General Electric is pulling the plug on its pension plan, and that’s a surefire way to derail workers’ retirement planning.
GE GE, +0.72% announced earlier this month it was freezing pensions for 20,000 employees with salaried benefits in an attempt to reduce its $8 billion pension deficit, and that it would also freeze supplementary pension benefits for about 700 workers. Current retirees already receiving their pension payments will not be affected and no new hires have been enrolled in the pension plan since 2012.
When a pension is frozen, it is no longer earning benefits, but it is still federally insured and employees do receive whatever amount of money was already accrued. Still, it means potential earnings are lost and workers must scramble to create a plan to ensure they have enough money in the future for their retirements (usually by saving their own dollars, as opposed to relying on their company to do so).
Read more: GE freezes worker pensions — what to do if your employer changes the terms of your retirement plan