IBEW Pension

According to the IBEW 520 website, they offer both an Annuity and a Pension.

Annuity

Pension
How Funded Worker makes contributions, union or employer matches up to a certain %
 Funded completely by the company or union
Value The value of the account is specific to the worker.  Depends on how much the worker put in, how much the union or employer contributed, and the rate of return. Each worker gets the same amount, adjusted for how much they worked.
Control You have some say in how the money is invested.
 Employer or union makes all the decisions, you have no say.
Risk Investment is at risk. Employer or union guarantees the payout (no risk).

Pension details

  1. The 2025 PDF of the plan.
  2. You earn "credits" from work hours.  You get one credit for every year you work at least 1000 hours.  You can’t get more than one credit per year.
  3. The benefit is $33 x your credits.  Let's say you work full time until 47, then half-time until 65,  That's 39 years x $33 = $1287/mo.  That's not a lot, but it’s in addition to the annuity, and your own private investments.  And I presume that amount is adjusted for inflation every year or so.
  4. The amount you get depends on when you start receiving payments.  Your options seem to be to work full-time until about age 47, and then:
    1. Work half-time until 55, then 8 weeks in any one year after that, then start getting the full pension at age 62.
    2. Work half-time until 55, then 8 weeks in any one year after that, then start getting a reduced pension at age 60 or 61.  At age 60 you get 81.5%, at age 61 you get 90.75%.
    3. Retire completely at age 47 and forget the pension.

1/16/2026

Shion, here's my take on your Annuity Statement:

(1) You have two kinds of retirement, Annuity and Pension. They're detailed on your website.

(2) The contractor puts money into your Annuity plan, and you're supposed to put your own money in as a payroll deduction. It doesn't look like you're putting in your own money. I strongly suggest you call the Hall and see if you can get that set up. If you have a choice as to how much to put in, put in at least as much as your employer is putting in.

(3) Rosendin put in half what I expected. To verify how much they were supposed to put in, I need to see the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement). It's not on IBEW 520's public website. It might be available if you log in with your account, but probably not. They probably gave you a copy at some point. If you can't find it, you should absolutely get a copy from the Hall. This dramatically affects your retirement. Even if we find that the amounts are proper, we still need to know what the numbers are each year in order to plan for your retirement.

(4) The statement says you can get details on the annuity with the Empower app or at EmpowerMyRetirement.com. I strongly suggest you do that. It might have some of the answers I'm looking for, but even if it doesn't, it will be useful to you.

(5) The $25 fee is annual, and it's normal. This year the fee was more than the return on your investments, but as your investments grow, at some point your return will be bigger than the fee.

(6) You got about 12% on your investments, before the $25 fee.