Description: This paper considers a defined contribution DC plan, a cash balance plan, and traditional defined benefit DB plan with equal expected value at the assumed retirement age. Using utility as a measure of risk and participant preferences, the designs are particularly well suited to minimize participant risk, particularly while employees are accumulating retirement assets. From Cash Balance Symposium Monograph, M-RS02-3.

Description: An interview with actuary Lee Gold reveals preliminary results of a recent SOA research project which surveyed employees on what retirement plan features they prefer.

Description: Summary of the annual cost-of-living adjustment and changes in other wage-indexed programs parameters for Social Security in 2024.

Description: This report, Phase 2 of a project on communicating pension risk, includes interviews with several individuals representing various aspects of plan administration: plan fiduciaries, finance professionals, consultants, and providers. The report provides a summary of each interview, concluding with common themes.

Description: Recognizing the increase in the rate of inflation over recent years in the United States, pension plans have been improving benefits for retired employees. In this paper, a planning model is developed for such increases, based on periodic examination of the increase in pension necessary to keep a replacement ratio constant. This ratio is initially related to the private pension plus Social Security benefit, divided by final average salary. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1982, Vol. 34.

Description: This is an article from The Actuary that discusses the need to reform defined benefit plans. The number of defined benefit plans in the United States has declined significantly over the past 20 years. If Congress overlooks the interests of plan sponsors in its reform, we're likely to witness further erosion of an already weakened defined benefit system, and America's workers would be the ultimate losers.

Description: The Society of Actuaries Retirement Section is pleased to make available material that addresses the challenges in communicating pension risk to stakeholders.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA Vancouver Meeting discusses assumptions for pension valuation including rates of termination, retirement, disability and mortality. Also addressed is the SOA Pension Section Council's research on rates of termination and the new mortality tables. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 3b.

Description: This discussion examines miscellaneous topics. Topics include actuarial training, final salary pension plans and hospitalization and surgical insurance. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1960, Vol. 12, No. 34.

Description: Updated longitudinal study of metrics for measuring whether US corporate pension plan contributions paid down unfunded liabilities or met regulatory benchmarks.