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Employee Benefits Jobs
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Webcasts and Conferences
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Hand-picked links to the web's best news articles,
official guidance, jobs, webcasts and more.
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[Official Guidance]
Treasury/IRS 2013-2014 Priority Guidance Plan, Third Quarter Update (PDF)
46 pages. Excerpt: "The 2013-2014 Priority Guidance Plan contains 324 projects that are priorities for allocation of the resources of our offices during the twelve-month period from July 2013 through June 2014 ... The plan represents projects we intend to work on actively during the plan year and does not place any deadline on completion of projects.... The third quarter update to the 2013-2014 plan reflects 19 additional projects that have become priorities and/or guidance we have published during the period from January 1, 2014 through March 31, 2014 of the plan year." [A list of employee benefits projects begins on page 5.]
(Internal Revenue Service [IRS])
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[Advert.]
Gear-up for Your 5500 Filing Season!
Join Laura Houston, ASC 5500 Support Team Member, to review the 2013 Form 5500 and 8955-SSA in the ASC DGEM 5500 System. This webcast is geared towards existing ASC users, however all are welcome. Click here for more info and registration.
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Employers Finding More Reasons to De-risk Retirement Plans (PDF)
"[S]ettlement strategies could cause further deterioration of the plan's funded status that might prevent settlements unless additional contributions are made to neutralize the 'math' of funding ratios.... If there is a strong committee view on interest rates, consider adding a dual trigger to the glide path based on interest rate levels to ease into the hedging portfolio over time.... Lump sum cashouts may trigger one-time settlement charges under US GAAP sooner rather than later. A cashout strategy should be structured with this in mind."
(Buck Consultants)
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New Mortality Table Recommended by Society of Actuaries
"The most significant piece of [Exposure Draft RP-2014] is the new set of generational mortality tables. These tables reflect significant improvement in mortality relative to the rates in the current regulatory framework (RP-2000 plus Mortality Improvement Scale AA). To put that in English: the conclusion of the [Society of Actuaries] is that the current rules significantly understate how long DB plan participants will live because they do not reflect changes (improvements) in life expectancy that have happened since Scale AA was published."
(October Three Consulting)
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Public Pension Plan Investment Return Assumptions (PDF)
"Although public pension funds, like other investors, experienced sub-par returns in the wake of the 2008-09 decline in global equity values, median public pension fund returns over longer periods meet or exceed the assumed rates used by most plans....[At] 9.0 percent, the median annualized investment return for the 25-year period ended December 31, 2013, exceeds the average assumption of 7.72 percent ... while the 10-year return is below this level.... Among the 126 plans measured in the Public Fund Survey, more than one-half have reduced their investment return assumption since fiscal year 2008."
(National Association of State Retirement Administrators [NASRA])
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Defined Contribution Plan Participants' Activities in 2013 (PDF)
"In 2013, 3.5 percent of DC plan participants took withdrawals, compared with 3.4 percent in 2012.... Only 1.7 percent of DC plan participants took hardship withdrawals during 2013, the same share as in 2012.... In 2013, 2.7 percent of DC plan participants stopped contributing, compared with 2.6 percent during 2012.... In 2013, 10.7 percent of DC plan participants changed the asset allocation of their account balances and 7.4 percent changed the asset allocation of their contributions.... At the end of December 2013, 18.2 percent of DC plan participants had loans outstanding, compared with 18.2 percent at year-end 2012, 18.5 percent at year-end 2011, and 15.3 percent at year-end 2008."
(Investment Company Institute [ICI])
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401(k)/403(b) Best Practices: Fees
"Fees have fallen significantly since the [DOL] decided to make fee review an issue. If you haven't checked the pricing on the services you receive from your plan providers within the last three years, do so this year.... For many plan sponsors, any additional, meaningful fee reduction will come from the investment menu. Focus on ensuring that your investment fund line-up is the most cost efficient possible."
(Lawton Retirement Plan Consulting)
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Mercer U.S. Pension Buyout Index, March 2014 (PDF)
"During March, as indicated by the Index, the average cost of purchasing annuities from an insurer increased slightly from 108.4% to 108.6% of the accounting liability. The economic cost of maintaining the liability remained level at 108.7% of the balance sheet liability."
(Mercer)
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North Carolina Employee Union Takes Pension Complaints to SEC
"The union representing tens of thousands of North Carolina state workers [has] filed a complaint with the [SEC] over how State Treasurer Janet Cowell is managing the $86 billion pension system.... One of the union's major objections is that Cowell has the authority to invest up to 35 percent of pension fund holdings into hedge funds, private-equity firms or other alternative investments ... State lawmakers last summer raised the maximum that could be directed to those investments. The pension fund's quarterly update in February reported about $19 billion in pension assets, about 21 percent, were in alternative investments."
(WRAL.com)
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You Can Get Help Unraveling Your Pension Benefits
"Developing a financial plan for retirement can be a challenge. You will need to navigate the waters of federal and state regulations, Social Security income, investments and, as you have found out, the world of changing corporate pension policies. If your financial planner is to develop a retirement income strategy to meet your goals, your advisor will need pension information from your previous employers. You can start gathering that information by contacting the New England Pension Assistance Project[.]"
(Providence Journal)
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Lifetime Income Scores: Latest Assessment of Retirement Preparedness (PDF)
12 pages. Excerpt: "For the second year in a row, working Americans are on track to replace 61% of their household income in retirement.... Deferring 10% or more to a workplace savings plan and using a financial advisor continue to have a major impact on retirement preparedness. Plan eligibility, participation, and auto-plan features continue to be core elements of successful retirement planning for most American workers."
(Putnam Investments)
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Will a Boom in Retirees Lead to a Bust in Equity Returns?
"As baby boomers transition into retirement, many have speculated that a corresponding reversal of fortune could hit the stock market as retirees liquidate assets to support living expenses.... Five reasons the concern is overblown: [1] Boomers won't retire all at once ... [2] Boomers' share of stock market is similar to prior generations ... [3] Boomers' wealth is highly concentrated ... [4] Growth of foreign investors in U.S. stock market ... [5] No correlation between aging populations and long-term returns."
(Vanguard)
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Benefits in General; Executive Compensation
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Does Use of Non-GAAP Performance Metrics Mean Executives are Gaming the System?
"[W]hile the Audit Analytics study found an increase in the prevalence of non-GAAP metrics in incentive plans over the past few years, this likely reflects the fact that companies are adopting plans that incorporate the key metrics being presented to investors in corporate financial statements.... A key to proper target setting is consistent application of the metric between when the target is set and when performance is evaluated. If certain aspects of the financial statement are being excluded from a non-GAAP incentive metric ... it shouldn't result in higher incentive awards as long as they are excluded consistently from both the initial budgeted level of performance and actual performance."
(Towers Watson)
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[Opinion]
Fast Food Failure: How CEO-to-Worker Pay Disparity Undermines the Industry and the Overall Economy
"Accommodation and Food Services had a CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 543-to-1 in 2012. Over the period from 2000 to 2012 the average ratio was 332-to-1, 44 percent higher than the sector with the next-highest compensation ratio. In 2012, the compensation of fast food CEOs was more than 1,200 times the earnings of the average fast food worker.... [T]he ratio remained above 1,000-to-1 in 2013.... Fast food workers are the lowest paid in the economy.... The most unequal sectors are among those providing the greatest numbers of new jobs in the economy, replacing jobs in sectors with lower income inequality."
(Demos)
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Press Releases
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