The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Disability Pensions" ...
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Social Insecurity
Corporate America has turned conventional uses of Social Security and pensions upside down, in some cases harming elderly and disabled retirees and in others helping to enrich Wall Street executives.
Tags: social security; pension; retiree; Wall Street; elderly; disabled; loan; executive; taxes; bank; payday
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Boston Firefighters Disability Pensions
"Boston firefighters became increasingly injury prone in recent years and reported career-ending, on-the-job injuries at more than three times the rate of comparably sized cities. They often remained on the city payroll, on injured leave while taxpayers paid their full salaries, for months - and in some cases, several years - while retirement officials with strong union ties processed their disability retirement claims"
Tags: firefighters; workers compensation; disability fraud; padding pensions; disability retirement fraud; disability claims
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Retirees' Disability Epidemic
One of the nation's largest commuter lines, Long Island Rail Road, has taken advantage of an obscure federal agency to reap staggering paychecks once they leave their jobs.
Tags: retirement; disability; pension;
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Aging Sex Offenders Pose Problems
The authors used several actual incidents of abusive behavior in North Dakota nursing homes to illustrate that the state has no appropriate housing option for aging or disabled sex offenders after they have been released from incarceration. The investigation looked at what the long-term care industry and state regulators are doing about such incidents, as well as what they believe should be done.
Tags: sex offenders; pension; long term care; Department of Human Services; nursing homes; sexual abuse
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Canada Pension Disability: A Right? Or A Fight?
CBC Radio News reports on the difficulty of getting a Canada disability pension and what some people were or were not doing to get one. The story got started with a tip about the high number of people rejected for a disability pension and after further checking it became clear that there were many problems with Canada's pension disability system.
Tags: Canada; Toronto; Disability; pension; rejection; private insurer; CD; RADIO; transcript
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No title (id: 13832)
The Boston Globe investigates the Massachusetts' disability retirement system, once hailed as a national model as it provides $185 million in annual pensions to 11,266 state and local workers injured on the job. But in fact, after a vaulted reform effort in the early 1980s, the system quietly dissolved into the worst kind of bureaucracy - rife with costly waste and abuse, and run by functionaries unaware of its failings and unable to complete its mission. (May 12-14, 1996)
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You Paid For It/Pensions
"The Tampa Police and Firefighters Pension fund is a taxpayer supported retirement program. WFTS discovered Tampa's fund is extremely generous in granting disability retirements compared with other cities. The investigation found one supposedly disabled police pensioner running around a little league field and working as a self defense instructor. Disability pensioners were also found to have never almost never been re-examined by doctors. Yet the standards for receiving these pensions did not always seem fair. WFTS found a quadriplegic former cop who was shot in the line of duty but excluded from a disability pension. "
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To Serve & Collect
State law enforcement employees have one of the most generous retirement packages in the nation. But local pension plans make the state look parsimonious by comparison. These retirement packages were about to get even better if a bill pending in the state legislature to increase public safety benefits had passed. The St. Petersburg Times examined four local pension plans, looking at how the pension money was invested, the lack of public oversight, insider dealing by trustees and the large number of abuses including one former firefighter retired on a stress disability who was lobbying lawmakers for increased benefits. (March 31 - April 2, April 7-9, May 20, June 16, July 17, August 21 and November 20, 1996)
Tags: Goldstein Tobin Shaver CAR To serve & Collect Contest entry 53 pgs.
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Disabling the System
The WJAR investigation team looks at how firefighters and police are collecting disability pensions while holding an outside job, some collecting three pensions for one injury. Through undercover video, confrontational interviews, state pension records, the I-Team shows millions of people where their tax dollars are going.
Tags: TAPE TRANSCRIPT fraud city employees municipal workers hidden camera
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Pension Blues
The Plain Dealer looks at Ohio's unclear disability laws that are open to interpretation and loopholes and how police and firefighters pension pay have drawn fire. Some officers have been convicted of accepting bribes or selling narcotics or have not been officers long enough to qualify for service retirements. (March 5 - 7, 1995)