Public Employee Press

Retirees blast lies about their pensions

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

GREEDY GEEZERS? Leeches on the taxpayers?

Around the country, vilifying retired public employees is a priority for the right-wing, antigovernment ideologues whose agenda includes destroying traditional pensions.

To DC 37 retirees who get by on modest pension checks and Social Security, plus investment income if they have any, the attacks are absurd and unfounded.

They enjoy the dignity and steady income provided by their pensions. But they are certainly not members of what conservatives call an "elite class."

Typical DC 37 pensioners in the New York City Employees Retirement System get about $18,000 a year. Living on fixed incomes, they become ever more anxious about coping with rising medical and household expenses as they age.

Nancy Yost, a former city Caseworker and Supervisor, receives just under $40,000 a year in combined pension and Social Security payments. She owns a one-bedroom Mitchell-Lama co-op in Brooklyn with a kitchen, bathroom, nice living room and a small balcony.

"When I retired in 1994, I was comfortable in the middle class," Yost said. "Now I am way at the bottom. I struggle to make ends meet because prices have all gone up."

Living day-to-day

With paltry savings, Yost said that virtually all her income goes toward meeting her maintenance fees and transportation, telephone, food, clothing and medical expenses. What's left over lets her enjoy the occasional night out.

Retired life is even more of a struggle for workers who made less on the job.

Local 372 retiree Sallie Robertson, who worked for 35 years as a School Crossing Guard, gets a $790 monthly pension and a $584 monthly Social Security check. She pays $600 a month in rent to share the first-floor apartment of a two-story home in Queens with a friend. Her granddaughter's family lives on the second floor.

"Thank God that I am living with them, because if I was somewhere else I would have a bigger bill to pay," Robertson said.

"You are trying to live day-to-day," said Robertson, who since her retirement in 2008 has struggled to cope with high credit-card debt and the burden of putting food on her table.

Local 384 retiree Rochelle Mangual, a former College Assistant, was forced out of what she called a luxury apartment in Harlem five years ago when the landlord boosted the rent to $1,400. She now lives in a $400-a-month senior housing apartment at 118th Street and Frederick Douglas Boulevard.

"If it weren't for living where I do, it would be a big struggle," said Mangual, whose annual pension and Social Security payments are less than $13,000. "I just can't go out and spend money."

And even with somewhat higher retirement income, union pensioners are nowhere near the elite.

Dominick Martino, 68, worked for the city for 26½ years to earn his pension before he retired in 2008 as a Principal Park Supervisor. He owns a one-bedroom apartment in Flushing, Queens, and receives about $60,000 each year through his pension and Social Security.

"I'm not doing too bad," Martino said. "But it's still tough."

Martino said he thinks twice about making major purchases or assuming new burdensome payments against his fixed income. His maintenance fee and mortgage cost nearly $1,000 a month, and another $200 goes toward co-pays for prescription drugs.

While DC 37 retirees feel secure because the state constitution protects their pensions, they worry about what will happen to current and future city employees if their traditional pensions are gutted, as those of their private-sector counterparts have been.

Class warfare

Currently, an estimated 50 percent of U.S. workers lack the savings necessary to maintain their current standard of living.

"I have lots of friends who live on just their Social Security," said Local 372 retiree Nellie Gonzalez Arce, a former office worker. "They have trouble making their rent, and paying for their food is hard for them. I can see in their eyes how they're suffering."

SSEU Local 371 retiree Neal Frumkin pointed out that except in a few cases where unions have succeeded in protecting the benefits, corporations have virtually wiped out traditional pensions in the private sector.

"Now they are coming after us," he said, with conservatives and Wall Street interests targeting public-sector pensions. "What we are looking at is class warfare."

If the campaign against public-employee pensions succeeds, Martino said, "People won't be able to survive."