June 2017

26Jun

US. High Police and Fire Pension Rates Send Lawmakers Scrambling

A group of Arizona House lawmakers is launching an effort aimed at cutting the soaring costs to communities of police and fire pensions, with its leader warning that cities could end up declaring bankruptcy if legislators fail to act. The new committee announced by House Speaker J.D. Mesnard comes just over a year after 70 percent of voters approved changes to the state's public safety pension plan designed to return it to solvency in 20 years. The voter approval and separate...

June 26, 2017
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22Jun

6 Trends Seen In America’s Retirement Plans

Employer 401k matches and automatic features are a win for all involved. Anyone needing more evidence can find it in a new report that claims over 80 percent of retirement plan sponsors have opted to fund an employee match, up from 69 percent in 2015. These plans are seeing participation rates 19 percent higher than those that don’t fund a match. Additionally, plans that offer both automatic enrollment and automatic increase features have an 80 percent participation rate. It’s part of...

June 22, 2017
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21Jun

US. More than 1,200 positions targeted for early retirement, buyouts at EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to cut 8 percent of its workforce by early September through early retirement and buyouts. In memo of Acting EPA Deputy Administrator Michael Flynn, and obtained by Federal News Radio, he said the agency plans submitting its agency-wide VERA/VSIP proposal to the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget for approval later this month, with more information about which positions will be included in the program of July. Officials from the...

June 21, 2017
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20Jun

US. Ending Pittsburgh’s fossil fuel pension investments wouldn’t be easy or cheap

Researchers say that Pittsburgh's pension funds could lose nearly $500,000 a year if the city stops investing in fossil fuel-related companies — as Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto has said he is committed to doing. While that loss would be damaging for Pittsburgh's underfunded pension funds, it wouldn't do much to change the behavior of fossil fuel companies, the researchers suggest. “It's purely a symbolic move that has no impact on the climate,” said Chris Fiore of the Chicago-based economic consulting firm...

June 20, 2017
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20Jun

US. CalPERS pension fund to review private equity investments

The California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS, plans to scrutinize its private equity investments at next month's board meeting with an eye toward reviewing the governance and transparency of the asset class. Chief Investment Officer Ted Eliopoulos told the investment board on Monday that despite the high returns of its private equity investments, the negative public scrutiny of the asset class had made "it increasingly difficult for CalPERS to compete successfully in the private equity marketplace." The "fish bowl of...

June 20, 2017
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15Jun

US. Three Ways GOP Is Waging War On Retirement

While most of the world was consumed with former FBI Director James Comey's riveting Senate testimony last week, the GOP majority in the House of Representatives quietly prosecuted its war on retirement. House Republicans under the leadership of Speaker Paul Ryan passed a "Financial CHOICE" Act that would roll back multiple Dodd-Frank protections that were put in place after the 2008 crash. These recent "reforms" mean your retirement savings will be more at risk. U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Paul...

June 15, 2017
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14Jun

US. Pennsylvania Pension Reform Bill Becomes Law

Pennsylvania’s Senate Bill 1, which moves employees with non-high-risk jobs into hybrid retirement plans, has graduated to a law. Gov. Tom Wolf gave the state pension reform bill the green light Monday. It was passed by the Senate on June 5 and the House of Representatives on June 8. “Today is yet another demonstration that by working across party lines and branches of government, we can address important issues,” Wolf said in a press release. “The common thread that runs through...

June 14, 2017
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09Jun

US. NYC’s Pension Fund Becomes First In Country To Divest From Private Prisons

New York City's pension fund is the first in the nation to fully divest from private prisons, according to Comptroller Scott Stringer. Trustees of the city's pension fund voted unanimously to divest in mid-May, and have since pulled $48 million of stocks and bonds from three companies: GEO Group, CoreCivic, and G4S. "With Donald Trump in the White House, we're seeing more and more industries try to profit from backwards policies at the expense of immigrants and communities of color,"...

June 9, 2017
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06Jun

US. High Court Expands Religious Exemption for Retirement Plans

The exemption in federal pension law for church retirement plans should apply even to plans not initially established by a church, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday. This morning’s reversal stems from class actions against Advocate Health Care Network by current and former employees. Advocate runs 12 hospitals and 250 other health care facilities in Illinois. Though it is not a church, it has contractual relationships with the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Illinois...

June 6, 2017
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May 2017

29May

US. Who killed retirement security? If you look closely, it wasn’t the 401(k)

“America’s retirement savings system has failed,” famed financial planning author Jane Bryant Quinn has said — and she isn’t short of company. Media articles regularly recount the ways in which Americans, burdened with the responsibility of saving for retirement through 401(k)s, fail to put enough aside for old age. In response, 84 percent of House Democrats have co-sponsored legislation to expand Social Security benefits, while states are hoping to establish their own retirement plans for private sector workers. But here’s the...

May 29, 2017
News, OP Ed
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