September 18, 2010
Most of the elite have contempt for the portion of the American population that does not have at least 6-figure incomes, however the Washington Post stands out in its willingness to express this contempt so openly. Back in the fall of 2008, when the government was crafting bailouts worth tens of millions of dollars to the likes of Robert Rubin, Lloyd Blankfein, and other well-connected Wall Street types, the Post was frothing at the idea that the government might help protect the jobs of autoworkers earning $27 an hour.
This contempt was fully visible again today when the Post ran an editorial complaining that UAW members who were employees of Delphi, GM’s former auto parts division, would get their full pensions. By contrast, the editorial complained that Delphi’s management personnel had their pension plan taken over by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) and as a result would get just “pennies on the dollar.”
We all know how infuriating it must be to the Post that ordinary working people might get pensions that can sustain a middle class living standard, but they are entitled to their class hatred. However the “pennies on the dollar” claim is more than a bit of a stretch. The PBGC guarantees a benefit of up to $4,500 a month for a worker retiring at age 65. That may be “pennies on the dollar” in Washington Post land, but it’s more than most of the rest of us can expect to live on in retirement.
It’s true that workers who retire at younger ages will likely take substantial hits on their pension, but this is more likely to be an issue for UAW members who do manual labor on the factory floor than the management personnel who hold desk jobs. The latter are certainly better positioned to work into their 60s than the former.
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