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Power Breakfast: Pensions, Atlanta City Council, GM, oil

6:02 am July 6, 2009, by Henry Unger

It’s not a pretty time to be close to retirement.

The stock market decline has turned many 401(k) plans into 201(k) accounts that will take a long time to rebuild.

Now, AJC reporter Russell Grantham writes that many big Atlanta-based companies are freezing or changing their pension plans. Employees will get less in the future, as a result.

It’s a nationwide trend. Only 17 percent of private-sector workers are covered by traditional defined-benefit pensions, and that percentage will be declining.

The burden is shifting to workers at a time when many are hit with rising health-care costs, a freeze in wages and growing unemployment.

Many are postponing their retirement plans, hoping to work longer and build a bigger reserve.

This recession is changing more than anyone initially realized.

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