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- A Failure to Supervise: How the Bureaucracy and the Courts Abandoned Their Intended Roles Under ERISA (1)
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Articles 1 - 28 of 28
Full-Text Articles in Retirement Security Law
Unbundling Social Security From The Payroll Tax, Henry Ordower
Unbundling Social Security From The Payroll Tax, Henry Ordower
All Faculty Scholarship
To preserve social security as a welfare program primarily for older individuals and to ameliorate the distributional inequity of funding social security across income and wealth levels, this article recommends unbundling the benefit side of social security from its longstanding payroll tax funding mechanism. The article recommends replacing the payroll tax revenue with a budget allocation from general revenues accompanied by both revenue raisers and benefit limitations. Income tax rate increases linked to repeal of the FICA tax and tax expenditure limitations would enhance income tax revenue. Modifying social security benefits from their current overinclusive, entitlement structure for all to …
Defined Contribution Plans And The Challenge Of Financial Illiteracy, Jill E. Fisch, Annamaria Lusardi, Andrea Hasler
Defined Contribution Plans And The Challenge Of Financial Illiteracy, Jill E. Fisch, Annamaria Lusardi, Andrea Hasler
All Faculty Scholarship
Retirement investing in the United States has changed dramatically. The classic defined-benefit (DB) plan has largely been replaced by the defined contribution (DC) plan. With the latter, individual employees’ decisions about how much to save for retirement and how to invest those savings determine the benefits available upon retirement.
We analyze data from the 2015 National Financial Capability Study to show that people whose only exposure to investment decisions is by virtue of their participation in an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan are poorly equipped to make sound investment decisions. Specifically, they suffer from higher levels of financial illiteracy than other investors. …
Reforming Pensions While Retaining Shareholder Voice, David H. Webber
Reforming Pensions While Retaining Shareholder Voice, David H. Webber
Faculty Scholarship
Public pension and labor union funds have been the driving force in diversified shareholder activism. They have also fended off attacks on jobs and proactively created jobs for fund contributors. These funds currently represent almost $4 trillion in assets over which workers have substantial control. That worker control - and the collective nature of defined benefit pension plans - is the necessary precondition for their shareholder activism. Both worker control and collective investment are directly threatened by the rise of defined contribution funds, particularly by well-funded efforts to promote the 401(k) in the public sector, the last bastion of the …
Op-Ed: California’S Most Powerful Voice On Wall Street? Its Pensions, David H. Webber
Op-Ed: California’S Most Powerful Voice On Wall Street? Its Pensions, David H. Webber
Shorter Faculty Works
The fight over public pensions in California is almost exclusively described as a dispute between people worried about tax hikes and public servants wanting to get paid what they were promised. But this is only part of the pension story — one focused on the “liability” side of the balance sheet.
Surviving The Storm 2016: Employee Benefit Compliance & Employment Law Update, George Thompson, Brooks R. Magratten, Mark A. Pogue, Kelli Viera, Cecily Banks, Roger Williams University School Of Law
Surviving The Storm 2016: Employee Benefit Compliance & Employment Law Update, George Thompson, Brooks R. Magratten, Mark A. Pogue, Kelli Viera, Cecily Banks, Roger Williams University School Of Law
School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events
No abstract provided.
Labor And Employment Law At The 2014-2015 Supreme Court: The Court Devotes Ten Percent Of Its Docket To Statutory Interpretation In Employment Cases, But Rejects The Argument That What Employment Law Really Needs Is More Administrative Law, Scott A. Moss
Publications
No abstract provided.
The Knowledge Gap In Workplace Retirement Investing And The Role Of Professional Advisors, Jill E. Fisch, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Kristin Firth
The Knowledge Gap In Workplace Retirement Investing And The Role Of Professional Advisors, Jill E. Fisch, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan, Kristin Firth
All Faculty Scholarship
The dramatic shift from traditional pension plans to participant-directed 401(k) plans has increased the decision-making responsibility of individual investors for their own retirement planning. With this shift comes increasing evidence that investors are making poor decisions in choosing how much to save for retirement and in selecting among their investment options. Studies question the value of efforts to improve these decisions through regulatory reforms or investor education.
This article posits that deficiencies in workplace retirement savings cannot be adequately addressed until the reasons for poor investment decisions are better understood. We report the results of a study designed to simulate …
After Tackett: Incomplete Contracts For Post-Employment Healthcare, Maria O'Brien
After Tackett: Incomplete Contracts For Post-Employment Healthcare, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
This paper examines the recent U.S. Supreme Court retiree health care decision in Tackett v. M & G Polymers and focuses, in particular, on the ostensibly odd silence with respect to a critical contract term — whether the parties in fact agreed that these benefits were vested. Although the union in Tackett insisted these welfare benefits were clearly intended to vest and the employer now asserts they can be modified at any time, the collective bargaining agreement and supporting documents are ambiguous on this question. This paper examines how and why this “silence” persisted for so many decades and concludes …
401(K) Plan Expenses, Anne Becker, Jeffrey Arnold
401(K) Plan Expenses, Anne Becker, Jeffrey Arnold
Pension Action Center Publications
Under a 401(k) plan, your benefit is your vested account balance. This account balance reflects the contributions you make to the plan, the contributions your employer makes to the plan on your behalf (if any), and investment gains and losses.
Many 401(k) plan participants are responsible for choosing how to invest their account balances. If you direct the investment of your 401(k) plan account balance, it is important to understand that fees and expenses may substantially reduce the growth of your 401(k) plan account balance over the course of your working life. The Department of Labor (DOL) estimates that paying …
Your Former Employer’S 401(K) Plan, Jeanne Medeiros Jd
Your Former Employer’S 401(K) Plan, Jeanne Medeiros Jd
Pension Action Center Publications
When you leave a job where you have participated in a 401(k) plan, you may have a number of different options about what to do with the money in that account. This fact sheet explains those options and offers guidance about the pros and cons of each option.
Here are some frequently asked questions answered in this face sheet:
Q. Can I leave my money in my former employer’s plan?
Q. What are my other options?
Q. If I decide to withdraw the account balance from my former employer’s plan, how do I do that, and how long should it …
Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program Act (Passed Jan. 4, 2015), Emily G. Brown Jd, Ellen Bruce Jd
Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program Act (Passed Jan. 4, 2015), Emily G. Brown Jd, Ellen Bruce Jd
Pension Action Center Publications
The Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program Act, passed on January 4, 2015, creates an automatic enrollment payroll deduction IRA. The purpose of the program is to promote increased retirement savings participation for employees in the private sector. This fact sheet answers some basic questions about how this new program will affect workers and their employers in Illinois.
Overvaluing Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance, Lauren R. Roth
Overvaluing Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance, Lauren R. Roth
Scholarly Works
Although positive and negative assessments of tying health insurance to employment abound, most scholars and policymakers have acknowledged that our long history in this area predicts our future. What they have largely ignored, however, is the extent to which individual attachment to employment-based insurance is at the root of our inability to make broader health reforms. The attachment (1) harms exchange-based insurance and (2) denies employers the ability to use Health Reimbursement Arrangements (“HRAs”) to subsidize the purchase of insurance by their employees on the exchanges.
This Article advocates reducing or eliminating workers’ overvaluation of their health insurance and increasing …
Same Sex Marriage In A Post-Perry And Windsor America, Kathryn L. Moore, Allison I. Connelly, Ross T. Ewing
Same Sex Marriage In A Post-Perry And Windsor America, Kathryn L. Moore, Allison I. Connelly, Ross T. Ewing
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
These materials accompanied a presentation at the 2014 Kentucky Bar Association Annual Convention entitled Same Sex Marriage in a Post-Perry and Windsor America. The focus of this presentation was on: the legal landscape following major LGBTQ civil rights cases; how these cases would impact families in Kentucky; and any employment or retirement issues.
A Failure To Supervise: How The Bureaucracy And The Courts Abandoned Their Intended Roles Under Erisa, Lauren R. Roth
A Failure To Supervise: How The Bureaucracy And The Courts Abandoned Their Intended Roles Under Erisa, Lauren R. Roth
Scholarly Works
This Article addresses how courts failed to adequately supervise employers administering pension plans before ERISA. Relying on a number of different legal theories — from an initial theory that pensions were gratuities offered by employers to the recognition that pension promises could create contractual rights — the courts repeatedly found ways to allow employers to promise much and provide little to workers expecting retirement security. In Section III, this Article addresses how Congress failed to create an effective structure for strong bureaucratic enforcement and the bureaucratic agencies with enforcement responsibilities failed to fulfill those functions. Finally, in Section IV, this …
Rethinking Erisa's Promise Of Income Security In A World Of 401(K) Plans, Lawrence A. Frolik
Rethinking Erisa's Promise Of Income Security In A World Of 401(K) Plans, Lawrence A. Frolik
Articles
This article discusses the evolution of retirement income funds from defined benefit packages to 401(k) and IRA accounts and how the changing dynamic has reshaped the way retirees think about post-retirement income. The article outlines the mechanics of 401(k) accounts and rollover IRAs in the post-retirement period and presents questions about the ability of retirees to successfully address the complex issues relating to investment choices including, what entity they entrust their savings to, the volume and source of distributions, and long-term sufficiency planning. The article suggests that an increase in the use of annuities may help to resolve some of …
Central Falls Retirees V. Bondholders: Assessing Fear Of Contagion In Chapter 9 Proceedings, Maria O'Brien
Central Falls Retirees V. Bondholders: Assessing Fear Of Contagion In Chapter 9 Proceedings, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
Modern Chapter 9 litigation has been characterized by extraordinary protections for municipal bondholders, and Central Falls is no exception. Although not well understood by politicians, fear of contagion has encouraged the adoption of legal arrangements that have limited the bankruptcy courts’ ability to include bondholders in the cost of restructuring municipal debt. This preference for bondholders (and, by extension, their insurers) has meant increased misery for taxpayers and retirees. Given that all of these actors appear to have been complicit to some degree in the creation and maintenance of the fiscally imprudent conditions that triggered bankruptcy and that evidence of …
Thoughts On The Latest Battles Over Erisa's Remedies, Brendan S. Maher
Thoughts On The Latest Battles Over Erisa's Remedies, Brendan S. Maher
Faculty Scholarship
It is extraordinarily unlikely that the drafters of ERISA foresaw the effect the statute would have on federal courts and American economic life. It was originally conceived as a "pension bill of rights" designed to ensure that workers received the fixed monthly pension payment (based on tenure and average salary) that they had been promised. It grew, however, into the most litigated statute in the United States Code; to govern increasingly popular individual retirement savings accounts, e.g., 401(k) accounts;4 to be the central statute regulating employment based health insurance, which covers over one hundred and sixty million people; to be …
Promises To Keep: Ensuring The Payment Of Americans' Pension Benefits In The Wake Of The Great Recession, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt
Promises To Keep: Ensuring The Payment Of Americans' Pension Benefits In The Wake Of The Great Recession, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt
Articles by Maurer Faculty
In this essay, I examine the problem of designing a pension plan within the context of our larger public policy of encouraging workers to save for retirement. I discuss the various problems and risks inherent in encouraging workers to adequately save for retirement, invest those assets efficiently, and ensure the planned level of retirement consumption for the remainder of their lives. I also discuss the three major types of pension plans in the American retirement system, defined benefit, defined contribution, and hybrid, and assess how well each of these types of plans deals with the problems encountered in designing a …
An Overview Of The U.S. Retirement Income Security System And The Principles And Values It Reflects, Kathryn L. Moore
An Overview Of The U.S. Retirement Income Security System And The Principles And Values It Reflects, Kathryn L. Moore
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
This article is designed to provide an overview of the U.S. retirement income security system from a comparative law perspective. Like many countries, the U.S. has a three tier pension or retirement income system, with the three tiers consisting of (1) Social Security, (2) employment-based pensions, and (3) individual savings. Thus, superficially, the U.S. retirement income security system resembles that of many around the world. Yet, in other ways, such as its focus on individual rights and responsibility, the U.S. system is unique.
The article begins by discussing the nine guiding principles of the U.S. Social Security system as identified …
Combating Moral Hazard: The Case For Rationalizing Public Employee Benefits, Maria O'Brien
Combating Moral Hazard: The Case For Rationalizing Public Employee Benefits, Maria O'Brien
Faculty Scholarship
The current crisis in public employee benefits is a fairly conventional moral hazard story about overly generous promises made by both private sector employers and politicians spending public dollars. The private sector, forced by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in 1993 to confront the true cost of promises made to future retirees, dealt with the newly discovered debt in a number of ways, including the termination of defined benefit plans which were quickly replaced by defined contribution plans. The public sector was also forced to confront its own largesse with the implementation of GASB 45 which focused careful attention …
Erisa Preemption Doctrine As Health Policy, Joshua P. Booth, Larry I. Palmer
Erisa Preemption Doctrine As Health Policy, Joshua P. Booth, Larry I. Palmer
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Redressing All Erisa Fiduciary Breaches Under Section 409 (A), Eric D. Chason
Redressing All Erisa Fiduciary Breaches Under Section 409 (A), Eric D. Chason
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Protecting Our Aging Retirees: Converting 401(K) Accounts Into Federally Guaranteed Lifetime Annuities, Lawrence A. Frolik
Protecting Our Aging Retirees: Converting 401(K) Accounts Into Federally Guaranteed Lifetime Annuities, Lawrence A. Frolik
Articles
America’s retirees are faced with a potential financial disaster. Economic security in retirement has long depended on Social Security, private savings and employer provided retirement plans. While much attention has been paid to the financial problems of Social Security and the lack of private saving for retirement, little attention has been paid to an alarming development in employer provided retirement plans: the likely inability of retirees during the long years of their retirement to successfully manage their retirement funds accumulated in 401(k) and similar accounts. We as a society have set up a funding system for retirement that assumes retirees …
Erisa Misrepresentation And Nondisclosure Claims: Securities Litigation Under The Guise Of Erisa?, Clovis Trevino Bravo
Erisa Misrepresentation And Nondisclosure Claims: Securities Litigation Under The Guise Of Erisa?, Clovis Trevino Bravo
Georgetown Law Student Series
In the wake of recent corporate scandals and dramatic market downturns, many employees whose retirement savings plans were heavily invested in the stock of their employer have seen their account balances substantially depleted. To recover for their losses, plan participants have filed lawsuits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) alleging that plan fiduciaries made misrepresentations or failed to disclose material information about the suitability of investing in the company stock. These suits are generally derivative or companion cases to securities class actions based on the same allegations of misrepresentations or nondisclosures. Even though there is a significant overlap …
On Beyond Calpers: Survey Evidence On The Developing Role Of Public Pension Funds In Corporate Governance, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch
On Beyond Calpers: Survey Evidence On The Developing Role Of Public Pension Funds In Corporate Governance, Stephen Choi, Jill E. Fisch
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Employees, Pensions, And Governance In Chapter 11, David A. Skeel Jr.
Employees, Pensions, And Governance In Chapter 11, David A. Skeel Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Unfortunate Life And Merciful Death Of The Avoidance Powers Under Section 103 Of The Durbin-Delahunt Bill: What Were They Thinking?, Steven L. Harris, Charles W. Mooney Jr.
The Unfortunate Life And Merciful Death Of The Avoidance Powers Under Section 103 Of The Durbin-Delahunt Bill: What Were They Thinking?, Steven L. Harris, Charles W. Mooney Jr.
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Cash Balance Controversy Revisited: Age Discrimination And Fidelity To Statutory Text, Edward A. Zelinsky
The Cash Balance Controversy Revisited: Age Discrimination And Fidelity To Statutory Text, Edward A. Zelinsky
Articles
No abstract provided.