Religion: Pensions, Pensioners

In 1917 the "pitiable" state of elderly Episcopal clergymen moved Bishop William Lawrence (now retired) of Massachusetts to raise $8,700,000 among U. S. Episcopalians, help found the Church Pension Fund. Treasurer of this organization today is J. P. Morgan, although the man who really runs it is dapper, twinkling, argumentative Bradford B. Locke of Princeton, its able executive vice president. Last week the Church Pension Fund held its 21st annual meeting in Manhattan, heard from its President William Fellowes Morgan that its assets now stand at a fat $33,000,000. A new problem, however, faced the Fund—the possibility that the Social Security Act may soon be amended to include non-profit organizations, thus piling a 3% tax upon the 7½% of clerical salaries which Episcopal dioceses pay annually into the Fund.

The security problem is a big one for U. S. churches, whose care of their worn-out ministers is a large, often haphazard U. S. business. The 24 denominations of the Church Pensions Conference* have more than $171,000,000 in assets, a total annual income of $15,000,000. They pay nearly $11,000,000 a year to 38,000 clerical pensioners, widows and orphans. How much an individual pensioner gets, after retiring at around 68, depends upon how well-managed his church's pension affairs are. The Episcopal fund, first in the U. S. to be established and continued upon the sound "actuarial reserve" basis used by life-insurance companies, pays the most— an average $969 a year. In general, pensioning ministers has special actuarial aspects. It has been calculated that their life expectancy at 68 is 11.35 years, whereas the average is 10.18.