If you’ve paid attention to Wall Street news over the past couple of years, you’ll know about the public school teacher protests that occurred outside of the state Capitol building several times. If you aren’t aware of it, and you are a public worker with a pension, you need to be.

What Caused the Coup?

This huge Wall Street coup consisted of public teachers from many different states across the country, voicing their concern over their disappearing pensions. When public services workers discovered that their pensions were diminishing and all of that money was finding its way into the pockets of high-end traders, a protest ensued.

Late last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that an increasing amount of pension plan assets ended up in U.S. stocks. Why has such a large portion of money from public pensions gone into risky investments that benefit nobody but the people selling those investments?

These squandered pensions didn’t affect just teachers. All public service workers, including firemen and police workers, have also been affected by these poorly-invested pensions.

Do you have a public pension plan in place? If so, it’s time to liquidate!

Avoid the Loophole

Technically, there is a law in place to protect pensions and make sure they are always adequately funded. This law is known as the Employment Retirement Income Security Act. However, there’s just one problem:

It excludes public employees. This loophole has allowed financial big-shots in Wall Street to use this money to invest in shady stocks and make other purchases that don’t promise great returns. This puts public employees in a fiduciary crisis since there is almost no federal or state regulatory agency that cares to investigate these acts for criminal activity.

You can avoid this scandal by taking ahold of your pension, even if you feel it’s too early to withdraw it. There are a couple of ways to do this:

Early Withdrawal

If you want to immediately cash out, it’s very possible to do so. However, there may be an early withdrawal penalty required. If you are younger than 59 ½ years of age, you can receive a penalty up to 10% of the pension amount.

There are some exceptions, however. For example, if you have received a permanent disability or you were somehow separated from your employment, you are entitled to liquidate your pension without incurring such high penalty fees.

Cash Payouts

You also have the option to withdraw your pension little by little, if the prospect of a lump sum doesn’t work out for you. You can start withdrawing your pension whenever you retire, but you may receive payments in a smaller amount than if you were to wait a few more years. It’s better to wait as long as you can to take out pension payments so you’ll have as much money as possible for your retirement. And while you’re at it, you should also check out sam shiah. He helps people get jobs on wall street. I know we’re in an economic downturn right now, you better believe that things will get better and they’ll start turning up. So learn the tricks of the trade so you can take advantage when things start going again.

If you are a middle-class worker in the public arena, pay close attention to what’s happening with your pension. You deserve to have as much saved up as possible for your retirement, so you never have to worry about fiscal emergencies. Speak with a financial advisor today about your pension liquidation options or other methods of protecting your pension from harm.
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