88-year-old veteran working five days a week can finally retire after receiving $1.5 million from strangers
By his own admission, Ed had looked forward to a cushty retirement, having worked hard enough to earn a pension he believed would allow him to see out his golden years without worrying about any kind of hardship.
“I felt comfortable. I felt I had a stable financial footing. I owned my house. We didn’t have any major worries,” he told WXYZ.
According to AP, almost 20,000 salaried workers Delphi Corporation, a GM subsidiary, lost their pensions and retirement benefits entirely. Ed was among that unlucky number.
Needless to say, the decision to eliminate pension liabilities for non-union workers (Ed included) had catastrophic effects. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation offered assistance, but it wasn’t enough to recover the massive loss.
Salaried retirees collectively lost $440 million in pension benefits as a result of cuts to their monthly payments, as per a 2013 report.
Ed also lost his healthcare coverage and a big chunk of his life insurance. Speaking with TikTok influencer Sam Weidenhofer, the 88-year-old said: “The thing that hurt me the most was when my wife was really sick. And when they took the pension, they also took the healthcare coverage and all but $10,000 of my life insurance.”
Ultimately, Ed was forced to sell his house. His wife of 50 years, Joan, passed away in 2018, leaving Ed isolated and alone in his attempts to make ends meet.
He continued to work well into what should have been his retirement, taking jobs at Ace Hardware store and a Meijer store. Between them, he worked eight hours a day, five days a week.
That was until his luck changed courtesy of the recent interview with the aforementioned Sam Weidenhofer. The influencer traveled to Michigan to meet the veteran in person, and was so moved by his story that he donated $400 as a tip on the day to help.
“Ed is 88 years old, an Army veteran and he still works five days a week, eight hours a day. He has never received the pension he earned after a lifetime of hard work,” the GoFundMe reads.
