Are you gambling with your pension?

If you are 55 years old and have already worked 25 years for the Transit Authority, then YES you are gambling with your pension. If you reach those two markers and die before retiring, your spouse will not get your pension for the rest of his/her life. Your spouse will get whatever you earned in the last 12 month X 3, that’s it! And you can thank Governor Kathy Hochul for that.

Working past the point when you could have retired is a gamble, which is why this pension bill is called “The Death Gamble”. If Governor Hochul had signed the Death Gamble Bill in 2024 or 2025 that would have given the spouse of an employee who died before retiring the same pension as if the employee had retired the day before their death.

A review of the total NYC Transit workforce over the last three years, has shown that there has only been a hand full of Transit employees that had died when they could have retired. This means the Death Gamble Bill in reality, comes at a minimal cost but Governor Hochul vetoed the Bill anyway.

We believe that Governor Hochul will NEVER sign a Transit Death Gamble Bill, which is why it’s impossible to support her for re-election and why you need to give serious consideration of retirement from Transit.