Description: A response to American Legislative Exchange Council's report "Unaccountable and Unaffordable" in light of applicable Actuarial Standards of Practice.

Description: In February 2008, the American Academy of Actuaries and and the Society of Actuaries Pension Section Council co-sponsored a lively roundtable discussion of the role of funding, disclosure and investment for public pension plans. This article presents the author’s observations and interpretations of the roundtable discussion.

Description: Summarizes and explains the COLA and wage-indexed changes in Social Security program parameters announced by the Social Security Administration on October 13, 2022.

Description: This article discusses the U.S. military retirement system, an unfunded non-contributory defined-benefit plan, and the legislative proposal that would convert the system to an entry-age-normal funding method.

Description: The purpose of this paper is to explore a methodology for choosing among techniques for managing contribution volatility in defined- benefit pension plans. A frequently used – and as often criticized – method for managing contribution volatility is to base actuarial cost on smoothed assets. Our goal in this paper is to develop a methodology for measuring and evaluating the quantitative impact of competing asset smoothing policies. We proceed by investigating a series of basic pension metrics, evaluating the characteristics of each using a simulated pension plan. We then use normalized and weighted combinations of these metrics to determine an optimal smoothing policy.

Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 1. This article discusses the impact of a change in procedure in the financing of the US Military Retirement System. The change requires amortizing the past service liability. The impact will depend upon whether the amortization is achieved by increasing current taxes and decreasing the current deficit, or by merely increasing the national debt and leaving the current deficit unchanged. The author asserts that the new financing method will not weaken the financial condition of the military retirement system, and that it has the potential to strengthen its financial condition if the funding of the past service liability is handled appropriately.

Description: In recent months, many significant developments in Canada have affected employee benefits, particularly pensions. Other Canadian issues discussed in this article are unemployment insurance and taxation of pensions.

Description: This paper presents a methodology that represents the common ground between the major camps in the debate over the defined benefits DB system.

Description: This panel discussion from the 1977 Record of the SOA Vol.3 No. 4 examines current issues in public employees pension plans including investments, ERISA compliance, cost methods, actuarial audits, and plan design issues.

Description: This panel discussion focuses on the funding of public employee retirement plans.