Thanks for the chart! Couldn't help to notice that the primary transition seems to have been in the 1980s (we'll conveniently ignore the 1960's).
Wonder if these factors have anything to do with the more recent market expansions, and length.
What Happened to Private Sector Pensions?
(Article is biased but has a good link and a good timeline)
Here's some info on what took over pensions... 401k's--when did they start? In the 1980s...
Your 401(k): When It Was Invented—and Why
Wonder how much of our persistent lengthening expansions in the markets are directly related to the knowledge by the Fed that much of the US working population are reliant on 401k's for retirement?
Yes, it is interesting how conveniently the truth is hidden ~ bias.
I was a young lieutenant (commissioned in 1978) in the army when the effects of crashing the nation took hold. My father, mother, and brother came to visit (around 1980) our family, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I had originally enlisted in May 1969. They were seeing our daughter for the first time and our son for the second time and he was about five. We went to visit them at their hotel. My father was on the phone talking when my son ran over to him to say hi or something to that effect. My father shoved him away with force that almost knocked him over and he yelled at him to get away.
I did not confront my father for his behavior until he was around 87 years old or close to 2010. He was falling in the rabbit hole of dementia at the time. While I know the general information around what had happened to him, it was only at this confrontation did I talk to him about why we had thought ill of him for mistreating our son. My father was in extreme pain having lost his promotion and retirement and he was fighting for his livelihood at the time. I think I broke his heart when I told him our perspective.
It was about this time frame that the President conned congress into eliminating the "Double Dipping Law" as you may have heard of it. What that law did away with was pension reduction of senior military officers if they retired and went to work for the private sector. The law was aimed at preventing retirees from not only receiving their full retirement, but going to work for industrial military complex on the cheap since they already had a guaranteed monthly income with full medical benefits. What profiteering corporation would not love that employee pool ~ right?
Two things happen, first my father was denied his promotion to VP in Saudi operations within the corporation that builds airplanes like the B-2. My father had lived through WW II, schooled himself through a community college, worked his way up through management and they paid for his bachelor's degree at USC about the time I graduated from high school. That was a painful enough event for most fathers (losing a promotion), but the HR slug canned him hoping to prevent him from receiving his pension. That anger was the force behind my son Joshua being pushed and yelled at that morning.
My father's role in WW II was to assist in training the actual B-29 crew that eventually dropped the first atomic bomb. While my father was an NCO, he was frequently asked to train/retrain navigators.
That sad morning phone call was to his lawyer, a Saudi lawyer, that eventually won the case for my father based on his copious notes/documents that said he could retire after "X' number of years based on military service, you know back when our service was appreciated. Since the HR person or his boss jumped the retirement game, my father got a nice settlement. The downside was that his actual retirement checks only included one minor COLA adjustment over twenty years. Incase you do not understand inflation, that was a lot of money conned from him.
My father was not the only one to hit this glass ceiling, maybe your father did too. Women have since moved up so maybe today it is your mother being bumped by some military long term career soldier. Colonels and General retire with full pay, benefits and health care with an income north of 150K per year (plus inflation/COLA) for the rest of their life. The original thinking behind the full retirement was in the event of a war, our President wanted to pull these guys back quickly to rebuild the force, and not line their pockets with cash.
Oh, and under this same President, people receiving Social Security began being taxed on that income. Before that date Social Security was a non-taxable income.
Incase you want to attack me, I pay more in taxes than I receive in my military retirement. And, despite all that happened to my father on behalf of the private sector, my father never turned to white hate.
Now you know the rest of the story ~ biased
