Is there a Sea Org retirement plan?

Is there such a thing as a Sea Org member that retires? I am curious because I have some in-laws that are in the Sea Org and I don't understand how they plan to support themselves in old age. From my understanding CO$ Sea Org members don't pay into Social Security because they have opted out of it, which means they aren't eligible for SS benefits when they are old. A person obviously can't save on their own if they only make $50 per week. So what happens to these people? Is there some CO$ home they go to or what?

[James McGuigan]

There is no separate retirement home for Sea Org personnel. From what I picked up, you would be expected to keep working until you are physically unable to do. We are here to save the planet, you are not allowed to be some namby-pamby panty-waste dilettante.

In practice, my assumption is that if the CoS thought you would be a significant drain on resources, such as becoming chronically ill, you would probably be fitness borded out of the SO, and would become somebody else's problem.

Otherwise if you significantly contributed to the SO over many years, they would probably allow you to continue to remain within the SO, and receive food, clothing, accommodation and pocket money, on the same terms as everybody else. You would never become officially "retired", though you might CSW (= ask permission and justify in writing) to be assigned some fairly easy and unstressful post, such as gardener at Walsh Manor (one of the SO accommodation units).

So basically at some point everyone gets fitness boarded out because nobody is healthy forever, baring cases of sudden death and people that leave prior? Are people working in the SO just too busy with the current day-to-day operations to think about their own future or is it frowned upon to worry about your future? I'm really confused why people would do this to themselves.

Instances of people being FB'ed out due to aging or health issues are actually pretty low provided there is a long service record, but you are still working until you keel over. I once overheard the PAC RPF I/C tell someone that "nobody has ever been FB'ed out of the SO because of health issues, but they have been FB'ed for case on post."

Of course, "Case on Post" can be interpreted any number of ways.

That happened to me, because I was sick all the time. I was just told it was "case on post". In fact there were several things wrong, like I had mono and hypothyroidism and seizures. Oh wait, that's just because of my case. Sorry, I'll knock off the serv-fac now. (That means, for non-Scientologists, something that you use to make yourself right, like being sick or whatever so that your mom feels bad.)

There was an old guy who worked at PAC when I was there, maybe 70? White hair, kind of crazy, tall and thin. He shuffled around working still. But he slept a lot. He was an exception to the rule. Most people I knew that got sick/old were FB'd out.

[James McGuigan]

[astra]