With President Bush's plans to privative Social Security, people have begun to take a closer look at their retirement plans. A shrinking young workforce and a US economic market turning from bull to bear is putting the squeeze on union pension funds. According to the New York Times, the Teamsters pension fund, covering almost a half a million workers, has only sixty cents for every dollar owed. Kenneth Kenpath, National Organizer for Teamsters for a Democratic Union, says Teamsters have diverted a lot of their wage bargaining power into securing pension benefits.

[Kenpath1] "The employers have driven to erode early retirement, to eliminate health care for retirees which will force people to work longer until they get close to Medicare - to break down the good pensions that Teamsters have fought for."

If the pension fund were to fail, it would further strain the US government's Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation.