I don't think there is any way to evaluate these senarios. Example: when you state that someone can retire on a teachers salary, or a government employee that retires or in my case, a GM ertiree, you have to state the variables, like at what age do you retire, does the pension include health care, COLA, benefits to the survivor, etc, etc. Also, like in the case of all GM salaried employees, we contributed monthly to the defined benefit plan so it wasn't all GM money. Lets say I got half the $40K a year retirement, but I got it at age 51 (34 years service) and my wife would get half of that amount for the rest of her life when I die. Would that be a good retirement? If I would have worked until age 60 or 62 I might have reveived $40K per year, but I probably wouldn't have lived long enough to see it. Those days were tough. Here I am in my 25th year of retirement and I think I got a good deal. No regrets ever. How many people get to retire at 51?
My brother retired at age 65. In the teaching end of the business. High up. He probably gets $85K a year. He deserves it, he earned it, tough job. I don't know how he did it but he earned it. There is no way to compare his retirement to mine. He worked 14 years longer and was in a much higher pressure job than me.
So go ahead and compare all you want. There is no way. I couldn't have taken even another year of work. Especially when my wife was going through cancer. She is a survivor, but at the time we thought she might not have another year. At that time in our lives, money meant nothing.
Right now we feel like millionairs.
(I do not know of any on interest)....
