and the saving we had when working also slips away to make up the difference in our pension shortcomings. This is if we were lucky enough to stash money away while working and not experiencing any major setbacks, like an illness, house fire, or natural disaster. Just keeping with repairs on a house can be drain a budget even if you are skilled enough to have the health and knowledge to do the repairs yourself and not have to hire someone to do the work for you or let your largest investment deteriorate, which will impact the value on your house should you need to sale it. So, what can a person do to compensate their income? If they are lucky and have good health, they might be able to find a job, but a job that compensates a 65 to 80 year old for their knowledge and experience might be difficult to find. If you can find a job, you can slow down the bleeding of your pension and still go out to eat and keep up with gas prices, yearly increases by insurance, taxes, utilities and healthcare costs, which out pace the pensions. This is where a universal basic income (UBI) for all comes into play and would solve a lot of the squeezing seniors are feeling as they outlive their pensions. If this blood letting of the pensions with the cost of living hikes without equal compensation to the pensions doesn’t stop, there will be more elderly homelessness, bankruptcies, moving in with their children, and a huge drag on the economy. Ten years ago, a retired person with a good pension was an asset to our country as they were not a burden to the country’s programs. They spent their time and money supporting their community’s social infrastructure. We are moving from an asset to a burden with no or little healthcare, no home and no spare cash to spend. If we’re able to find a job, we just took it from a younger person who is trying to get ahead or take care of their family. Things need to change. We need free healthcare, that includes eye, dental and homecare, like other countries have. The cost of living, like utilities, fuel, good food (not the process foods that are making people sick) could be offset by a UBI. Once you retire and your pension starts, it will never get better. So if you retired 10 or 20 years ago, your money is worth less today than it did when you retired. Remember, if you work after retirement, you will still have to pay taxes on that income and pay into Social Security, but you won’t get it back. So you get hammered two ways. Think about this when you get ready to retire and when you vote for a Republican. Remember the laws and legislations implemented against workers and now hurt us little people were implemented by Republicans and every time you watch Fox “news,” you’re being fed lies, distortions and propaganda from corporations destined to take everything you have to support their insatiable greed. If you think you can compete with the big boys in the Stock Market, think again. Unless you know what you’re doing, get in on good stocks early and have a lot of money to invest, your money is chump change and you are a minnow among sharks. When you shop, are you unwittingly supporting your demise by spending your money supporting people or corporations who do you harm? So, what little you have left to spend, spend it where it won’t come back to bite you in the ass. When you go to a local store, look for the chamber of commerce signs in the window. These businesses and the chambers are against unions, but still want your pension money. Before buying anything, ask yourself, ‘is this a need or a want?’ You’ll be surprised at what you can live without, and make your money go further.