Retirees Thought GE Would Take Care of Them Forever. It Didn’t
- After medical benefits get cut, pension anxiety grabs hold
- Former employees feel betrayed by an icon of American business
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Back in 1971, when he went to work at a General Electric Co. plant in upstate New York, John Phelps probably wasn’t naive in believing that the company would take care of him to the grave.
That was reasonable in those days, when so many jobs in the U.S. still came with generous long-term benefits. And in fact, Phelps clocked out in 2013 at age 64 with a pension, a rare thing in the 21st century.