Welcome to the latest edition of This Week in Pensions! As we do most weeks, we have gathered the best stories about pensions and retirement security from the previous week. This is the news you need to know in the fight for a secure retirement.
Here are this week’s top stories:
- Pulling U.S. Public Pensions Back from the Brink by Frances Denmark: Institutional Investor writes about recent moves by states to shore up their public pension funds, including the creation of “rainy day” funds for pensions in Oklahoma and Louisiana. NPPC Executive Director Bailey Childers is quoted: “We’re seeing more and more communities take steps to protect public pensions, and it’s a trend that has largely fallen under the radar.”
- The Champions of the 401(k) Lament the Revolution They Started by Timothy Martin: according to the Wall Street Journal, some of the earliest advocates of the 401(k) now regret how the move to 401(k) plans has upended the retirement landscape in the U.S. The former president of the American Society of Pension Actuaries stated: “The great lie is that the 401(k) was capable of replacing the old system of pensions.”
- Congress, oversight board and stakeholders must take next steps to resolve Puerto Rico crisis by Eric LeCompte: writing in the Hill, LeCompte argues that the various stakeholders in the Puerto Rico financial crisis must include protection of public pensions in their plans to improve the situation in the commonwealth.
- Census Bureau: Public pension fund assets climb 2.5% in third quarter by Hazel Bradford: the latest figures from the Census Bureau show that public pension funds continue to increase their asset holdings. Compared to the same quarter in 2015, assets were up 5.1 percent. This is a good sign that public pension systems are continuing to recover from the financial crisis.
- Setting the record straight on the Dallas Employees’ Retirement Fund by Carla Brewer: the vice chairman of the Dallas ERF writes in response to an inaccurate and misleading column by anti-pension ideologue Joe Nation. Brewer lays out the facts about DERF’s strengths and its history of achieving its investment return targets.
Be sure to check back next week for the latest news in the fight for a secure retirement!
