Congressmen Conyers Pension is that High!
Now that Democrat Congressmen form Detroit John Conyers has resigned we now find out how much he will be extracting from the taxpaying public in the form of a pension.
You are not going to believe how much he will get in his pension, keep in mind that as a Congressman he was making $174,000 a year.
The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Congressmen Conyers:
could qualify for a yearly pension of as much as $139,200
This high amount appears to be given to members who joined Congress before the mid-1980s’. I am flabbergasted that we taxpayer’s have to pay a pension of that amount for an elected official
The Detroit Free Press did a calculation of Conyers' pension benefit for his 53 years in office and according to that calculation he would make:
between a congressional package and Social Security more than $230,000 a year but for rules limiting pension to no more than 80% of current pay
You may be asking yourself what might happen to his benefits if something comes of the investigations into his sexual harassment allegations. Apparently nothing because the allegations against him shouldn't affect his benefits, partly due to the fact that now that he has resigned the Ethics Committee investigation against him will probably be dropped.
The only way a member of Congress and other federal employees can forfeit their retirement benefits, is only “if they are convicted of a federal crime related to corruption, espionage, treason or another national security offense”.
Members of Congress who were elected after the mid-80’s do collect less than former Congressmen Conyers would depending on how long they were in office.
For instance according to Factcheck.org:
CRS, June 13: Members of Congress are eligible for a pension at the age of 62 if they have completed at least five years of service. Members are eligible for a pension at age 50 if they have completed 20 years of service, or at any age after completing 25 years of service. The amount of the pension depends on years of service and the average of the highest three years of salary. By law, the starting amount of a Member’s retirement annuity may not exceed 80% of his or her final salary.
What that means is that someone elected to the House would not be able to collect a pension of any amount if they only served one or two terms. The fact that U.S. Senators serve a six-year term they would be able to collect some amount of a pension after serving one full term.
For example if a U.S. Senator only serves one term, according to the McClatchy news service they would be eligible for a pension of nearly $16,000 a year. That $16,000 would be approximately 9% of their most recent salary of $174,000.
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