Do you have a pension?

[Berlin Vet]

49. One of the Best

I receive a pension from one of the best pension programs, a military retirement. My pension amount was based on the number of years and months that I served and the rank that I retired at. The pension does receive (almost) yearly increases, but not a huge amount. The other great thing about my retirement is the Survivor Benefit Program it has. Basically if I die tomorrow my wife would get half of my retirement for the rest of her life but it would stop if she remarried.
Donald Bartlett and James Steele, reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote a book called "America: What Went Wrong?" which was published in 1992. They devoted an entire chapter on disappearing pensions that began in the 1980's. If you've never read this book, you should, and you could probably could find in on Abe Books for a few bucks.
I've only been political awake for about 10 years ago but I asked myself, did the Democrats do anything about the destruction of pensions when it started happening? Allowing companies to hollow out their pensions to enrich management should never have been allowed.