In the News • April 28, 2010
April 28, 2010 — CNN Money reports on the new report, “Out of Balance?” finding that the compensation gap is widening for state and local workers as compared to private sector counterparts. Public workers earn 11% to 12% less than workers in private companies even when accounting for benefits. “For a long time, there has been a […]
In the News • April 1, 2010
Spring 2010 — A letter to the editor by NIRS submitted to Education Next disputes a recent piece entitled “Golden Handcuffs” Shortcomings in the authors’ analysis lead them to spurious conclusions. First, despite the authors’ claim, legally and otherwise, pension plans cannot and do not redistribute wealth. Second, the authors incorrectly assert that there is no justification […]
In the News • March 16, 2010
March 16, 2010 — BNA reports that as of the end of 2009, public plans had 57 percent of their investments in equities while private sector pensions had on 38% in equities, according to NIRS. “This is striking, because when we look back over the past decade, we can see that through 2006, pensions in the private […]
In the News • March 16, 2010
March 16, 2010 — PlanSponsor reports on NIRS’ analysis suggesting that passage of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 led private sector plan sponsors to turn away from equities during the economic downturn and not reap the benefits of the market recovery. Companies have attempted to reduce the volatility of the investments in their plans by turning […]
In the News • March 16, 2010
March 16, 2010 — National Underwriter reports that in 2009, state and local pension plans performed better than their private sector plans, according a study of data from the Federal Reserve. The National Institute on Retirement Security, Washington, D.C., is making that point in an analysis of trends revealed in the Fed’s Flow of Funds data. For the […]
In the News • March 16, 2010
March 16, 2010 — Pension & Investments reports on NIRS analysis of public plans investments, which returned an average 16% in 2009. This means public plans outperformed private sector pensions by three percentage points largely becasue public plans maintained equity positions while private plans shifted to bonds. “Public pension plans have avoided making drastic moves, largely staying […]
In the News • March 15, 2010
March 15, 2010 — Reuters reports on NIRS’ analysis of newly-released Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data indicating that public pensions held steady, benefiting from 2009 stock market recovery. Reuters reports that as a group, public sector pension funds gained 16 percent last year, versus a gain of 13 percent for corporate pension plans. The public sector plans did […]
In the News • March 15, 2010
March 15, 2010 — Reuters reports on NIRS’ analysis of newly-released Federal Reserve Flow of Funds data indicating that public pensions held steady, benefiting from 2009 stock market recovery. Reuters reports that as a group, public sector pension funds gained 16 percent last year, versus a gain of 13 percent for corporate pension plans. The public sector plans did […]
In the News • March 14, 2010
March 14, 2010 — A Pocono Record letter to the editor discusses pensions and NIRS research. According to the National Institute on Retirement Security, pensions have a broad local economic impact and workers need pensions for retirement security. Read the full article here.