Description: Article from Pension Section News, May 2007, No. 64, discusses the Pension Protection Act PPA and the related misconceptions. The PPA has removed significant legislative uncertainty around pension funding rules. But there are lots of details. This article discusses the many unresolved issues related to near-term funding decisions.

Description: The traditional defined-benefit (DB) plan is a type of plan structured to provide the greatest degree of retirement income security, designed to pay out a guaranteed retirement income for the life of the retiree (and, when applicable, a beneficiary). However, over the last several decades, the number of private-sector employees covered under these traditional plans has decreased dramatically and been replaced by defined contribution (DC) plans. In contrast, public-sector retirement plans, which are exempt from ERISA, have seen a much smaller decline in DB plans. There are many differences in the private and public sector that likely contributed to this phenomenon, but ERISA and the many amendments to it has been a major factor.

Description: TECHNICAL UPDATE 00-4 PBGC’s Full Funding Limit Exemption From The Variable Rate Premium from Pension Section News, October 2000, Issue No. 44.

Description: This session from the 1995 SOA Vancouver Meeting discusses recent economic developments leading many companies to reduce their workforce, examines the impact of this activity on the pension plan, nondiscrimination rules and explores design options that have been used in conjunction with downsizing. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 21, No. 3a.

Description: In Pension Dumping: The Reasons, the Wreckage, the Stakes for Wall Street the reviewer finds that Fran Hawthorne provides guidance through the myriad of ERISA rules, PBGC regulations, bankruptcy laws, and investor expectations that have failed to prevent, and have perhaps even have contributed to, many high profile plan terminations. From the Pension Section News, September 2008, Issue No. 68.

Description: The SOA Research Institute tasked the Workforce Science Institute to investigate how retirement benefit plans can affect a plan sponsor’s workforce and business results. The following is an interview with Rick Guzzo and Haig Nalbantian co-founders of the Workforce Science Institute who are the researchers on this project. The interview gives a helicopter view of the project as well as provides some “food for thought” on how retirement plans can be designed to produce an effective workforce.

Description: This report presents the results of a survey conducted for the Society of Actuaries Pension Section Research Committee by Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc, March 2005. The purpose of the survey was to examine the prevalence of traditional and hybrid defined benefit pension plans in large organizations that have operations in the United States. The results of the study may prove useful to pension practitioners and policy makers wishing to gauge the effect of a recent US court ruling with potentially widespread implications for pension plans commonly referred to as cash balance plans.

Description: 10 Considerations for DB Pension Plans in Light of the Coronavirus Crisis of 2020. The article discusses the following topics: ERISA funded status & benefit restrictions; cash contributions & tax deductibility; PBGC premiums; Pension Accounting Expense; Commencing Benefits After Normal Retirement Age; Bringing Back Former Participants; Actuarial Assumptions; Asset Allocation and Re-Risking; De-Risking Expectations and Future Funding Relief