WATERVLIET ARSENAL, N.Y. (Sept. 10, 2014) -- For more than 200 years, the arsenal has experienced the countless ebb and flow of retirees departing and new employees coming in to take their place.
Tens of thousands from the local community have toiled in arsenal machine shops and administrative offices to not only provide the nation's Soldiers with the tools that have made them successful on the battlefield, but also to provide a good, middle-class life for their families.
For many of those who made a career out of providing tank and artillery barrels to the troops, they had beliefs that if they planned well for their retirement that when they did retire they could truly enjoy their Golden Years.
But for every generation of workers, there have been pitfalls, if not significant challenges to their ability to enjoy life after they departed the arsenal fence line for the last time. From the depressions in the 1830s, 1890s, and the 1930s, to the Great Recession of recent years, the arsenal workforce has had to adjust to events beyond their control in order to provide for their families and for themselves in later years.
No matter how well the arsenal worker may have planned for unintended and unforeseen circumstances, the great unknown always lurked in the shadows to disrupt their best laid plans. This disruption showed no mercy whether the worker was a machinist or a supervisor.
After all, the arsenal is a microcosm of the larger American society.
In a CBS 60 Minutes program in 2002, newsman Mike Wallace asked Nancy Reagan, the former First Lady, about her retirement with the former president who was then suffering through the advance stages of the Alzheimer's disease.
After being diagnosed with Alzheimer's, President Ronald Reagan knew the years would be tough on Nancy and the family. He penned a letter to the American public in 1994 and in it he said, "Unfortunately, as Alzheimer's progresses, the family often bears a heavy burden. I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from the painful experience."
He could not. Nancy said in that interview that the Golden Years were essentially not golden. They (Golden Years) turned out to be very short with no memories to exchange.
Nancy Reagan's plight goes on in households all across America, as well as the arsenal. No matter how much one plans for the day they retire, their life in retirement may not be what they planned.
Just in the last 30 days, there have been more than 13,000 articles written regarding the challenges that today's retiree's face according to the Google website. What may be the biggest threat to one's Golden Years are the unknown, unforeseen consequences of economic and political forces on society.
Here are a few examples…
City of Detroit retirees had paid into their retirement system throughout their careers. They had budgeted and saved during a lifetime of work toward what they believed to be a certain retirement future. But when the city recently filed for bankruptcy, all bets were off as city retirees' benefits were reduced to help bailout the city.
Many servicemen and women in the U.S. military also had long believed that their retirement was untouchable. Then sequestration kicked in, which mandated a loss of billions of dollars toward defense spending. One of the consequences of sequestration and a reduced budget is that the military retirement system is now under threat of being tampered with.
The Defense Department is not only looking at ways to reduce the amount of future cost of living allowances provided to military retirees, it is also looking at raising the cost for health insurance for those who have already retired.
And the military retirement system is not the only defined retirement plan that has been changed or is being targeted for potential future change all in the name of saving money. Of course, the savings often come by reducing benefits to its stakeholders.
Just take a look at America's number one retirement savings program - Social Security.
Social Security was established during the Great Depression when President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law on Aug. 14, 1935, the Social Security Act.
According to Roosevelt, "Long before the economic blight of the depression descended on the Nation, millions of our people were living in wastelands of want and fear. Men and women too old and infirm to work either depended on those who had but little to share, or spent their remaining years within the walls of a poorhouse . . ."
The federal Social Security website gives the impression that the disintegration of the extended family, where children, parents, grandparents, and other family members closely lived, contributed to this blight on society in the 1930s. The extended family was driven primarily by families who lived on farms and in rural communities. As a family member became too old or disabled to work, the family and local community would step in to provide lifelong support. But as family members moved to the cities, the extended family support system no longer existed for millions of Americans.
Nearly 50 years after Roosevelt signing of the Social Security Act, spiraling costs created a groundswell of concern in Congress to reform Social Security in order to secure the solvency of the Trust Fund.
President Ronald Reagan signed into law: The Social Security Amendments of 1983 (H.R. 1900, Public Law 98-21), which contained two provisions that effected when an individual is eligible to retire with full benefits. One key provision of that law increased the full-retirement age from 65 to 67.
The Congressional Budget Office today states that funding Social Security is the largest outlier of federal funds within the government, and expense that exceeded $800 billion in 2013. There has been recent discussions in Congress that has once again brought to the forefront the challenges of maintaining the solvency of the Social Security program. Reagan's 1983 Amendment did not establish a long-term solution.
So, how much stake do you put into an expected return on your Social Security retirement and will the rules change again after you hit retirement?
And if tweaks to your future financial picture may not give you much concern, what about rising medical expenses.
In a July 2, 2014, New York Times article titled "Insurers on New York State's Health Exchange Seek Significant Rate Increases," the Affordable Care Act that was supposed to provide affordable insurance through New York state health exchanges may not be all that affordable, after all.
According to the article, some New Yorkers may pay as much as 28 percent more for their insurance next year.
In a July 2014 article on the Inventing Daily website, trying to get a handle on future healthcare costs is critical to financially sustaining retirement.
For today's generation of arsenal workers who are nearing retirement, they have suffered through three major stock market crashes. In 1990, the Dow Jones dropped nearly 17 percent in a three-month period. In 2000, the Dow Jones dropped nearly 16 percent, while in 2001, the Nasdaq stock exchange dropped more than 50 percent. During the time period 2007 -- 2010, the Dow Jones and Nasdaq both had losses exceeding 50 percent.
When one can't control outside influences on their financial planning, or when one doesn't know how the rules will change after they retire, trying to plan well for one's Golden Years may be dubious at best.
Or is it?
Rose Sopok had worked at the arsenal for 30 years when she retired in February 2012. During her tenure, she worked in supply, finance, advance technology, and in information management.
Rose said that working at the arsenal was like working with family. She watched coworkers get married, have children, see their children marry, and then have grandchildren. Coworkers were her family in hard times, as well as in good times. Rose's oldest son recently graduated from Siena College with a Finance degree. Her second son is a junior at Siena College studying Computer Science, and her daughter will be entering 9th grade.
"I didn't think about retirement until five years before retiring," Rose said. "At that point I think it became more than a financial decision; it was also about what I was going to do with myself to stay busy.
Retirement has allowed Rose to follow her lifelong passion in teaching. She works as a substitute teacher for St. Ambrose School in Latham.
She said she was very fortunate to have the opportunity to retire. Proper planning and saving for retirement is critical.
"Life is far from boring." Rose said. "It is critical to stay mentally and physically active, versus, just sitting around."
Just back from Florida, arsenal retirees Robert and Deborah Hengsterman had a lot to say about their retirement, as well as the planning it took to provide them the golden years that they dreamed of. After 47 years of marriage, they certainly deserve it.
Both Bob and Debbie graduated from the arsenal's machinist apprentice program; Bob in 1981 and Debbie in 1987. Bob said he feels as if he went through the apprentice program twice ̶ once for him and again when Debbie went through. They both retired in 2005.
Just as there is life after the arsenal, there was life before the arsenal.
While Bob was serving in the U.S. Navy, he married Debbie. They set up residence at Norfolk, Va., where Debbie stayed while Bob deployed on the USS Forrestal to Vietnam. Bob served from 1965 to 1969.
After having worked with a phone company for about 15 years, Bob made the transition to the arsenal and Debbie quickly followed.
She said that after years of raising her four children she needed to be with people who were taller than her waistline. Bob said the arsenal gave him the gift that he always longed for, a college education.
In 1995, Bob got serious about planning for retirement. He put a mark on the wall that they would retire in 2005, and then he built a 10-year plan that would support their leaving the arsenal on their time line. That challenge became a little easier when the last of their children graduated college. All four of their children graduated college.
"I thought Bob was a little crazy when he started planning for retirement 10 years out," Debbie said. "But when I look back now, given the great life we have, his planning worked out very well."
Bob said his plan required diversity to account for any major fluctuations in any one investment. And so, he built a retirement plan that included a mixture of stocks, Certificates of Deposits, Social Security, arsenal retirement, and home investment.
Critical to the plan was active, continuous management, Bob said. As financial conditions changed, so did his investment allocation. Such as his maxing out his contributions into their 401(k) plans when all the kids had graduated college.
He also targeted a percentage of their final income as what they would live on and have found that in retirement, that percentage has worked out. They haven't had to dip into any of their retirement savings.
And so, here they are nearly nine years into retirement and they do not have any current financial worries. In 2010, they bought a house in Florida just as the real estate market collapsed, and now travel to Florida about three times a year. They are also NASCAR fans and travel to several of the races each year. They camp in Connecticut during the summer and like to attend festivals in the Northeast.
The bottom line is that their golden years are working out well due in large part to their methodical investing toward 2005, as well as their active management of their investments after retirement.
So, planning for a good retirement, even in a world of unknowns, is not impossible. Although one may have little control of the external forces that will affect their retirement, if they actively plan and plan for the worst case, the golden years should be attainable for everyone at Watervliet.
Remember, you can't take out a loan to finance your retirement.
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Watervliet Arsenal
-The Watervliet Arsenal is an Army-owned-and-operated manufacturing facility and is the oldest, continuously operating arsenal in the United States, having begun operations during the War of 1812. It celebrated its 200th anniversary in July 2013.
-Today's arsenal is relied upon by U.S. and foreign militaries to produce the most advanced, high-tech, high-powered weaponry for cannon, howitzer, and mortar systems. This National Historic Registered Landmark has an annual economic benefit to the local community in excess of $90 million.
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