Firm Bankruptcy and Retiree Benefits
Firm Bankruptcy and Retiree Benefits

Author: Joshua H. Saunders

Publisher:

Published: 2016-11-13

Total Pages: 86

ISBN-13: 9781634855891

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Benefits for retired employees are of particular interest to policymakers, who often are concerned with the income security of retirees, a large and fast-growing population. One aspect of this congressional concern is what happens when bankrupt employers are unable to provide promised pension and health benefits to their retired employees. This book explores the protections of benefits awarded retirees and future retirees of bankrupt private-sector employers under current law. Although there are many types of employee benefits, active employees, retirees, and the employers themselves are often especially concerned with postretirement pensions and health insurance benefits, usually the two largest components of these so-called legacy costs. This book also provides an overview of the status of employee wages and benefits, including retiree benefits, when an employer files in bankruptcy, and the amendments made to the U.S. Bankruptcy Code by the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act; provides background on Delphi Corporation, relevant pension law, the role of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a description of major events at Delphi since 1999, and a listing of congressional hearings and legislation introduced related to the Delphi Corporation since the 111th Congress.

Pension Dumping
Pension Dumping

Author: Fran Hawthorne

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2010-05-20

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0470885149

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Fran Hawthorne, author of Pension Dumping, is a recipient of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants award for Excellence in Financial Journalism for 2009—the first year books have been honored. Pension plans in America no longer represent commitments that financially troubled companies will honor. Neither bankruptcy courts, nor Washington, nor unions have the clout to make them do so. The disposition of these plans is instead left to serve the needs of big investors. Often these investors are a failing company’s best hope of restructuring after bankruptcy. Investors want a lean investment unburdened with financial promises to employees no longer on the payroll. Despite laws passed to discourage the termination of plans, the courts allow it, caving in to the forces garnered to reinvigorate a failing company. Unions are often compelled to choose between the financial welfare of retirees and jobs for active workers. Pension Dumping explains in shocking detail how terminating the pension plan became a knee-jerk strategy for bankrupt companies that hope to attract big investors to help them reorganize. Hawthorne traces the dynamics and the players involved as a pension is targeted for termination: thebankruptcy court and the hierarchy of power that dictates whose interests will prevail the choices forced on unions the burden placed on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation the risks investors take and the returns they look for the companies’ efforts to salvage what they can as they restructure, as well as the backlash they risk by breaking pension promises In 2008, Pension Dumping was cited in testimony before a Congressional committee investigating bankruptcies in relation to pensions.

Issues in Pension Economics
Issues in Pension Economics

Author: Zvi Bodie

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1987-03-01

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9780226062846

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In the past several decades, pension plans have become one of the most significant institutional influences on labor and financial markets in the U.S. In an effort to understand the economic effects of this growth, the National Bureau of Economic Research embarked on a major research project in 1980. Issues in Pension Economics, the third in a series of four projected volumes to result from thsi study, covers a broad range of pension issues and utilizes new and richer data sources than have been previously available. The papers in this volume cover such issues as the interaction of pension-funding decisions and corporate finances; the role of pensions in providing adequate and secure retirement income, including the integration of pension plans with social security and significant drops in the U.S. saving rate; and the incentive effects of pension plans on labor market behavior and the implications of plans on labor market behavior and the implications of plans for different demographic groups. Issues in Pension Economics offers important empirical studies and makes valuable theoretical contributions to current thinking in an area that will most likely continue to be a source of controversy and debate for some time to come. The volume should prove useful to academics and policymakers, as well as to members of the business and labor communities.

Restructuring Retirement Risks
Restructuring Retirement Risks

Author: David Blitzstein

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2006-08-03

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0199204659

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Highlighting retirement security as a major policy concern, this book addresses the question 'What are the risks & rewards in pensions, & what paths can stakeholders chose to solve these problems?'. It deals with employees' needs & expectations, employers' intentions & realizations, & policymakers' efforts to resolve the many challenges.

Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System
Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System

Author: Zvi Bodie

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0226062899

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This book provides valuable information and analysis to managers, policymakers, and investment counselors in the rapidly expanding field of pension funding. American workers, too, need answers and insights on how to invest their money and plan for their retirement. fifteen of America's leading financial analysts address such pressing questions as -What is the current financial status of the elderly, and how vulnerable are they to inflation? -What is the impact of inflation on the private pension system, and what are the effects of alternative indexing schemes? -What roles can the social security system play in the provision of retirement income? -What is the effect of the tax code and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) on corporate pension policy? -How well funded are corporate pension plans, and is a firm's unfunded pension liability fully reflected in the market value of its common stock? Many of the conclusions these experts reach contradict and challenge popular views, thus providing fertile ground for innovation in pension planning.

Death and Dollars
Death and Dollars

Author: Alicia H. Munnell

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2004-05-13

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 9780815758921

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Despite the recent downturn in the stock market, the 1990s boom and the shift to defined contribution plans mean that more individuals will have significant wealth upon retirement. How they use that wealth will determine not only their own well-being, but also the living standards of their children, the resources available to philanthropies, and the level of investment capital in the economy. This volume explores the reasons why people save, how they decide to allocate their wealth once they retire, and how givers select their beneficiaries. It also assesses the extent to which the estate tax and annuitization of retirement wealth affects the amount and nature of wealth transfers. Finally, it looks at the impact of wealth transfers––first on the amount of aggregate saving and capital accumulation, and then on the distribution of wealth among households. Several conclusions emerge. First, gifts and bequests are important; they may account for about half of total wealth in America. Second, rich people make most of the wealth transfers. They are thoughtful about how much they pay in taxes and how they dispose of their wealth. They care about philanthropic causes and view their charitable contributions as more than a way to avoid paying estate taxes. Third, most nonrich people probably have some lexicographic preferences about the disposition of their wealth; they want to ensure they have adequate resources to take care of their own needs, and if money is left over, they would like it to go to their children. Fourth, little support has emerged for the pure altruistic model of bequests. Fifth, institutions matter. In the case of the rich, the estate tax probably reduces saving and increases bequests to charity. In the case of the nonrich, the shift to defined contribution plans will at a minimum mean that they have more wealth in their hands when they die, and therefore they will leave larger accidental bequests. It might also increase their interest in lea

Actuarial Practice in Social Security
Actuarial Practice in Social Security

Author: Pierre Plamondon

Publisher: International Labour Organization

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 552

ISBN-13: 9789221108634

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The actuarial analysis of social protection schemes is a challenge that requires a balancing act between the demographic, economic, financial, and actuarial fields. This text provides a practical tool to enhance and modernize social protection systems while maintaining this balance.