Archives: Resources
Divane v. Northwestern Univ.
On January 22, 2019, the Pension Rights Center joined the AARP Litigation Foundation in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Divane v. Northwestern Univ. The brief asked the Court to overturn the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern of Illinois that had dismissed the case. Several […]
Smith v. OSF Healthcare System, et al.
On December 20, 2018, the Pension Rights Center filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in support of the appellants in Smith v. OSF Healthcare System, et al. The brief argues that the ERISA church plan exemption applies only to plans established and maintained by churches or church pension boards and does […]
The Women’s Pension Protection Act of 2018
On September 12, 2018 Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced the Women’s Pension Protection Act of 2018 (WPPA), S.3436. A companion bill, H.R. 7026, was introduced in the House on October 2, 2018 by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), joined by Donald Norcross (D-NJ) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR). The bill will improve retirement security for women by […]
PBGC Expanded Missing Participants Program
The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) issued a final rule on December 22, 2017 to expand its Missing Participants Program for terminated single-employer pension plans to additional types of plans. The expansion was authorized by Congress in the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA). The expanded program includes participants and beneficiaries in terminating defined contribution […]
Sveen v. Melin
The Pension Rights Center, the Women’s Law Project, and twelve other organizations filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Sveen v. Melin on February 28, 2018. The brief argues that state laws requiring insurance policies and IRAs to automatically take ex-spouses off of accounts when a couple divorces are unconstitutional. The brief also contends that, […]
Tax Expenditures for Retirement Plans
The tax law recently enacted by Congress includes a great many provisions. Some are easy to understand. Others are not. Among the least understood provisions are those that modify “federal tax expenditures.” This fact sheet explains what tax expenditures are and how they affect retirement plans. What are Tax Expenditures? Tax expenditures are commonly called […]
Resources for Multiemployer Reform
This is a critical time for retirement security. Thousands of retirees and workers in certain severely underfunded multiemployer plans – Cleveland Iron Workers Local 17, New York State Teamsters, Baltimore Ironworkers Local 16, and Teamsters Local 707 in New York, among them – have already lost a big share of their hard-earned pensions. More than […]
The Keep Our Pension Promises Act of 2017 | Talking Points
The Keep Our Pension Promises Act addresses the crisis created by the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014. Use the talking points below when communicating with policymakers, including members of Congress. The Problem Multiemployer Pension Reform Act. MPRA allows deeply underfunded multiemployer plans to take the unprecedented step of cutting retiree pensions – in some […]
Lorna Clause v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, et al.
The Pension Rights Center filed an amicus brief in support of a case asking the Supreme Court to reverse a Court of Appeals ruling that a plan can require participants to sue for denied benefits in a federal court chosen by the plan, despite the fact that federal law gives participants a choice of several venues in […]
I’m getting divorced: What is a qualified domestic relations order and why should I care?
A retirement plan can be the largest asset in a marriage. Nonetheless, retirement plans are often forgotten or overlooked during divorce, in part because divorce is so complicated and in part because a divorce can occur years before retirement – and who’s thinking about retirement when it’s 10 or 20 years down the road? If […]
Provisions in National Defense Authorization Act would cut retirement benefits for former military spouses
Federal laws allow state family court judges to award a fair share of an employee’s retirement benefit to a former spouse at divorce. The laws recognize that marriage is an economic partnership and therefore permit state courts to consider both the degree to which former spouses may have relied on their partners’ retirement benefits for […]
“Composite Bill” Legislative Summary
The U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions recently held a hearing on a “Discussion Draft to Modernize Multiemployer Pensions.” The draft is commonly referred to as “the composite bill” even though it has not yet been introduced into Congress as a stand-alone piece of legislation. However, the legislative language has […]
