A Sears bankruptcy could cause one of the biggest pension defaults ever, but the government would protect 90,000 retirees
The company's long-term pension obligations, which have been underfunded by more than
"PBGC is monitoring developments at
A spokesman for
The struggling
"The human impact of this is really big on the individual retirees," Dawson said. "But this would be a big impact on the PBGC itself, financially."
In a blog post last month, CEO
"Had the company been able to employ those billions of dollars in its operations, we would have been in a better position to compete with other large retail companies, many of which don't have large pension plans," Lampert wrote.
Last year, the agency paid
For
"Pensions are not our concern because pensions will be secured for our retirees," said
Olbrysh, the company's former assistant general counsel who retired in 1996, said the
A bigger concern for many
"The retirees can still maintain that insurance if they want to pay for it themselves, but the average age of most our retirees is about 80 and the cost of that would be just ridiculous," Olbrysh said
Olbrysh, who lives in suburban
He called its potential bankruptcy a shame, but perhaps a sign of the times.
In its heyday,
"
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