Because your plant closed and move out of the country, you might be eligible for quite a bit of government help. You should look up the WARN Act (Workers' Adjustment and Retraining Act) on the Department of Labor's website.
As far as your pension money being counted as income for unemployment compensation purposes, that depends on your State's Unemployment Compensation laws -- go to your State's website and read up on it.
When my husband's plant closed (steel - 31 yrs.) due to foreign imports, he was able to tap into government paid retraining, specifically because of the WARN Act. He collected unemployment until he completed his training and he was able to collect the small pension without having it count toward the income qualification for unemployment purposes -- but that was because the State Unemployment laws did not put a pension into the unemployment qualification mix. Thank heavens, because you can't live on unemployment alone, particular after they take the taxes out!
