• 50-30-20
• Savings & Investing
• Retirement
• Insurance
• Staying Healthy a an Electrician

IBEW Retirement

Last update:  March 26, 2026

Your to-do list

1. Set up an account at EmpowerMy (annutiy) and give me the login so I can make sure Rosendin paid everything they were supposed to into your annuity.
2. Continue putting 20% of your paycheck into Emergency Savings, until you've built as much as you need.  (50/30/20 strategy)
3. Once you’ve built Emergency Savings, put any extra into IBEW’s 401(k) plan, because it’s tax-free.  You can start it when you start with a new contractor, or January, or July.  You ask the Contractor to take it out of your paycheck.

IBEW retirement plans compared

(1) See “Where to put your 20%...” below.

(2) Pension value.  See separate section below.

(3) 401(k) being tax-free.  Two flavors: With a traditional 401(k) your contributions are tax-free, you pay tax when you start withdrawing.  With Roth IRA you pay tax on your contributions but your withdrawals are tax-free.  It’s hard to say which is better, depends on your income tax rate at retirement.  Since you have to choose something, Roth IRA is probably safest. 

Where to put your 20% after building Emergency Savings

While you can put your own $ into the Annuity, you generally shouldn’t.

As per 50/30/20 you should be putting 20% of your after-tax earnings into investments, and you can put $23k into the 401(k) tax free, which is what you should do as long as you’re making less than $115/yr.

Once you start making more than $115k/yr. and you’ve maxed out your 401(k), open a Roth IRA account which lets you put in more $ tax-free.

Once you’ve maxed out your Roth IRA, it's better to put the 20% into a personal brokerage account (like Robinhood) rather than the Annuity, because you can't touch the annuity until you retire, and you get more diversity with your own account.  Look into Motley Fool and REITs.

So, you’ll start with IBEW’s 3 plans, then eventually open a 4th (Roth IRA), then a 5th (personal brokerage account).

401(k)

It’s called a 401(k) because that’s the section of the tax code that authorizes it.

Contributions you make reduce your taxes in the year you make them.  When you withdraw at retirement, you pay taxes at that time, but you’ll probably be in a lower tax bracket then.

Example for the present:

$80,000 income

-15,000 put into 401(k)

$65,000 taxable income

Annuity details

Note to self:  This is from the (new) mid-2025 CBA, on my SSD.

Periods.  IBEW is super inconsistent about how they count periods.  In the member section the website they say it's by hours worked (1500 hours each for P3-P6, which would be 9 months), but the CBA says P3+P4 are each a full year, then P5 + P6 happen in the same year

Why I thought your annuity payments by Rosendin were short.  Under the old contract, annuity payments didn't start until Period 2.  Under the new contract, Period 1 payments are 1%, Period 2 payments are 3%.  Remind me to check your online account to make sure you got everything you're entitled to.

How much Rosendin pays in.  From p. 14, amount the employer kicks in, monthly (not necessarily every paycheck), percentage of your earnings.  The years don’t match the periods, I think IBEW screwed up the description.  I'm waiting for a reply from Austin ETA / JATC.

1. Y1, P1:  1% (0% under old contract)
2. Y1, P2:  3%
   __________
3. Y2, P3:  3%
   __________
4. Y3, P4:  5%
   __________
5. Y4, P5:  5%
6. Y4, P6:  8%

What IBEW calls its “Annuity” isn’t a real annuity.  This doesn’t really matter to you, but since you like to know stuff, here’s the difference.

Pension details

1. The punchline is that it’s not worth very much, whether you retire early or not.  The real value is your 401(k) and annuity.
2. The full amount is $38.50/mo for every year you worked. (2026 rate).  So if you work for 21 years (retire at 47), you’ll get $809/mo. for life.  But you can’t start getting paid anything until age 60, and you can’t start getting the full amount until age 62.
3. You lose to inflation between your retirement age and the year you start taking the pension.  Retire at 47, start getting payments at 62, amount you get feels way less because of inflation.
4. The payments are fixed, not adjusted for inflation!  The amount they pay never increases, so it’s worth less and less each year because of inflation.
5. Putting all this together, your $809/mo. pension will feel like $278/mo. by the time you get it at age $62, and it will feel like less and less every year.  (With 3% inflation, the math for that is:  (38.5 x 21) *0.97³⁵.)   I didn’t put the pension in your spreadsheet because the amount is so small.
   
6. NEBF sometimes increases the rate you’ll get when you retire, but not often.  They once went 20 years with no increase, and in 2024, they increased it by a measly $1.  If they increase it, it’ll apply only to your earnings going forward, your old earnings will earn at the old rate.
7. You have to work at least 1000 hours a year (half time) to get credit towards your pension for that year.
   
8. The amount you get depends on when you start receiving payments, whether you work a little before retirement.  You can’t get any $ until age 60, and if you retire ~47 then by 60 it will be almost worthless.  The calculations are in your spreadsheet.

Social Security

1. The punchline is that it won’t be very much, if Social Security even exists by your 60s.  Republicans have never liked it, are trying to kill it, and it's already on shaky ground financially.  If it does exist by the time you get to your 60s, benefits will probably be greatly reduced, and even now it's not enough to live on, the idea was to just make sure you wouldn't starve.  I think my mother's is $1500/mo. and she worked into er 60s, I think.  They do adjust the amount you get each year for inflation.
2. You can start getting payments at any age between 62 to 67.  The older you are when you start taking them, the more you get.
3. Yours won't be very much if you retire at 47.  It's based on how many years you work.