The Pension Practice Council (PPC) provides objective technical expertise to policymakers and regulators on major retirement policy issues, including Social Security, and defined benefit pension plans.
Financial sustainability and other topics related to the Social Security program.
State and local government employee benefit plans’ funding, financial reporting, financial risks and plan design, and actuarial standards of practice related to public plans.
Long term retirement policy, including the effects of legislation and regulations on retirement benefits, and emerging issues affecting retirement plans.
Financial reporting related to retirement plans, developments from national and international accounting standards-setting bodies, recent policy developments, and new regulations and standards.
Multiemployer plans’ funding, financial reporting, financial risks, and plan design.
The Intersector Group published notes from its May 2022 conference call with the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service.
( )The Social Security Committee released an issue brief on the 2022 Social Security Trustees Report examining the social insurance program’s long-term solvency issues.
( )The Pension Committee published an issue brief highlighting public policy considerations involved in potential modifications to single employer pension plan funding rules.
( )The Intersector Group released notes from its February 2022 virtual meeting with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).
( )The Retirement System Assessment and Policy Committee completed a series of issue briefs laying out guiding principles for a comprehensive national retirement policy, begun with July 2019’s National Retirement Policy & Principles. The series also discusses possible changes in plan design to broaden access and participation in retirement plans to better enable workers to retire with a secure lifetime income.
( )The Retirement System Assessment and Policy Committee released an issue brief, Retirement Policy: Aligning Plan Design with Effective Employee Engagement, which analyzes how retirement program design can impact decisions that participants make with the goal of improving retirement security.
( )The Social Security Committee released an issue brief examining the potential effects of increasing the Social Security normal retirement age, which it has identified as likely to be a key component of any legislation considered to restore Social Security’s long-term financial health.
( )The Academy’s Essential Elements: Clarifying Misunderstanding of Life Expectancy and COVID-19 is a useful guide for understanding this complex concept, especially with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Essential Elements is a series of condensed issue papers designed to make actuarial analyses of public policy issues clearer to general audiences.
( )The Pension Committee published an issue brief providing information to help the reader better understand the complexities involved in the measurement of life expectancy estimates.
( )The Retirement System Assessment and Policy Committee released an issue brief, Retirement Policy: Potential for Changing Roles of Employers in Retirement Programs, which considers aspects of “decoupling”—shifting retirement plan responsibilities and related liability to a third-party entity and away from employers.
( )The Pension Committee, Multiemployer Plans Committee, and Public Plans Committee submitted comments to the Actuarial Standards Board regarding the third exposure draft of Actuarial Standard of Practice No. 4, Measuring Pension Obligations and Determining Pension Costs or Contributions.
( )The Retirement System Assessment and Policy Committee published an issue brief examining issues pertaining to newer and novel plan designs as they relate to risk sharing between plan sponsors and participants.
( )The Pension Practice Council (PPC) published an issue brief, The 80% Pension Funding Myth, which addresses a persistent misconception that pension plan health or soundness can be determined solely by referencing a supposed 80% funded ratio “standard.” Read the news release.
( )The Pension Committee submitted comments in response to the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) June 2021 solicitation of stakeholder feedback on its future standard-setting agenda.
( )The Social Security Committee released an issue brief focusing on implications of COVID-19 reflected in the annual Trustees Reports from 2020 and 2021.
( )Comments, analysis, or explanatory material prepared for an external audience on behalf of an Academy group or the Academy as a whole; these include letters, memos, reports, and fact sheets.
Analyses of major actuarial or public policy issues written primarily for policy-makers, regulators, the news media, and the public.
Include white papers and monographs which are longer, more detailed analyses of major actuarial or public policy issues written primarily for policy-makers, regulators, the news media, and the public. Includes monographs and white papers.
Slides presented by the Academy at webinars, seminars, briefings, hearings, or other meetings and events.
The Academy works with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) on the creation and refinement of sensible, effective regulation. These reports and related documents highlight the NAIC-related work of the pension practice councils.
Written and oral testimony provided to Congress or to other governmental and quasigovernmental bodies.
Practice notes offer examples of current and emerging approaches to selected actuarial tasks. They are intended to supplement the available actuarial literature, especially where the practices addressed are subject to evolving technology, recently adopted external requirements, or advances in actuarial science and other applicable disciplines.