# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S620
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

620 FINANCIAL MATTERS

improving Social Security benefits to an increasingly larger num-
ber of people. We believe that the congregations in Synod appre-
ciate the services rendered by their pastors and teachers and
surely regard them as even more important, necessary, and bene-
ficial for time and eternity than the work of those who are fol-
lowing secular employment. At the present time our congregations
and salary-paying organizations are contributing to the Pension
Fund at the rate of 4% in behalf of their workers. We wish to
advise you that the contributions of congregations in other Prot-
estant church bodies, except for the groups that are much smaller
than ours, runs from 6% to 15%. The average of such congrega-~
tional participation so far as the number of participating groups
is concerned is nearer 9%. ;

To improve and increase the earned benefits of the Pension

Fund to the individual members, we recommend that the em-

ployer’s contributions be increased from 4% to 8%. The mem-

ber’s contributions are to remain at 4%.

Participation at this increased per cent will eventually pro-
duce a pension that will begin to compare with the pension big
business already is paying to its retiring workers after age 65.
To illustrate: A young man may join the Pension Fund at age 25
and make personal contributions at the rate of 4% on an average
salary of $2,500 a year. If his employer contributes in his behalf
at the rate of 4% until retirement after age 65, his earned pension
will be approximately $972 a year. If the employer’s payments are
made at the rate of 8%, his earned pension will be about $1,458
a year. '

The accumulation to the credit of a Pension Fund member who
still has ten to twenty years of service before him will provide him
with a larger earned annuity than would be the case if the em-
ployer’s payments are not increased from 4%. As a result, the
subsidy from Synod required to pay the minimum pension of $60
a month will not be so large and in many cases will not be needed
at all after the advanced rate of 8% has been in force a number
of years.

Because we recognize that every Pension Fund member has
a disposable equity in the Pension Fund — at least to the extent
of his personal contributions we propose the following two
amendments to the Pension Fund regulations:

10.45 g

Resolved that this section be amended to read as follows:
In the event of the death of a worker before entering upon
an Old Age or Disability Annuity and of his leaving no widow
and no minor orphans, that part of his accumulation whict
originated from his personal contributions (see 10.43 a-c) shal
be remitted to his adult children in equal shares unless he ha: