From the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School, this book explores the diversity of governmental pension plans and investigates how these financial institutions must change in years to come.
An essential resource for workers navigating their retirement and pension options, from the labor organizer's perspective. Researching retirement plans should not take the rest of your life, even if deciphering the relevant paperwork seems to have become a full-time job. Deliberately elaborate legalese is obscuring the efforts of financial elites to seize control of workers' collective retirement savings—and The Labor Guide to Retirement Plans is here to translate. Neoliberal retirement reforms have escalated elites' efforts to replace guaranteed workplace retirement plans with weak 401(k)-like savings accounts and risky stock market investment schemes. The result is arguably the largest source of labor value expropriation over the last four decades. In light of all this, what do workers need to know as they assess their future prospects—especially in terms of the security their retirement plans may or may not bring? What should union activists keep in mind as they push for the national and workplace reforms needed to produce greater retirement security? This nuts-and-bolts book provides a much-needed demystification of the retirement system. Even more than that The Labor Guide to Retirement Plans enables us to take charge of our own personal futures, as a first step towards taking back what belongs to us all.
In the wake of the financial crisis and Great Recession, the health of state and local pension plans has emerged as a front burner policy issue. Elected officials, academic experts, and the media alike have pointed to funding shortfalls with alarm, expressing concern that pension promises are unsustainable or will squeeze out other pressing government priorities. A few local governments have even filed for bankruptcy, with pensions cited as a major cause. Alicia H. Munnell draws on both her practical experience and her research to provide a broad perspective on the challenge of state and local pensions. She shows that the story is big and complicated and cannot be viewed through a narrow prism such as accounting methods or the role of unions. By examining the diversity of the public plan universe, Munnell debunks the notion that all plans are in trouble. In fact, she finds that while a few plans are basket cases, many are functioning reasonably well. Munnell's analysis concludes that the plans in serious trouble need a major overhaul. But even the relatively healthy plans face three challenges ahead: an excessive concentration of plan assets in equities; the risk that steep benefit cuts for new hires will harm workforce quality; and the constraints plans face in adjusting future benefits for current employees. Here, Munnell proposes solutions that preserve the main strengths of state and local pensions while promoting needed reforms.
Describes policy directions, especially defined benefit plans and defined contribution plans, and their implications for both employers and employees. Reflects on issues of partial retirement, multi-employers plans, savings plans, and the potential and pitfalls of US Federal pension policy.
From the Wharton School, offering a comprehensive assessment of the political and financial dimensions of public-sector pensions from the colonial period until the emergence of modern retirement plans in the twentieth century.
As the United States comes to terms with the pending insolvency of social security, workers are increasingly pinning their hopes for retirement adequacy on employer-sponsored plans. Positioning Pensions for the Twenty-First Century analyzes the role of pensions in retirement security, examining how these programs will evolve to meet the challenges to our nation's retirement system. The book brings together a team of leading economists, corporate and labor specialists, actuaries, and policy experts to examine the future of retirement options within the context of emerging labor and business trends and innovative developments in the pension community. They show how a successful public and private pension system can be sustained and strengthened and demonstrate how employer pensions can be configured against a delicately financed social insurance system. The book's contributions examine where pensions have succeeded and failed over the last several decades and point to positive new developments in the pension arena. Its coverage includes innovative pension options such as hybrid and cash-balance plans; pension funding regulations; changes in GATT laws altering pension insurance premiums; and emerging developments concerning administrative costs and pension obligation bonds. It also features new research on defined contribution plan investment options and includes three case studies of participant-directed pension investments, telling how thousands of workers are allocating their pension savings in 401(k) and related plans. Positioning Pensions for the Twenty-First Century is essential reading for all managers, employees, and policymakers concerned with designing pension systems that can withstand the challenges of the next decade.