What would you do in my situation re:pension?

[lightmyfire]

Hello,

I am currently on the fence on what to do about my pension when I leave my university job next year. I pay into a defined pension system which ostensibly would result in an annuity of about $9000 when I reach 65. If I cashed out my contributions ($39,000 which I could roll over into an IRA) I would lose the university contributions but have those years to likely earn much higher interest and end up with more money in the long run. I ran the numbers to age 90 and (assuming 7% returns) it makes mathematical sense to take the lump sum.

Still, part of me thinks it would be worth it to keep the peace of mind of a guaranteed annuity. But with all the recent economic volatility I'm also concerned that the pension could dissolve or be decreased. What are the chances of this in a state education system?

What do you all think?

[reeshau]

You shouldn't necessarily compare your pension returns to potential stock returns--unless you have the stomach to go 100% stocks.  Rather, they act like a bond portion of your portfolio.  So, a good comparison would be on your own (with your mix of stocks and bonds) or including pension, with bonds reduced accordingly.

I have a small pension, which has actually ended up with the PBGC.  Fortunately, in my case I am 100% whole, and now have crossed the bridge about plan viability.  You are right to also be concerned with your plan's future; that will be something you live with for the rest of your life.  But many--outside, say, Illinois--are in OK shape.  Only you can determine which scenario brings more sleepless nights: doing it on your own, or trusting someone else as a backup / supposedly safe money.

Learn the details of your plan; you might even take a consultation with a financial planner who works with people in your university or is otherwise familiar with your pension plan and can help explain it's status to you.  (and potentially follow up with you every so often--look for someone who will work on an hourly basis)

It's a big decision, but look at it this way:  you have an option many other people don't have.  View it that way, as a blessing, and move forward with the best choice for you.

[bmjohnson35]

I'm expecting to collect a similar size pension when I hit 55 in 2025.  If I had a similar option as you describe, I would not cash out. One of the weaknesses of my portfolio is the minimal income sources during early retirement.  I suppose it's up to your personal portfolio makeup and which option feels like a lower risk to you.  I did not factor in my pension when I decided I was ready to pull the ripcord on FIRE earlier this year.  Like you, there is no guarantee the pension will remain solvent during my lifetime, but I figure there is enough protections in place to help the odds.

Good Luck,
BJ   

[skiersailor]

You really have to study your own pension plan in order to make an informed decision about its funding status and the likelihood of it being able to pay your promised benefits.  It's not enough simply to take the pension's published funding status at face value - you need to know what assumptions were used to calculate it.  For example, a pension may declare that it is 85% funded and has a funding improvement plan in place to reach 100% within ten years.  That sounds reasonable, but if their underlying assumptions are pure fantasy then so is the funding status and the improvement plan.  Why would a pension overstate its funding status?  Because whatever employer contributes to it cannot afford the contributions that would be required to make the pension whole using more reasonable assumptions.

I've been closely following the funding status of a pension plan in my industry and have seen firsthand how deceptive pension forecasts can be.  Having downloaded the plan's annual 5500 disclosure statements and compared the trustees' projections to the plan's historical performance over the last decade, I've concluded that this plan's annual funding statements cannot be trusted.  Here are some examples:

projected annual rate of return net of investment expenses: 7.5%
actual CAGR over trailing 10 years (during the longest bull market in history): 6.0%

projected hours worked: level
actual hours worked: 40% decline over trailing 10 years

And the most significant indicator of future problems for this pension is that the number of retirees exceeded the number of active participants (i.e. working employees) about ten years ago and the gap continues to widen.  For a plan that is underfunded, this trend makes it very difficult to achieve full funding.

Note that I had to calculate the actual historical trends myself.  The 5500s only disclose performance data one year at a time, so it's not easy to critique the pension's assumptions.

So when this pension declares that it is 75% funded or 85% funded or whatever, I don't believe it.  The math is similar to a Ponzi scheme that hasn't yet collapsed, and you can't trust pension trustees who continue to use unrealistic assumptions to justify their projections.

TLDR: Look at your plan's 5500 and judge for yourself whether or not you can believe your pension's projections.  If their numbers don't add up, then take your money out while you can.  Your opportunity to claw back your own contributions is rare - most participants are stuck with whatever their pension (or the PBGC) can afford to pay in benefits when the time comes.  Also note that the PBGC is expected to be insolvent by 2025 due to the multiemployer pension fiasco, so you can't count on that backstop.

You should be able to locate your plan's 5500 reports here.  The easiest way to search is by EIN, because many plans have similar names.

https://www.efast.dol.gov/portal/app/disseminatePublic

Pay attention to about the first 20 pages, but also skip to the end and read the actuarial report.  That can be interesting because it's the responsibility of the actuaries to use reasonable assumptions and this is the section where you can see if they are trying to dodge responsibility by attributing those assumptions to someone else (like the pension trustees or the federal government which may explicitly allow high rate of return assumptions).