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Washington State Clarifies New Requirement to List Compensation and Benefits in Job Postings

"All covered job postings must include a general description of all benefits offered for the specific available position ... If the general description of benefits changes after a posting has been published, the job posting must be updated.... [T]he law applies to any employer who conducts business activity in Washington, regardless of whether the company has any employees in Washington or any physical presence in Washington.... A posting for a remote role must comply with Washington law if the position could be performed by a Washington-based employee. Employers cannot avoid coverage by excluding Washington applicants[.]"  MORE >>

Washington Post Announces Cuts to Employees' Retirement Benefits

"The Washington Post announced large cuts in retirement benefits on Tuesday, declaring that it would eliminate future retirement medical benefits and freeze defined-benefit pensions for nonunion employees.... The changes will hit hardest at employees hired before 2009 who could plan on receiving pension payments based on their income and years of service. Each of those employees could see scores -- or hundreds -- of thousands of dollars less over the course of a retirement. More recent hires do not have traditional pension plans. The Post will create a new cash balance plan to replace the pensions for nonunion employees and a separate but similar plan for those covered by the union."

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Washington Post Reporters Discuss 2004 Executive Compensation Survey

Excerpt: Post reporters David Hilzenrath and Terence O'Hara were online to discuss The Post's survey of executive compensation at Washington-area companies.

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Washington Post Uses Its Rich Pension Fund to Shrink Staff

"In 2009, The Post closed its pension plan to new employees -- and those who remained in the plan had their benefits frozen after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos acquired the newspaper. The pension fund itself, however, didn't freeze. As federal filings show, it has fattened to the point that it can finance 240 exit packages without breaking an actuarial sweat."

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Fact-Checking Obama's Pledge That 'No One Will Take Away' Your Health Plan: Washington Post Awards Four Pinocchios

"The administration is defending this pledge with a rather slim reed -- that there is nothing in the law that makes insurance companies force people out of plans they were enrolled in before the law passed. That explanation conveniently ignores the regulations written by the administration to implement the law. Moreover, it also ignores the fact that the purpose of the law was to bolster coverage and mandate a robust set of benefits, whether someone wanted to pay for it or not. The president's statements were sweeping and unequivocal -- and made both before and after the bill became law. The White House now cites technicalities to avoid admitting that he went too far in his repeated pledge, which, after all, is one of the most famous statements of his presidency. The president's promise apparently came with a very large caveat: 'If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan -- if we deem it to be adequate.'"  MORE >>

Washington Post Co.'s Star Asset: A Fat Pension Fund

"But while all [of Washington Post Co.'s] assets have their merits, here is one asset that gets much less attention: its hugely over-funded pension.... That's a pension plan that owes its recipients just under $1.47 billion, but has $2.07 billion in assets -- in other words, it is over-funded by a cool $604 million."  MORE >>

Washington Post Obituary for Nell Hennessy, Online Guest Book; Link to CUA Donations Site

Ellen Anne Hennessy (Nell) ... was a nationally recognized expert on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and a tireless champion for the rights of plan participants and pension plans. She was a model and mentor to many in the field of employee benefits and worked to educate both lawyers and other benefits professionals in the intricacies of employee benefits law and practice.... Donations in her honor may be made to The Nell Hennessy Employee Benefits Scholar Award at the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, Office of Development and Alumni Relations [which has an online donation form at https://secure.cua.edu/donate/placeOrder.cfm?productType=1&productID=50&submit=Donate+Now ]  MORE >>

Joint Response to Washington Post Reporting on Pew Study (PDF)

1 page. "[The National Association of State Retirement Administrators, the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems, and the National Council on Teacher Retirement] submitted [this] Letter to the Editor of (The Washington Post; free registration required) in response to their mis-reporting on The Pew Center on the States' report on public sector pensions and retiree health care."  MORE >>

Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post: Putting Professionals in a Social Security Fix

Excerpt: In his Nov. 27 op-ed ['A Fix for Social Security?'], about a possible bipartisan compromise that would lift the current $90,000 cap on taxable Social Security earnings, Sebastian Mallaby made a factual error and ignored important questions of fairness.

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Washington Post Coverage: Maryland 'Wal-Mart Bill' Assailed Before Judge

Excerpt: At issue was whether the state legislation is preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which sets minimum standards for private companies' voluntary pension and health plans. The state law was enacted earlier this year despite a veto attempt by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

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Pension Champion, Not 'Enemy' -- Barbara A. Mikulski Responds to Washington Post Editorial

Excerpt: Accusing me of being one of the 'enemies of reform' is as flawed as the editorial on pensions that applied the label ['Government's Disgrace,' Oct. 17].

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Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post on Pension Reform, First Do No Harm

Excerpt: The Post exaggerates problems with defined-benefit pension plans that employers provide voluntarily for 44 million American retirees and workers ['Government's Disgrace,' editorial, Oct.17]. Of the more than 31,000 such plans, 42 percent are better than 100 percent-funded and only 15 percent are funded at less than 70 percent.  MORE >>

Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post: Avoiding Britain's Pension Problems

Excerpt: An April 11 Business story said that President Bush's Social Security proposal 'closely echoes' Britain's individual account system. However, Britain created a decentralized system in which individuals can choose from an almost limitless number of options in which to invest their state pension funds. This program is referred to as 'contracting out' and is made up of private accounts in the private sector with private investment firms. [John Shadegg, U.S. Representative (R-Ariz.)]  MORE >>

On Social Security: The Washington Post Gets It

"Recently I wrote a column for this publication contrasting the different approaches to Social Security reform taken by the New York Times and the Washington Post editorial boards; differences that have now put these two media titans on opposite sides of an increasingly heated issue. It was during the presidential campaign that the Washington Post dared to stake out this new territory by challenging firmly entrenched assumptions and seriously considering alternatives to the current[.]"  MORE >>

Going Beyond the 'Medical Malpractice Myths' -- Three Letters to the Editor of the Washington Post

Excerpt: Why is it that when a doctor weighs in on the medical malpractice crisis ['Dispelling Malpractice Myths,' op-ed, Nov. 14], the solution never includes giving the public access to the National Practitioner Data Bank, with its record of malpractice claims payments and out-of-court settlements made on behalf of individual doctors? By blocking public access to these records, physicians perpetuate the malpractice crisis.

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The Affordable Care Act in Post-Shutdown Washington: An Interview with Judith Feder

"[T]he ACA does not change what fundamentally drives employer-sponsored health insurance: that workers expect to get coverage through their jobs. This is supported by a tax benefit, the benefit being that the premium our employer pays is not treated as taxable income to us. Workers with incomes above 250 percent of poverty, most workers, get greater benefit out of that subsidy than they would be eligible for under the ACA. As long as that subsidy is in effect, we will continue to want coverage through our jobs, and our employers likely will continue to offer it."  MORE >>

The Washington Post Tries to Scare You on Public Sector Pensions

"[I]t is almost impossible to construct scenarios in which stock returns will come in much below the levels assumed by the pension funds.The point is simple, it was absurd to project high returns in the stock market in the late 90s, when the ratio of stock prices to trend earnings was over 30 to 1 or even in the last decade when it was still over 20 to 1. However with a current ratio that is close to the historic average of 15 to 1, real returns of 7 percent are very reasonable."

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Stock Option Awards Grew for Top-Earning Washington Executives, Declined for Others Last Year

Excerpt: (The Washington Post; free registration required)'s annual ranking of local executive pay was topped by four chief executives who received more than $30 million each:....' [The target page provides links to the other articles in the Post's Executive Pay Package special.]

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The Rising Case for ESOPs: Growing Support in Washington and the Private Sector

"Despite these advantages, ESOP formation has slowed in recent years, largely due to legal uncertainty and post-closing litigation risk, particularly around valuation practices. That may be about to change, as bipartisan efforts in Washington seek to lower barriers and provide greater certainty, paving the way for a more ESOP-friendly environment."  MORE >>

Washington PFML Alert: Required Notice and Online Benefits Calculator

"The Employment Security Department (ESD) has released the required PFML notice ... Employers should post the PFML notice in a place customarily used to post other employment-related notices. The notice is available in multiple languages, but currently only available online in English.... Additionally, ESD has added an online calculator to estimate the weekly benefit for eligible employees."  MORE >>