The Multiemployer Plans Committee of the American Academy of Actuaries released notes from its March 2019 meeting with representatives of the U.S. Department of Treasury, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), and the Department of Labor (DOL) pertaining to applications by plans in critical and declining status to suspend benefits or partition liabilities as permitted under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, withdrawal liability, mergers and transfers, and possible multiemployer pension reform legislation.
( )The Pension Committee submitted comments to the Society of Actuaries Retirement Plans Experience Committee regarding the Pri-2012 exposure draft.
( )The Academy has released a new Essential Elements paper, Creating a National Retirement Policy, outlining the ways in which a comprehensive national retirement policy could potentially address concerns about retirement security in the United States. Essential Elements is a series designed to make actuarial analyses of public policy issues clearer to general audiences.
( )The Academy hosted a briefing, “Strengthening the System for the Future,” moderated by vice president for pension issues, Josh Shapiro, and featuring expert panelists from the Multiemployer Plans Committee, to provide essential background on the multiemployer pension crisis and its current state. This was the third and final briefing in the Academy’s “Multiemployer Pension Crisis: A 360-Degree Look at the Issue and Potential Reforms” series, intended to equip attendees with a solid foundation of the past, present, and potential future of multiemployer pension plans.
( )The Academy hosted a briefing, featuring vice president for pension issues, Josh Shapiro, and expert panelists from the Multiemployer Plans Committee, to provide essential background on the multiemployer pension crisis and its current state. This briefing is the second in the Academy’s “Multiemployer Pension Crisis: A 360-Degree Look at the Issue and Potential Reforms” briefing series, which is intended to equip attendees with a solid foundation of the past, present, and potential future of multiemployer pension plans.
( )The Academy hosted a briefing, featuring expert panelists from the Multiemployer Plans Committee, to provide essential background on the multiemployer pension crisis and its current state. This briefing is the first in the Academy’s “Multiemployer Pension Crisis: A 360-Degree Look at the Issue and Potential Reforms” briefing series, which is intended to equip attendees with a solid foundation of the past, present, and potential future of multiemployer pension plans.
( )A new issue brief developed by the Academy’s Retirement System Assessment and Policy Committee explores the concept of a national retirement policy, including the potential benefits of such a policy and the various topics that it might address. Read the news release.
( )The Social Security Committee released an issue brief on the 2019 Social Security Trustees Report that examines the social insurance program’s long-term solvency issues and recommends that Congress should act soon to improve the long-term financial outlook of the program
( )The Academy updated its Essential Elements reports on Medicare’s Long-Term Sustainability Challenge and Securing Social Security with information from the newly released 2019 Medicare and Social Security trustees reports. The Essential Elements series is designed to make actuarial analyses of public policy issues clearer to general audiences.
( )The Intersector group released the notes of its March 2019 meeting with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
( )The Pension Committee submitted a comment letter to the ASB on the fourth exposure draft of the Modeling ASOP.
( )The Intersector group released the notes of its March 2019 meeting with the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service.
( )The Multiemployer Plans Committee submitted comments to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) regarding simplified methods and other aspects of computing withdrawal liability under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014.
( )The Academy responded in writing to questions from the House Subcommittee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions as a follow-up to the panel’s March 7 hearing, “The Cost of Inaction: Why Congress Must Address the Multiemployer Pension Crisis,” at which Josh Shapiro, the Academy’s vice president, pension, testified.
( )Academy Pension Vice President Josh Shapiro testified March 7 before the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, providing written and oral testimony with a nonpartisan, objective, actuarial focus on the increasing financial risks facing some multiemployer plans and the PBGC’s multiemployer program.
( )The Pension Practice Council published a practice note providing information on current and emerging practices in the selection of investment return assumptions based on anticipated future experience.
( )The Lifetime Income Risk Joint Committee, Retirement System Assessment and Policy Committee and Social Security Committee submitted a comment letter to the Bipartisan Policy Center on its 2016 Report of the Commission on Retirement Security and Personal Savings.
( )The Pension Committee published a practice note discussing the valuation of lump sum benefits for financial accounting purposes.
( )Academy Pension Vice President Josh Shapiro submitted a comment letter to U.S. House leaders on The Retirement, Savings, and Other Tax Relief Act of 2018.
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