Month: November 2016

Long-Lost Assets May Soon Be Reunited With Their Owners: The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is expanding its long-standing missing-plan program to include defined-contribution-plan participants.
If you are one of the estimated 10,000 people a year who have lost track of their 401(k) plan, get ready for some good news: The federal insurance agency that protects private sector defined benefit pensions wants to add defined contribution plans to its search program.

Whatever Happened to That Old 401(k)?
Suspect you may have lost track of a 401(k) retirement account or pension benefit? You aren’t alone. As Americans jump from job to job, they are leaving more 401(k)-style accounts and pension benefits with ex-employers. Some lose track of the money, forfeiting a piece of their retirement security.

Comments to Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation on expansion of Missing Participants Program (November 21, 2016)
The Pension Rights Center submitted comments in response to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s request for comments on the proposed expansion of its Missing Participants Program to include participants and beneficiaries in terminating defined contribution plans, multiemployer plans and small professional service plans.

Composite bill: Another threat to multiemployer pension plans
Earlier this fall, a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee held a hearing on draft legislation that has the potential to undermine the stability of the multiemployer pension system. What’s worse is the fact that this proposal, called the composite bill, has a real chance of being slipped into year-end omnibus legislation, not unlike the way […]

Treasury rejects Ironworkers union application to cut retiree benefits
The U.S. Department of the Treasury has denied an application by Ironworkers Local 16, which represents 1,100 Baltimore-area retirees and workers, to cut pension benefits to retirees to extend the life of the fund, which is in danger of running out of money by 2032.

Religious Health Care Systems Push Back Against Pension Suits in Supreme Court
Three religious-affiliated, nonprofit health care systems are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to step into a multimillion-dollar battle with two plaintiffs firms that claim the pension plans of the medical networks are not exempt from federal law.