| The BenefitsLink Newsletter - Retirement Plans Edition |  |
May 4, 2001
Today's sponsor: Employee Benefits Webcast (click)
Webcast coming up May 30! FMLA: The Family and Medical Leave Act -- "It's Not Getting Any Easier." Instructor: Christine E. Howard, Esq. and Jennifer B. Sandberg, Esq., Fisher & Phillips LLP. Presented by Human Resource Consultants. Click to register and purchase this webcast through BenefitsLink!
Financial Privacy: Too Soon to Assess the Privacy Provisions in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (PDF)
Excerpt: "Title V of GLBA sets forth major privacy provisions under two subtitles, which apply to a wide range of financial institutions. Among other things, Subtitle A requires financial institutions to provide a notice to its customers on its privacy policies and practices and how information is disclosed to their affiliates and nonaffiliated third parties." (General Accounting Office)
Online Investment Advice Services Becoming More Common Workplace Financial Planning Offering
Over the last year, the provision of online investment advice services to participants in employer-sponsored retirement plans has begun to come into its own. Spurred on by encouragement from the Department of Labor, the number of employers implementing online investment advice services has increased, as have partnerships between advice service vendors and plan providers. (SpencerNet)
Fed Employee Retirements Expected Increase Over Next 5 Years Illustrates Need for Workforce Planning
Excerpt: "One important element that agencies must consider in their workforce planning is the number and kinds of employees they will lose to retirement. This consideration is important because retirees often represent an agency's most experienced and knowledgeable staff. Reports about the increasing numbers of federal employees who will become eligible to retire over the next few years have raised questions about whether the government will be adequately prepared ..." (General Accounting Office)
Expanded 401(K) May Not Help Many; Workers Salary Restrictions, Affordability Cited
Excerpt: "Although critics of the House bill say it primarily benefits high-income workers, that's not true in all cases. In most 401(k) plans, workers who earn $85,000 or more are subject to a non-discrimination test that links their contributions to the average contribution of lower-paid workers." (USA Today)
House OKs Increasing Retirement Plan Limits Bill Meant to Spur IRA, 401(k) Savings
Excerpt: "Among New Jersey's delegation, only Donald M. Payne, D-Newark, voted no. Although the White House supports the bill, the tax breaks were not included in President Bush's $1.6 trillion, 10-year tax-cut proposal. House approval of the measure is the latest example of the congressional penchant for adding to the menu of proposals in this year's tax-cut package even as lawmakers on Tuesday reached agreement on a budget plan that would limit the tax cut to $1.35 trillion over 11 years." (Bergen County [NJ] Record)
House OKs More Cash For Retirement Plans
Excerpt: "Employers would benefit from a bill the House passed Wednesday that lets Americans contribute more tax-preferred money to their personal retirement funds, employment policy analysts say." (Washington Times)
Activism: Alive and Kicking
Excerpt: "'WAKE UP WORLD!' declares the Web site www.cashpensions.com. 'US Employee Pensions are Shrinking...While Employers Thrive off of Employee Losses!' That short diatribe is characteristic of the tenor of online discussions taking place between today's retirees and plan participants. For an even better feel for the burgeoning retiree activism movement, consider the proxy season now under way." (PLANSPONSOR.com)
Retirement in 4 Easy Pieces
Excerpt: "In fact, preparing for retirement isn't that difficult--- but the 'retirement industry' wants you to think it is. Their success at convincing us is so great Kansas City Southern Industries, which owns Janus Funds and Berger Funds, was the highest performing stock over the last 10 years (84.66 percent a year, compounded) ... the S&P 500 provided an annualized compound return of 14.41 percent over the last 10 years ..." (Scott Burns)
Social Security Panel Faces Challenges
Excerpt: "It is a difficult climate in which to remake the Social Security system to allow individuals to invest in stocks and bonds, an initiative that is as politically difficult and explosive as they come. But that is what President Bush set out to do today when he formally introduced a bipartisan commission that he directed to report back to him in the fall with specific plans for creating personal investment accounts within the government retirement program." (New York Times; free registration required)
Breaux Predicts Bush Social Security Efforts Doomed
Excerpt: "A day after President Bush formed a commission to draft a Social Security reform plan, a Senate Democrat with close ties to the White House said the chances that the current Congress will revise the nation's retirement system are 'zero to none.'" (Washington Post)
Social Security Commission Faces Hurdles
Excerpt: "Next year's election, a lack of money, stock-market queasiness and a contentious concept all cloud the prospects of near-term success for President Bush's new Social Security commission." (Associated Press, via Yahoo! News)
Securing a Commission
Excerpt: "President Bush introduces his new commission for Social Security reform." (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript)
Fact Sheet: President Bush Establishes New Social Security Commission
Excerpt: "On May 2, President Bush announced establishment of a bipartisan, 16-member Commission 'to study and report ... specific recommendations to preserve Social Security for seniors while building wealth for younger Americans.'" (Social Security Administration)
Opinion: a Revolution For Social Security
Excerpt: "... Mr. Bush will face enormous obstacles in Congress, which is terrified of changing a politically popular program. If he thinks that getting his tax cut through Congress has been hard, the battle over reforming Social Security is going make that exercise look like a walk in the park. If he succeeds, the Social Security system is going to be relieved of an insupportable burden, and the huge wealth gap between upper-income and lower-income Americans is going to shrink dramatically." (Washington Times)
Opinion: Social Security Privatization's Costs
Excerpt: "President Bush has stacked his Social Security commission with people who believe in partial privatization of the system. Among them are economists and investment executives who know how to assess financial projections. As they make the case for privatization, they ought to explain in detail the full costs of this radical change in a successful program." (Boston Globe)
Social Security Confidence Lessens Among Young, Old
Excerpt: "President Bush's plan to let workers deposit some of their payroll taxes in their personal investment accounts to create greater retirement wealth has the potential to dramatically change American politics, analysts said yesterday." (Washington Times)
Vendors Offer Single Portal Web Sites To Integrate Benefits Communications and Administration
As benefits administration and communication moves to the Web, plan sponsors have found they are needlessly complicating matters by having employees handle some aspects of benefits management on the Web and others via the telephone or on paper. Requiring employees to use a variety of different Web sites further adds to the jumble. (SpencerNet)
The Wired Plan Sponsor: Web Sites That Work
Excerpt: "The results presented here are the product of two reader surveys-one conducted late last year, and the other early this January among readers of this magazine, and NewsDash, our daily e-mail news service. While our readers have been very generous with their comments about our own site (www.plansponsor.com), we have excluded ourselves from the choices offered below." (PLANSPONSOR.com)
U.S. Supreme Court Decisions Affect Pension and Health Plans (PDF)
Excerpt: "The U.S. Supreme Court's recent actions in three cases will have significant implications for employer-sponsored health and pension benefit plans. The cases involve beneficiary designations under a retirement plan governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); retiree health benefits for Medicare-eligible vs. non-Medicare-eligible retirees; and lump-sum benefits under a cash balance pension plan." (Milliman & Robertson, Inc.)
Share Scare
Excerpt: "Chief executives are stuffing their pay packages with shares that will allow them to profit even if investors don't. This is not a bullish sign from corporate bigwigs: They must expect things to get worse." (Forbes.com)
Newly Posted or Renewed Job Openings (Post Yours!)
| Retirement Benefits Assistant | for Morrison & Foerster in CA |
| Benefits Analyst | for Porter & Hedges, L.L.P. in TX |
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