The Retirees' Newsletter

The Retirees's Association ( Faculty, Librarian, Administrator), University of Windsor, Windsor, Ont. Canada

Vol X , No. 5, December 2000

Association News

A LIGHTER LOOK AT THE PENSION PLAN

Bill Phillips and Peter Burrell

AN UNOFFICIAL HOMILY ON MGB* AND MPP**

(*Minimum Guaranteed Benefit *Money Purchase Pension)

Brethren,

Today's text is taken from SCRIBES, v.1 and v.2.

VERSE ONE

THE MINIMUM GUARANTEED BENEFIT

I am on the MGB.

But please, dear friends, don't weep for me;

My MGB includes, you see,

What some would call a subsidy

Which sits atop my Money P.

That subsidy is paid to me

By the University,

To make sure every cheque will be

Equal to my MGB.

Now, in due time, my Money P.

May catch up to my MGB;

And when that happens, weep for me:

My subsidy's then history!

VERSE TWO

THE MONEY PURCHASE PENSION

And I am on the Money P...

Here my pension cheque, of course is

Buffeted by market forces.

Which means that I must needs abide

A constant roller-coaster ride.

Betimes I wonder, aren't we able

To keep that curve a bit more stable.

A four-year mean, or like device,

Could render planning more precise.

But I still watch my MGB,

Grateful that that subsidy

Is waiting reassuringly,

Should fortune turn its back on me.

ON VERSE ONE

In Verse One, our Scribe seems sensitive to the imageconveyed in the words "Minimum Guaranteed Benefit", which, to some, might bespeak a status only marginally above "Welfare Case". Perhaps to counter this image, our Scribe strives to say the nicest possible things about the MGB. The interplay he describes in Verse 1, between the Minimum Guaranteed Benefit and the Money Purchase Pension, illuminates some aspects of the pension which give even veteran retirees occasional difficulty.

Our scribe reminds us that, were he in fact to receive hisMoney Purchase Pension each month, he would actually be receiving less than his Minimum Guaranteed Benefit. (Strange. We usually equate Money Purchase with the best of all possible worlds. Can the lowly MGB really aspire to such Panglossian eminence, even temporarily?). It seems so. Read on.

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