Author: dcadmin

Consumer group urges special congressional committee to develop solution to multiemployer pension crisis
As a result of a misguided law passed in 2014 to ostensibly “save” pension plans, the Treasury Department announced last week that it has provisionally approved an eighth application from a multiemployer pension plan seeking to slash the benefits of vulnerable retirees as a way of balancing its books. The Teamsters Local 805 plan headquartered […]

Are you a pension attorney? Join our network!
By Karen Racowsky As the Pension Rights Center’s Staff Attorney, I am usually on backup phone duty when Operations and Referrals Manager, Kyle Garrett, is at lunch or on another call. Since Kyle is in charge of most of our intake, when he’s busy, I am usually the one who talks to retirees who aren’t […]

Comments to the Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans
On September 30th, 2018, the Pension Rights Center submitted comments to the Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans.The letter includes three sections: 1) An explanation of how this emerging crisis developed and a critique of MPRA, which reversed the key promise of ERISA: that a plan cannot take away benefits that employees […]

The Joint Select Committee wants to hear from you
By Emily Gilbert We are quickly approaching the end of September and the deadline for stakeholders to submit their comments to the Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans. The committee was formed as part of the bipartisan budget agreement approved by Congress in February of this year, and they are tasked with […]

Thank you to our 2018 supporters!
We gratefully acknowledge all of our 2018 donors, big and small. Your donation makes it possible for us to do all the great work we do in protecting and promoting the retirement income security of workers, retirees and their families. We especially want to recognize our top “super” donors of 2018. Thank you to you all. […]

Interconnected Disconnections: When Former Employees and their Retirement Plans Can’t Find Each Other
By Emily Spreiser When I was in high school I was very lucky to be able to go on a school trip to France with a bunch of other American students. One day we were touring a market in in the South of France and, eager to practice what I had learned in French class, […]

Wall Street Journal article highlights “harsh” pension practice
By Karen Friedman This weekend’s edition of the Wall Street Journal features a front page article by Theo Francis highlighting pension plans’ practice of trying to recover money they have mistakenly paid their retirees, often years later when the retiree cannot afford to pay back the money. Although this practice, often called “recoupment,” has gone […]