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Yesterday Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed legislation– SB 401– that weakens the retirement security of the state’s public school employees. This newly-signed legislation continues a long running saga of attacks on the pension benefits of Michigan’s public employees. While SB…
Since the Great Recession in 2008, warnings of an impending pension crisis have been splashed across the business pages of newspapers across the country. Despite these boisterous decrees, America’s public pension funds are stable. We explore the roots behind the…
When pension benefits are cut, public employees and retirees are hurt. In the past decade, every state has made changes to its public pension systems, some more significant than others. Teachers, firefighters, and other public employees have been asked to…
As we discussed last week, the evidence continues to grow that 401(k)s and other defined contribution plans do not provide a secure retirement for working families. Despite this mounting evidence, some have pushed for more contributions to 401(k)-style plans, as…
Long time readers of Defined Benefit know that 401(k)-style defined contribution plans have largely failed working families. Defined contribution plans are a poor substitute for defined benefit pension plans and as the private sector has shifted from pensions to 401(k)s,…
Many Americans struggle to save for retirement. As we’ve discussed before, roughly half of working Americans do not have access to a retirement savings plan through their employer. Even for those who do have access, many are contributing too little…
During its legislative session this year, the Texas Senate confirmed Josh McGee as the Chairman of the Texas Pension Review Board. This should concern everyone who cares about the retirement security of public employees in Texas because McGee is also…
In his 2018 budget proposal unveiled last month, President Donald Trump proposed attacks on the pensions of federal employees. We wrote about how harmful these cuts would be to the retirement security of federal employees. However, these proposed cuts would…
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal stringent Wall Street regulations included in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Immediately after his election in November of last year, President Trump pledged to repeal…
If you felt the ground shaking last week, there’s a reason why: the Kansas state legislature caused a political earthquake by rejecting Gov. Brownback’s disastrous, failed tax policy. In 2012, the Kansas legislature passed Brownback’s extreme right-wing tax plan, something…
Public pensions generate significant economic activity in cities and states across the nation. Public workers and their employers contribute to the pension fund and those pension funds earn a meaningful return on their investments. That money goes back into the…
The Oklahoma state legislature adjourned its 2017 legislative session on May 26. In many ways, what was remarkable about the 2017 session was how little got accomplished. For public pensions in Oklahoma, the session was largely a win, except for…