Trumka: Retirement Security Promise Must Be Kept

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/10/21/trumka-retirement-security-promise-must-be-kept/

by Seth Michaels, Oct 21, 2009



The ability to retire after a lifetime of hard work is not just an economic issue, it’s a moral one, said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, speaking today at the Retirement USA “Re-Envisioning Retirement Security” conference.

Joining U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and an array of experts and leaders, Trumka took part in a conversation about the breakdown of the promise of retirement security and what we need to do to restore it.

Trumka called the retirement security crisis one that

threatens American workers with yet another painful consequence of the “you’re on your own” social and economic model of the last thirty years.

Trumka noted that while day-to-day headlines focus on the short-term impact of the economic crisis, its effect on workers’ pensions and their ability to save for the future has been equally devastating.

In the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, Trumka said, the union movement helped to build a strong system for retirement security that included three important factors: Social Security, personal savings and private defined-benefit pensions:

As a result of these efforts, our parents could retire after a career of hard work, confident of a stable income they would not outlive. They could sleep at night knowing that should they die, their spouse would continue to have a dependable income. For millions of Americans—teachers and bus drivers, factory workers and flight attendants, construction workers and nurses—these reliable, employer-funded pensions made their lives immeasurably better.

Unfortunately, policy choices in recent decades have eroded the essential systems of retirement security. As bargaining power for workers disappeared, so did their pensions. As wages stagnated and personal debt skyrocketed, workers were less and less able to save for the future. Trumka noted that only 13 percent of workers say they’re very confident they’ll have enough money to retire. And since it’s harder than ever to afford retirement, we’re seeing older workers taking entry-level jobs—making it even harder for younger workers to get a start on the career ladder.

FULL story at link.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for labor. n/t

:dem:

-Laelth