Month: August 2015
Can you afford to retire?
Many Americans are facing the reality that they might not be able to retire in their 60s as planned. In 2014, President Obama and Congress passed the 2015 Omnibus spending bill, which includes provisions that allow trustees of certain multiemployment plans to cut retirees pensions – part of the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014.
PRC comments to Treasury on rules for retiree benefit cuts in financially troubled multiemployer pension plans (August 18, 2015)
The Pension Rights Center submitted comments to the Treasury Department regarding its rules for retiree benefit cuts in severely underfunded multiemployer plans, as authorized by the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. Our comments focus on improving the proposed regulations to better protect retirees in the following areas: Plan eligibility to suspend benefits; Post-suspension maintenance […]
PRC comments to PBGC on partition rules for financially troubled multiemployer plans (August 18, 2015)
The Pension Rights Center submitted comments to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) regarding its rules for partitions in severely underfunded multiemployer plans, as authorized by the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. The Center’s comments focus on five issues that most directly affect participants in plans that are seeking partition: The content of the […]
PRC statement to the ERISA Advisory Council on disclosures for pension-risk transfers (August 18, 2015)
PRC Policy Analyst Jane Smith testified before the ERISA Advisory Council on the type of information that an employer should give to its workers and retirees when a company decides to offer lump-sum buyouts or transfer their traditional pension plan to an insurance company. Related: Our press release praising the Treasury Department and the IRS for moving […]
DOL moving forward on fiduciary rule
Labor Department officials are determined to produce a new standard of fiduciary duty for anyone giving retirement investment advice, once they process concerns raised in thousands of comment letters and four days of hearings on their proposal.
Speakers encourage fiduciary role for advice on DC lump sums, IRA rollovers
People giving advice to defined contribution plan participants about lump-sum distributions and rollovers to individual retirement accounts should be covered by a new fiduciary standard, several speakers said Wednesday at a Department of Labor hearing on the proposed rule.
Legal Clinic
Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2015 Event description: The Pension Rights Center is hosting a free legal clinic to assist people who may have questions about their pension or retirement savings plans. Experienced pension attorneys will be available to meet one-on-one with individuals seeking answers to questions about their traditional pension, 401(k), or other employer-sponsored retirement plan. Attorneys will be able to […]
PRC testimony to EBSA on conflict-free investment advice (August 12, 2015)
PRC Senior Policy Advisor Maria Freese testified on Day Three of a four-day Department of Labor hearing on the proposed rule on conflicts of interest in investment advice. Read her testimony here [PDF]. Related: Pension Rights Center’s comments to the Department Labor on its proposed rules governing conflicts of interest in investment advice for retirement plans. (July 21, 2015) […]
New statistics show a different type of income inequality
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about income inequality – the increasing gap between our society’s highest-paid workers and the lowest-paid. Generally the term “income inequality” is used to highlight the difference in wages and salary for people while they’re working. Now, new data from the latest National Compensation Survey point to a different […]
Rising costs usher in pension ‘de-risking’ cycle
Many Connecticut workers probably think of a pension as something their parents had, or something they’ll never get. Indeed, as companies have frozen or curtailed their pensions or “defined-benefit” plans, the number of Connecticut private-sector workers and retirees with a single-employer pension (519,000) has plummeted 42 percent over the last decade, federal data shows.
Ascension pension settlement highlights vulnerability of ‘church plans’
Ascension, the Edmundson-based parent company of the nation’s largest nonprofit health system, has agreed to settle a 2013 class-action lawsuit that alleged it improperly maintained employee pensions plans.
There’s a glimmer of hope that the retirement system isn’t broken for good
The generations from the late baby boomers to Generation X to millennials live in a different world, where only a few big companies still offer traditional pensions. For the vast majority of retirees, 401(k)s and other defined-contribution plans are, besides Social Security, the only game in town.
