The Defined Benefit

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  • State Pension Update: Kentucky Pension Law Goes to Court
    Kentucky pensions

    This week the Kentucky Supreme Court will hear the case regarding SB 151, the pension-gutting law that was hurriedly passed earlier this year. This case is an appeal of the ruling of Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd that struck…

  • Three States That Abandoned Their Pensions – And Suffered The Consequences

    What happens when a state abandons its defined benefit pension for a riskier, 401(K)-style plan? Taxpayers lose – According to the National Institute on Retirement Security, “for a given level of retirement income, a typical 401(k) plan costs 91% more…

  • Eleven Years of Fighting for Retirement Security
    retirement security

    This month, the National Public Pension Coalition (NPPC) celebrates its 11th anniversary of fighting for the retirement security of working families. We have seen some great victories and some painful defeats in the fight to protect pensions. The past eleven…

  • Did You Know NFL Players Earn a Pension?

    The 2018 NFL season kicks off tonight with a “battle of the birds” between the Atlanta Falcons and the reigning Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles. As Americans once again tune in to the nation’s most popular sport, we thought…

  • Back to School: Pensions Keep Teachers in the Classroom
    teacher pensions

    Students are back in school all across the nation now. While many students returned at some point in August, the Tuesday after Labor Day traditionally marks the first day of school in much of the country. With eager students once…

  • John Arnold Meddling in California Politics
    John Arnold

    Over the years, we’ve detailed the many different ways in which John Arnold attacks public pensions nationwide. He has used more than $50 million of his personal fortune to support anti-pension groups like the Retirement Security Initiative; to promote biased…

  • A Firsthand Account of Pension Madness in Kentucky
    Pension madness in Kentucky

    Today’s blog post is a guest post from Ellen Suetholz, the coordinator of the Kentucky Public Pension Coalition. In 2017, she filed an open records request to obtain the suppressed actuarial analysis of an earlier pension bill. She was denied…

  • Income Inequality Causes Retirement Inequality
    retirement inequality

    The goal of a retirement savings plan, like a pension, is to replace a certain amount of pre-retirement income during retirement. In earlier periods of American history, many elderly citizens spent their last years in desperate poverty with little savings…

  • More Americans Are Going Bankrupt in Retirement
    Retirement Security Initiative

    The move away from pensions and toward 401(k)s has gutted retirement security for many Americans. Defined contribution plans, like 401(k)s, are risky and unreliable and disproportionately benefit the wealthy. An increasing number of Americans are entering their golden years with…

  • Kentucky’s Cash Balance Plan Fails Teachers
    Kentucky pensions

    We’ve written many times about the rushed and potentially unconstitutional process Kentucky legislators used to pass SB 151, the stinking anti-pension bill. While the battle is still playing out in the courts over whether the bill was passed constitutionally, we…

  • How Women Miss Out on Retirement Savings

    Women are more likely than men to be in poverty during retirement. There are multiple causes for this. Women live longer than men, so they simply have more years of retirement to finance. Also, women typically have less in retirement…

  • Retirement Savings Obstacles for Millennial Black Women
    retirement savings

    Last week we wrote about the challenges facing black women in saving for retirement, but how many black women benefit from public pensions and the security they provide. Retirement insecurity is a problem for black women of all ages, but…