The Defined Benefit

Search

Categories

Tags

Date

  • Attacks on Pensions Keep Happening Again and Again
    Attacks on pensions

    Today is Groundhog Day. Everyone’s favorite groundhog- Punxsutawney Phil- will stick his head out of the ground and look for his shadow. Legend has it that if Phil sees his shadow, we’ll have six more weeks of winter. Many of…

  • NPPC Is Here to Help You Protect Public Pensions

    It’s still early in 2017 and the fight to protect pensions is just beginning. John Arnold is on the attack against pensions in Nebraska, South Carolina, and Texas. Anti-pension legislators in Michigan are threatening to reintroduce legislation that would gut…

  • Public Pension Funds Continue to Recover from the Recession

    It’s well-known that public pension funds took a major hit during the financial crisis. We’ve written before about the steep drop in funding levels from 2008 – 2009 when the economy was crashing due to Wall Street greed and incompetence.…

  • Governor Sam Brownback’s Budget – What You Should Know

    Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas is at it again. If you’ve followed our blog over the last couple of years, as well as the news, you know that Kansas is in fiscal disarray. In 2011, when he first took office,…

  • John Arnold Is Attacking Pensions in Nebraska
    John Arnold

    It’s still early in 2017 and state legislative sessions haven’t even begun in every state yet. John Arnold, however, is already on the attack. Arnold, the anti-pension billionaire and former trader at the disgraced Enron, who has spent over $50…

  • Betsy DeVos and Public Pensions in Michigan

    President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Michigan billionaire Betsy DeVos to be the Secretary of Education in his upcoming administration. If that name sounds familiar, it should. The DeVos family is a major advocate for gutting public pensions in Michigan. Should…

  • States Have Made Changes, But Are Sticking With Pensions

    A recent report from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College looked at state and local pension plans and whether there had been changes to those plans since the financial crisis. The report’s authors found that three-fourths of state…

  • The 401(k) Has Failed as a Replacement for Pensions

    In an article published by the Wall Street Journal this week, the creators of the 401(k) reflected on the consequences of the product they promoted. The takeaway: many of the early advocates of 401(k)s now regret the “revolution” they helped…

  • Public Pensions in the Year Ahead: 2017 Preview

    All in all, 2016 was a good year for public pensions. States and cities chose to protect and preserve their defined benefit pension plans and the city of Palm Beach, FL, moved back to a defined benefit plan from an…

  • National Public Pension Coalition’s Naughty and Nice List 2016

    Around this time of year, many children- and some adults- are very concerned about whether they made it onto the naughty or nice list of a jolly old man who lives up north. Here at NPPC, we also keep a…

  • Public Pensions Help Local Communities Thrive

    Often when we talk about public pensions, we focus on the individual teacher, firefighter, or other public employee who earns a secure retirement through their pension. That is certainly one of the best features of defined benefit pensions: workers know…

  • How Much Should Public Employees Save for Retirement
    retirement

    As we’ve written about on this blog, the prevalence of defined benefit pensions has declined in the private sector and this has hurt working families. In the public sector, though, defined benefit pensions remain quite common. According to a recent…