Retirement Security Law Commons^™

Erisa Preemption Doctrine As Health Policy, Joshua P. Booth, Larry I. Palmer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

States To The Rescue: Policy Options For State Government To Promote Private Sector Retirement Savings, Christian A. Weller, Amy Helburn

Gerontology Institute Publications

We provide an overview of retirement plan proposals that could be implemented at the state level. All aim to increase participation in retirement savings, mainly by lowering the cost of doing so and possibly by offering some employer or government matches to employee contributions. The proposals vary widely on how much risk employees are exposed to. Some proposals leave most of the risks of saving for retirement – investment, market, and longevity risk – with the employee, while others try to eliminate them all. The tools of risk management range from well-diversified index funds and default investments to required offers …

Totalization With Mexico: A Path To Immigration Reform, Rajeeve Thakur

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Golden Gate And The Ninth Circuit’S Threat To Erisa’S Uniformity And Jurisprudence , Landon Wade Magnusson

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taxing Housework, Nancy Staudt

Faculty Working Papers

This article examines the tax policy rationale for excluding non-market household labor from the tax base and argues that the conventional rationals no longer withstand scrutiny. The article goes on to argue that it is possible to include non-market household labor into the tax base, while at the same time avoiding the imposition of costs upon the (mostly) women who supply the labor. Moreover, and mort important, tax policy reform along these line would increase householder laborers' access to public retirement benefits and signal the important of the work to society generally.

The Evolution Of The Applicability Of Erisa To Indian Tribes: We May Finally Have Congressional Intent, But It's Still Flawed, Alicia K. Crawford

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Social Security Benefits Formula 101: A Practical Primer, Francine J. Lipman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Washington Pension System Review, H. Allan Hunt, Peter S. Barth, Heather Grob, Henry George Harder, Michael Silverstein

Testimonies

No abstract provided.

The Pension Factor: Assessing The Role Of Defined Benefit Plans In Reducing Elder Hardships, Frank Porell, Beth Almeida

Gerontology Institute Publications

Traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans have long been an important source of income for elder households seeking to maintain a middle-class standard of living after a lifetime of work. Under traditional DB plans, retirees receive a guaranteed, regular stream of income after retirement that continues until death.

The monthly pension benefit is typically based on years of service to the employer, age, and salary history. Retirees also have the option to elect a joint-and-survivor benefit, to ensure that pension payments continue to a surviving spouse. DB plan participation rates among private sector American workers have sharply decreased from about …

Finding A Lost Pension, Pension Action Center, Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

Pension Action Center Publications

Workers may be tempted to shrug their shoulders and write off the pensions as “lost.” Indeed, some pensions may in fact be gone forever. In many cases, though, the pension money is sitting safely in a fund, waiting only for the worker (or a surviving spouse or beneficiary) to come forward to collect it. If you think you may be entitled to money in a pension fund, either as a participant or as a spouse or beneficiary of a participant, it makes sense to try to track it down. This booklet, which is based on the experience of pension counselors, …

Don't Put Your Eggs In One Basket: Reforming 401(K) Pensions To Address The Educational And Psychological Issues That Drive Good Employees To Make Bad Investment Decisions, Marvin H. Stroud

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

Vebas To The Rescue: Evaluating One Alternative For Public Sector Retiree Health Benefits, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. 879 (2009), Susan E. Cancelosi

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

401(K) Plan Fees: A Trifecta Of Governmental Oversight, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Arguably, 401(k) plan fees are the biggest policy issue in the retirement world today. They potentially raise questions about the fundamental business underpinnings of the principal form of retirement savings for the last twenty years. As an indication of their significance, three branches of the federal government: administrative, judicial, and legislative are currently and simultaneously addressing 401(k) plan fees.

This Article will not attempt to provide a comprehensive discussion of 401(k) plan fees and all of the issues that they raise. Instead, the Article will focus on recent governmental activity regarding 401(k) plan fees. It will begin by discussing three …

Funding Public Pension Plans, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. 837 (2009), Jonathan Barry Forman

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Primer On The Need To Continue Monitoring Closely The Transfer Of Social Welfare Risk And Liability Of Employee Benefit Plans, James E. Holloway

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article examines why federal legislative policy-makers and judicial decision-makers should ascertain the impact of the transfer of risk and liability on furthering welfare and security interests and preserving organizational discretion under ERISA and public policy. Part I explains why business organizations or employers transfer risk and liability to employees and retirees. This transfer occurs where global business outcomes cause social consequences that are driven directly by business decisions responding to new global competition and less American economic standing. Part II explains the need to assess the substantive issues and public policy concerns underlying legislative acts and judicial interpretations limiting …

Marriage, Property And [In]Equality: Remedying Erisa's Disparate Impact On Spousal Wealth, Paula A. Monopoli

Faculty Scholarship

Congress is considering pension reform in the wake of the tremendous loss in market value of retirement plans during the current recession. This article suggests that this is a historic moment to remedy a previously unidentified, unintended but profound gender disparity embedded in the federal law governing retirement plans in this country. It explores the common perception that while contemporary law and policy aim to facilitate equality within marriage, including in the area of property ownership, embracing equitable distribution in reallocating property upon divorce, the Employment Retirement Income Security Act’s (ERISA) structuring of retirement asset accumulation runs counter to this …

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 …

Understanding And Problematizing Contractual Tort Subrogation, Brendan S. Maher, Radha A. Pathak

Faculty Scholarship

The modern incarnation of tort subrogation allows an insurer to force its insured to turn over the litigation proceeds independently obtained by the insured against a third-party tortfeasor, even if the insured has not been made whole by such litigation. This Article demonstrates that such a result is the product of a subrogation-as-contract paradigm that has taken hold in the federal system, most notably by the United States Supreme Court in Sereboff v. Mid-Atlantic Services, 547 U.S. 356 (2006). More importantly, the Article illustrates the conceptual and historical roots of subrogation to demonstrate the extent to which subrogation-as-contract is divorced …

Trial And Error: Examining Erisa § 514(A) Preemption Of Employer "Fair Share" Laws In The Aftermath Of Golden Gate Restaurant Association V. City And County Of San Francisco, Daniel Ranellone

Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Pension Systems And Inflation-Indexed Bonds: A Study Of Strengthening Retirement Income Security Through Comparative Analysis Of The United States And Korean Systems, Joon Suk Bae

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

As most of the countries in the world approach an aging society, security for the aged emerges as one of the most important goals for a government to pursue. There are two primary areas related to retirement income security: pension systems and inflation-indexed bonds. Pension systems fall into three categories: public, corporate, and individual pensions. Public pensions, such as Social Security in the United States, are showing their limitation in securing retirement income because it is no longer easy to maintain their solvency as the ratio of workers-to-retirees goes down. Because of this limitation of public pensions, private pensions are …

The New Retiree Health Vebas, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Granted tax exempt status since 1928, Voluntary Employees' Beneficiary Associations (VEBAs) have received considerable attention since the fall of 2007 when General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler reached separate landmark agreements with the United Auto Workers union pursuant to which the companies agreed to contribute billions of dollars to VEBAs in exchange for transferring their retiree health care liabilities to the VEBAs. Specifically, General Motors agreed to contribute $31.9 billion while Ford agreed to contribute $13.6 billion, and Chrysler agreed to contribute $11 billion. Sometimes referred to as "defeasance" VEBAs, these "new," "stand-alone" retiree health VEBAs, differ significantly from traditional VEBAs …

Baby Ka-Boom! Coming Developments In Erisa Litigation Due To Social, Demographic, And Financial Pressures From The Baby Boom Generation, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1037 (2008), Craig C. Martin, Matthew J. Renaud, Douglas A. Sondgeroth

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Social Security: Principles To Guide Reform, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1061 (2008), Kathryn L. Moore

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Retirement In A Defined Contribution Era: Making The Money Last, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1091 (2008), David Pratt

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Much Is Enough? Giving Fiduciaries And Participants Adequate Information About Plan Expenses, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1005 (2008), Debra A. Davis

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

European And American Issues In Employee Benefits Law Compared, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1189 (2008), Yves Stevens

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Vesting, Modification, And Financing Of Public Retiree Health Benefits In Light Of New Accounting Rules, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1147 (2008), John Sanchez

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Social Security: Principles To Guide Reform, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

On February 12, 2008, the nation's first Baby Boomer, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, was the first of her generation to receive a Social Security retirement benefit. Born one second after midnight on January 1, 1946, Ms. Casey-Kirschling was born just eleven years after the Social Security system was originally enacted, nine years after the first Social Security payroll taxes were collected, and six years after the system first began to pay monthly retirement benefits.

"As the nation's first Baby Boomer, Ms. Casey-Kirschling is leading what is often referred to as America's silver tsunami. Over the next two decades, nearly eighty million Americans …

The Public Trust In Private Hands: Social Security And The Politics Of Government Investment, Benjamin A. Templin

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Last Ditch Options: An Assessment Of Independent Director Liability And A Proposal For Congressional Action In Light Of The Employee Stock Option Backdating Scandal, Matthew S. Chambers

Georgia Law Review

The employee stock option backdating scandal that came to light in 2006 affected over 100 public companies in the United States. Greedy executives, auditing oversight, and even faulty accounting software systems have been blamed for allowing backdating to happen. This Note, however, examines how some corporate directors, in derogation of their fiduciary duties, may have assisted stock option backdating. The Note concludes with a proposal for congressional action that will curb further stock option manipulation.