Benefitsblog

Regarding Pension Funding

"The Pension Time Bomb": Robert Samuelson says it's ticking in this op-ed for the Washington Post.

Rob Wells in today's edition of the Wall Street Journal reports: "Bush Plan on Pension Funding Hits Resistance at House Hearing." (Subscription required.) Members of the House Ways and Means and Education and Workforce Committee expressed concern that the Bush plan might increase volatility in pension plan funding, causing companies to terminate their plans. The article quotes Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D., N.D.) as saying to administration officials: "Your worker protections are going to protect the workers right out of their pensions."

Also, David Wessel has this op-ed for the Wall Street Journal: "The Politics of Pension Promises." (Subscription required.) Mr. Wessel boils it all down to this:

Tweak the rules to make it easier for companies to make promises, even if that allows them to set aside less money in coming years to back pensions and pretend plans are sounder than they truly are? Or tweak the rules so that companies have to do more to stand behind their promises, including setting aside more money and revealing more financial data to workers?

He says this is the choice Congress must make and that their goal should be "assuring that pension promises made by employers today are kept in the future." (I agree wholeheartedly, but also believe that there are other goals as well, such as ensuring that as many employees as possible get to keep their jobs, and also ensuring that those who keep their jobs, will continue to have these types of pension promises made to them in the future.)

USA Today provides this op-ed: "Workers deserve to know when pensions are at risk."

Finally, you can read the following testimonies offered yesterday before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures (via Benefitslink.com):

• Statement of Ken Steiner, Resource Actuary, Watson Wyatt Worldwide
• Statement of Christian Weller, Macro Economist, Economic Policy Institute
• Statement of Ashton Phelps, Jr., Publisher, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, Louisiana
• Statement of Kenneth Porter, Director, Corporate Insurance & Global Benefits Financial Planning, The DuPont Company, Wilmington, Delaware, on behalf of the American Benefits Council, the ERISA Industry Committee, the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable
• Statement of The Honorable Ann L. Combs, Assistant Secretary, Employee Benefits Security Administration, U.S. Department of Labor
  Posted by B. Janell Grenier at July 16, 2003 08:43 PM