The Defined Benefit

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  • 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…

  • The Pension Protection Act Decreased Retirement Security

    In August, we wrote about the decline of traditional pensions in the private sector. One of the major reasons for private companies abandoning pensions was a series of laws beginning in the 1980s and culminating in the Pension Protection Act…

  • Protecting Public Pensions in Michigan

    Anti-pension ideologues in the Michigan legislature have wanted to gut public pensions there for a long time, especially pensions for teachers. This year, they attacked teachers’ retirement security during the lame duck legislative session, but they were defeated by the…

  • Retirement Savings Lessons from the United Kingdom

    The United States faces a retirement savings crisis. Just over half of all workers don’t have access to a retirement savings plan through their employer. Most working families, even near-retirement age households, have very little saved for retirement. The United…

  • Will President Trump Address the Retirement Savings Crisis?

    Now that Donald Trump is settling in as the president-elect, he is beginning to outline the priorities for his administration. As with many issues regarding Trump, it is hard to say for sure where he stands on Social Security, public…

  • The True Value of a Pension

    It’s that time of year again. On Thursday families across the country will gather to overindulge on turkey and pumpkin pie while trying desperately to steer clear of any mention of politics. Despite the tumultuous events of the past year,…