Newsroom

With a strong labor market, plentiful jobs, rising wages and wealth, and an urgent need for people to be more optimistic about our national future, there may never be a better time to act on retirement challenges than today.

In a new Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes that the financial stability of the Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement System (TSERS) and State Health Plan could take a dramatic turn for the worse if the North Carolina legislature doesn’t quickly take action to remedy a provision in the recently enacted $30 billion state budget.

In a Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes that the battle to bring back pensions for auto workers will have to fight another day. But maybe other companies with frozen pension plans will take a hard look at the evidence about the wisdom of offering pension plans. Certainly, a pension renaissance would benefit […]

In a new Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes about the impact of North Dakota’s decision to close their main public employee pension plan due to underfunding. While legislators may see closing the plan as a quick fix, examples from other states such as Alaska and Michigan show that the consequences of this […]

In a new Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes about a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, Older Workers: Retirement Account Disparities Have Increased by Income and Persisted by Race Over Time. The analysis finds that many Americans are losing ground when it comes to building retirement savings, despite policy efforts to improve workers’ savings. […]

In a Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes time is on the side of those who save early, and this is just as true for Congress and Social Security as it is for an office worker putting savings into their 401(k). The options for strengthening Social Security’s finances only become more expensive the […]

In a Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes financial stress is particularly high among public service workers, which shouldn’t be surprising given that government wage growth lags behind the private sector. In fact, a new report from MissionSquare Research Institute found that a whopping 88 percent of public service employees expressed concern about their personal finances and financial […]

In a Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes that demonstrated way to keep teachers over their careers is to offer them a defined benefit (DB) pension. While there is a high degree of churn in the early years, as new teachers decide whether education is the right career for them, once teachers stay […]

In a Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes that state leaders have learned the hard way that ending pension benefits comes with little to be gained and a big price to pay. More specifically, states that shifted new employees from defined benefit pensions to defined contribution or cash balance plans experienced increased costs […]