Pension News

Are you a retiree from the auto industry?  The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federal agency that guarantees pensions, has provided helpful information for retirees of Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, and other car companies.  

The PBGC guarantees pension benefits up to a certain limit for retirees of companies that have gone bankrupt and are unable to fulfill their pension obligations.  Unfortunately for some retirees, the PBGC maximum guarantees may be less than what their pension is worth.  For more information on how the PBGC protects defined benefit pensions, read our fact sheet.

These days, it’s not often that we agree with the decisions companies make when it comes to pensions (take a look at our lists of companies that have frozen their pensions or that have cut their 401(k) matches), but an activist alerted us to one company that is actually doing the right thing. As reported in the Times of Northwest Indiana last week, steel giant ArcelorMittal is forgiving $960,000 in pension overpayments made to 79 widows of retired workers. Many of these women are in their 80s and 90s and have relied on their survivor’s pension for decades. Having to pay back years of overpayments would have been a severe hardship for them. (more…)

With tax day approaching, Andrea Coombes of MarketWatch.com has written a helpful column about the Making Work Pay credit, a 2009 tax credit given to all working Americans with earnings under a certain amount. To implement this credit, the I.R.S. has issued new tax withholding tables. However, as she notes, implementing the tax credit through withholding tables are a  ”blunt instrument”, resulting in some workers having too much taken out of their paychecks or having too little withheld. (more…)

In the current economic climate, few of us want to open our 401(k) statements.  As we’ve written in the past, the faltering stock market, combined with employers eliminating their 401(k) matching contributions, has made retirement security quite a gamble.  But if you are one of the brave, a new tool can help you find out how your 401(k) measures up to 401(k) plans at other companies. (more…)

Since the beginning of the economic downturn we’ve seen a lot of stories in the news about the decline in the funding status of pension plans.  Given that pension plans are heavily invested in the stock market, real estate and other assets that have lost significant value in the economic downturn, it would follow suit that the funding levels in these plans have also decreased. (more…)

Earlier this week, the Pension Rights Center’s list of companies that have suspended their 401(k) matching contributions reached 100. (more…)

The Supreme Court recently ruled that a retirement plan could follow its own rules even if they were inconsistent with the terms of a divorce decree. The decision is an important one, not just because of the legal precedent that it sets, but also because it serves as an important warning to anyone who has a retirement savings plan. (more…)

Today, President Obama signed three executive orders aimed at “leveling the playing field” for workers and the labor movement.  We at the Pension Rights Center have a few ideas of our own on how President Obama can level the playing field when it comes to the nation’s retirement income system. (more…)

The two stars of this entertaining video give us their unique - and accurate - take on the history of pensions and what led companies to ask for pension funding relief in the financial bailout. (more…)

I recently came across a helpful Department of Labor fact sheet - Your Employer’s Bankruptcy - How Will It Affect Your Employee Benefits? Given the current state of the economy, it’s never too early for workers to know what might happen to their benefits if their employer goes bankrupt.  The fact sheet highlights the important fact that, even if an employer declares bankruptcy, its pension assets cannot be touched by the company’s creditors to pay off debt. (more…)