In a Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes that following IBM’s recent announcement that the company will resume offering a pension plan to its employees, there is much speculation that other companies will follow suit. On the public sector side, the town council in Trumbull, Connecticut, earlier this month unanimously voted to resume offering pensions to its police officers to address worrisome staffing shortages after switching a decade ago to a defined contribution (DC) plan. There’s also an active debate in the Alaska legislature about returning to pensions for public employees as the state faces a deeply troubling shortage of employees who deliver essential public services.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that employers are reconsidering pensions. The U.S. now is fully four decades into the 401(k) experiment, and it is abundantly clear that these plans just can’t do the retirement job alone. Most middle-class Americans are unable to accumulate enough savings to be self-sufficient in retirement without a pension.
New Research Finds Social Security Has a Strong Economic Impact
New research from the National Institute on Retirement Security finds that Social Security benefits play a powerful role in supporting the U.S. economy.
Is America’s Retirement System Failing Future Retirees?
In a Forbes column, NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan writes that as America ages and income inequality deepens, concerns about retirement security are mounting. Some voices, however, indicate that retirement concerns are exaggerated, relying on data indicating that older Baby Boomers have largely fared well in retirement. But new research published in The Journal of Retirement […]
