The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) recently released survey findings from approximately 800 pension beneficiaries nationwide on what they think of divestment from hydrocarbon-energy producers.
“Arguably the strangest thing about the current debate over pension-fund divestment is that no one seems to know or particularly care what actual pension beneficiaries think about these policies,” IPAA Senior Vice President Jeff Eshelman, who is serving as director of the DivestmentFacts.com campaign, said. “This new, first-of-its-kind survey helps us at least answer that basic question: pensioners, no matter where they live or how they vote, don’t like these divestment schemes one bit.”
When asked if they would support divestment if it could lead to lower returns, almost two-thirds of those surveyed responded negatively, with 88 percent of Texas respondents saying they would actively oppose divestment and corresponding figures of 77 percent from Pennsylvania, 71 percent from Ohio and 72 percent from New York.
“What the findings show is that folks believe they’ve earned this money, that they’re entitled to receive it, and that they don’t want their financial well-being later in life to be impacted by activist-led political stunts,” Eshelman said. “And who could blame them?”
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