Blogs & Newsletters
401(k) regrets
Some teachers in West Virginia have learned the hard way that traditional pensions end up paying better benefits than 401(k)-type plans. The Associated Press reports that, in light of current stock market volatility, some of the teachers who passed up an opportunity to switch to the state’s defined benefit pension want to revisit their decision. […]
Record profit yields underfunded pension
A recent article in Financial Week revealed a big surprise. ExxonMobil has the most underfunded defined benefit pension plan of all the S&P 500 companies. Yes, you read that correctly. A company yielding record profits has neglected to adequately fund its pension plan. According to the article, the ExxonMobil pension plan was funded at just […]
New report makes the case against pension freezes
Look Before You Leap: The Unintended Consequences of Pension Freezes, a new issue brief from the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS), makes the case for why pension freezes aren’t always a good idea for state and local governments. Here are some of the brief’s key findings: Freezing a traditional defined benefit pension (DB) and […]
More broken promises
Last week General Motors announced plans to temporarily suspend the practice of making matching contributions to their employees’ 401(k) accounts. This cut, coupled with the impact of the reeling stock market, only adds to the sense of retirement insecurity felt by workers who have seen the nation’s pension and 401(k) account balances plummet by as […]
Current economic crisis helps make the case for guaranteed pensions
During the last few weeks, the Wall Street roller coaster has wreaked havoc on the economy and the retirement assets of the millions of American workers with 401(k) plans. For workers who, like me, are relatively young and decades away from retiring, the current economic crisis doesn’t make me terribly anxious about my 401(k). While […]
Radical thinking from…BusinessWeek?
A timely and provocative op-ed by BusinessWeek‘s contributing economics editor Chris Farrell flatly states, “Keep Wall Street Out of the Retirement Business.” Farrell goes on to ask: Question is, in light of the current turmoil in the financial markets, should Wall Street manage any of our long-term retirement savings funds? Is the 401(k) plan, which […]
More on the meltdown
What a week. The Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch’s sale to Bank of America, and the government rescue of AIG were just the latest upheavals in this churning Subprime Summer. I’ve been getting calls every day from reporters, wanting to interview people who are concerned about their 401(k) accounts. People are right to be concerned. […]
How does the Wall Street meltdown affect my pension?
In the past few days, large companies on Wall Street have been closing left and right, making the people who work at these companies jittery about many issues, including their retirement security. The good news for these employees is that the money in their pension and 401(k) plans is protected from creditors, so that even when […]
Happy birthday, ERISA!
By Rebecca Davis Happy 34th Birthday, ERISA! Today marks the 34th anniversary of the date that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, known to those in the field of pensions as ERISA, was signed into law. In a tribute to the workers who would be helped by the new law, that day, September […]
Bankruptcies rising among older Americans
An Associated Press story appearing in the Washington Post this week carries disturbing news about the deteriorating financial health of older Americans. According to an analysis by the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, which studied bankruptcies filed between 1991 and 2007, the bankruptcy filing rate has risen dramatically for Americans over the age of 55, with the […]
The paper chase: Keeping track of your pension
By Kyle Garrett Every day I receive calls from workers and retirees who need help with their pensions. Often, the people I speak to are looking for lost pension income that their employers promised would arrive at a critical time in their lives – retirement. These callers may be having trouble locating their pensions or […]
How the rich get richer
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published a shocking exposé about how companies are using pension plans – which are intended for rank-and-file workers – to covertly fund the executive benefits of their highest-paid officers. WSJ journalists Ellen Schultz and Theo Francis report that “At a time when scores of companies are freezing pensions […]
