A Word About Retirement Planning
Your Metro service pension and Social Security benefits are important sources of retirement income. However, they were never intended to fully replace your income from active employment. Any way you look at it, you'll likely need more for retirement than you think. Here's why:
- You could outlive your savings . With today's longer life expectancies, the average American enjoys more than 20 years of retirement.
- Over time, inflation takes a big bite out of your buying power . What seems like a comfortable retirement income today may be less than you'll need 10 or 15 years down the road. As costs continue to rise, your dollars have to stretch farther to make ends meet.
Long before you retire, you should compare the income you expect to have at retirement to what you'll need to live on comfortably once you've stopped working. If there's a gap between the two, you'll have to make it up through other income, such as a retirement benefit from another employer, your spouse's pension, or personal savings.
To make it easier for you to build personal savings, Metro sponsors a 457 Deferred Compensation Plan — the MetroMax Plan. You can read more about MetroMax and its advantages and about your Social Security benefits later in this section.
It's important to learn as much as you can about your service pension and its role in your retirement. Then, armed with all the facts about your potential sources of retirement income, you can begin to plan for a financially secure and “golden” tomorrow.
Metro offers a training course for employees interested in retirement planning. For details, visit the Training website.