The Sum of its Parts

It has been a while since our last post. We have been finalizing the latest issue of the Philadelphia Update, the Funds’ newsletter and addressing some follow up items from the recent Trustees’ meetings on June 18. Getting back to the blog, we thought it might be interesting to provide a brief overview of the men, women, and contributing employers that make up the population of the Teamsters Health & Welfare Fund of Philadelphia and Vicinity. Let’s take a look at the statistics: As of July 2, 2014, there are over 7,200 participants, over 18,000 covered lives (i.e., participants and dependents), and approximately 300 contributing employers to the Health & Welfare Fund. Currently, the members of 13 different local unions participate in the Fund. They include 12 local unions affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and Independent Dock Workers Union Local No. 1. The five largest local unions by number of Teamster participants are, in order, Local 107, Local 463, Local 676, Local 929, and Local 628. The Average age of a member is 49.57 years old. The average age of a dependent (including children) is 37.88. The average age of the entire Fund population is 43.73 years old. 93.7% of the Fund’s Teamster members are male. Table 1 provides a summary of some of the Fund’s demographics. The Health & Welfare Fund’s participants and beneficiaries live primarily in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, including northern Maryland, Delaware and Southern New Jersey. The heat map below shows by zip code where the highest concentration of participants live. In our next post, we will look at the demographics of the Teamsters Pension Trust Fund of Philadelphia & Vicinity.