Category: Employee benefits

Should a Federally Sponsored ‘Pension Dashboard’ Be Established?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://www.napa-net.org/news-info/daily-news/should-federally-sponsored-%E2%80%98pension-dashboard%E2%80%99-be-established

Excerpt:

A “pension dashboard” could be useful in the United States to help participants track their retirement savings when they change jobs, but Congress would need to authorize a federal agency to establish and oversee such a dashboard. It also would have to give the agency the authority to consolidate retirement account information, the GAO stated in its report—“401(k) Plans: Additional Federal Actions Would Help Participants Track and Consolidate Their Retirement Savings.”

GAO was asked to review, among other things, the challenges that 401(k) plan participants have in keeping track of their retirement savings, as well as the challenges they have in rolling over their savings from one plan to another and federal actions that can improve the process.

In fact, this issue is not new, as the dashboard concept was raised in late 2020 in a white paper (A Retirement Dashboard for the United States) by authors David John of the AARP Public Policy Institute, Grace Enda of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, and William Gale and J. Mark Iwry of the Brookings Institution who called for the creation of a retirement dashboard to help savers better manage and keep track of their savings.  

….

Consequently, GAO recommends that Congress grant authority to a federal agency to develop and oversee a comprehensive pension dashboard that can provide participants’ information to them in one location. GAO notes this “would reduce the burden on plan sponsors and providers, who must otherwise track or manage lost accounts or missing participants.” 

The report also suggests that DOL and IRS establish a system to facilitate automatic plan-to-plan rollovers to help participants maintain consolidated savings as they change jobs. GAO also recommended that the government (PBGC, Labor and Treasury) help 401(k) participants by improving the information they receive about options for their plan savings and the process they must undergo to consolidate their savings after changing jobs.

In its written response, DOL stated that it would consider actions related to GAO’s disclosure recommendation to ensure participants “receive easily understandable, timely, and comprehensive information.” DOL also noted that it is engaged in joint agency efforts and that it would be appropriate for them to consider the recommendation as part of such efforts with Treasury, IRS, and PBGC, as required under the SECURE 2.0 Act. Under the act, the agencies are to study, analyze, and report to Congress on the effectiveness of their reporting and disclosure requirements before the end of 2025.

Author(s): Ted Godbout

Publication Date: 20 Feb 2024

Publication Site: NAPA – National Association of Plan Advisors

DOL Can’t Put Fiduciary Duty on IRAs, Ex-Labor Official Testifies

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/01/10/dol-cant-put-fiduciary-duty-on-iras-ex-labor-official-testifies/

Excerpt:

The Labor Department lacks the legal authority to promulgate its new fiduciary rule, Brad Campbell, partner at Faegre Drinker, and former head of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, told House lawmakers Wednesday.

During testimony before the House Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee, Campbell maintained that the department “doesn’t have the legal authority to do what it is trying to do” because it cannot impose a fiduciary duty as it relates to individual retirement accounts.

“The reason we are here today is that the Proposals go well beyond DOL’s limited authority,” Campbell told lawmakers.

Labor’s plan ”would make DOL the primary financial regulator of $26 trillion, approximately half of which is held by individuals” in IRAs rather than employer-provided plans.

If Labor’s proposals “were limited to redefining fiduciary advice within the department’s actual authority — which is to administer the fiduciary standard expressly created by Congress to regulate employee benefit plans sponsored by private sector employers under Title I of ERISA — we wouldn’t be here today,” Campbell opined.

Author(s): Melanie Waddell

Publication Date: 10 Jan 2024

Publication Site: Think Advisor

DOL: If You Were an Independent Contractor, You Probably Still Are

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2024/01/10/dol-if-you-were-an-independent-contractor-you-probably-still-are/

Excerpt:

Traditionally, many life insurance agents, brokers and advisors have preferred to operate as independent contractors to benefit from the federal income tax rules for self-employed people and to enjoy the privilege of not having a boss.

But some financial professionals have argued that they would be better off if life insurers classified them as employees. In 2009, for example, three former Northwestern Mutual Life representatives sued in a federal court in California over allegations that the company had deprived them of FLSA protections by classifying them as independent contractors.

In 2019, representatives for Uber drivers and other gig workers persuaded California lawmakers to pass Assembly Bill 5, legislation that established a broader definition of “employee” for California employers.

Federal efforts: The National Association of Insurance Commissioners and other agent and broker groups joined with the American Council of Life Insurers to oppose efforts by members of Congress to set a federal definition for employee that would be similar to the California definition.

During the administration of former President Donald Trump, the Labor Department tried to address the concerns about worker classification by adopting a new, shorter “core factors” test. Those regulations took effect in January 2021.

In October 2022, after Joe Biden became president, the department announced in a notice that it was planning to rescind and replace the new regulations because the new regulations were not fully compatible with the FLSA and conflicted with decades of court decisions based on the economic reality test.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 10 Jan 2024

Publication Site: Think Advisor

Working Enrolled Actuaries

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://burypensions.wordpress.com/2023/10/23/working-enrolled-actuaries/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

  • Public and Multiemployer plan actuaries would not be in this listing as there is no actuarial certification for public plans and union plans have their own Schedule MB which I have no incentive to keep track of.
  • ‘One-participant’ plans are not included here since their filings are not publicly available for view so there are far more SBs signed by the small-plan actuarial community. For example, I have 83 SBs signed in 2021 that appear on the DOL website but do another 150 ‘one-participant’ SBs that do not.

Author(s): John Bury

Publication Date: 23 Oct 2023

Publication Site: burypensions

The Moral Hazards of Being Beautiful

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-moral-hazards-of-being-beautiful-94346e61

Excerpt:

Beauty has its privileges. Studies reliably show that the most physically attractive among us tend to get more attention from parents, better grades in school, more money at work and more satisfaction from life. A study published in January in the Journal of Economics and Business found that good-looking banking CEOs take in over $1 million more in total compensation, on average, than their lesser-looking peers. “Good looks pay off,” the authors write.

…..

Scientists attribute the human tendency to give attractive people better treatment to something called the halo effect. Basically, we tend to assume that good looks are a sign of intelligence, trustworthiness and good character and that ugliness is similarly more than skin deep. “Personal beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of reference,” Aristotle observed. This may help explain why attractive people are less likely to be arrested or convicted, even after controlling for criminal involvement, according to a 2019 study of nationally representative data published in the journal Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.

….

Yet those of us who never got that genetic golden ticket should take heart: The halo effect appears to go both ways. A number of studies show that goodness often enhances our looks. A paper in PLOS One in February, for example, reports that people found faces in photos more attractive when they learned the subjects were honest, kind and not aggressive. The results suggest that “facial attractiveness is malleable,” the authors write. Or as Sappho observed: “What is beautiful is good and what is good will soon be beautiful.”

Author(s): Emily Bobrow

Publication Date: 10 June 2023

Publication Site: WSJ

Nevada Bill Marks Third Try at Establishing State-Sponsored Retirement Plan

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/nevada-bill-marks-third-try-at-establishing-state-sponsored-retirement-plan/

Excerpt:

Nevada State Senator Dallas Harris is hoping the third time is the charm and has introduced a bill to create a state-supported retirement plan after two previous attempts by the legislature died on the vine.

The bill, SB305, would create the Nevada Employee Savings Trust, which would be directed by a board of trustees with the power to establish a retirement savings program and automatically enroll private employees who do not have a retirement savings plan available via their workplace. To be enrolled, an employee would need to be at least 18 years old, have worked at the same place for 120 days and have wages that are allocable to the state, although employees would be allowed to opt out.

….

The current bill stipulates that the board is required to establish one or more investment funds and that the underlying investments of each fund must be diversified “so as to minimize the risk of large losses under any circumstances.” The board also may, at any time, add, replace or remove any investment fund.

 The underlying investments may include shares of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, publicly traded equity and fixed-income securities, as well as other investments available for investment. However, the investment funds would be prohibited from investing in any bond, debt instrument or other security issued by the state of Nevada.

Author(s): Michael Katz

Publication Date: 24 Apr 2023

Publication Site: ai-CIO

France Won’t Accept Emmanuel Macron’s Attack on Pensions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://jacobin.com/2023/02/france-emmanuel-macron-pension-reform-protest-strike-welfare

Excerpt:

According to police figures, Tuesday’s nationwide protests marked the largest single-day union-backed demonstration in France in thirty years. Some 1.272 million turned out to the streets. That’s more than the already-impressive January 19 turnout, it’s more than any of the single-day peaks of the 2010 and 2003 movements over retirement reforms — it even topped the height of the legendary 1995 protests.

And there’s more to come. The united union coalition has called for two further days of strikes and protest: Tuesday, February 7, and Saturday, February 11. “Until then,” the coalition has also called on the public to “multiply actions, initiatives, meetings, and general assemblies across the country, in workplaces [and] at places of study, including through strikes.”

After two successful national mobilizations, the movement seems to be entering a new phase. Public opinion is clearly on its side — and yet, the government isn’t budging on the proposed hike in the retirement eligibility age from sixty-two to sixty-four. Clearly, it’s going to take more for organized labor to win this battle.

….

Clearly, the strike calls over pension reform have resonated beyond organized labor’s traditional bastions of support in the public sector: namely, schools, health services, and transit networks (the national SNCF rail company and the Paris metro network). Workers in all these sectors have walked off the jobs, but so have others in the private sector. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) has shared a list of strikes on January 31 that illustrates this point: five thousand strikers at Airbus; a walkout from 90 percent of the staff at a FNAC department store outside of Toulouse; a strike from 80 percent of the workers at a LU Mondelēz factory in Normandy, etc.

Author(s): Cole Stangler

Publication Date: 2 Feb 2023

Publication Site: Jacobin

Long COVID Is Keeping Significant Numbers of People Out of Work, Study Finds

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/long-covid-keeping-significant-numbers-125618654.html

Source of study: https://ww3.nysif.com/

Link to study (will download): https://ww3.nysif.com/~/media/Files/NYSIF_Publications/PDF/NYSIFLongCOVIDStudy2023.ashx

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Long COVID is having a significant effect on America’s workforce, preventing substantial numbers of people from going back to work while others continue needing medical care long after returning to their jobs, according to a new analysis of workers’ compensation claims in New York state.

The study, published Tuesday by New York’s largest workers’ compensation insurer, found that during the first two years of the pandemic, about 71% of people the fund classified as experiencing long COVID either required continuing medical treatment or were unable to work for six months or more. More than a year after contracting the coronavirus, 18% of long COVID patients had still not returned to work, more than three-fourths of them younger than 60, the analysis found.

“Long Covid has harmed the work force,” said the report, by the New York State Insurance Fund, a state agency financed by employer-paid premiums. The findings, it added, “highlight long Covid as an underappreciated yet important reason for the many unfilled jobs and declining labor participation rate in the economy, and they presage a possible reduction in productivity as employers feel the strains of an increasingly sick work force.”

Author(s): Pam Belluck

Publication Date: 24 Jan 2023

Publication Site: Yahoo (originally published at NYT)

Hospitals’ Use of Volunteer Staff Runs Risk of Skirting Labor Laws, Experts Say

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://khn.org/news/article/hospital-volunteers-labor-laws/

Excerpt:

At HCA Healthcare, the world’s largest for-profit hospital system, volunteers include aspiring medical providers who work in patient rooms, in labs, and in wound care units, according to the company’s magazine.

Over centuries, leaning on volunteers in medicine has become so embedded in hospital culture that studies show they yield meaningful cost savings and can improve patient satisfaction — seemingly a win-win for hospital systems and the public.

Except, there’s a catch.

The U.S. health system benefits from potentially more than $5 billion in free volunteer labor annually, a KHN analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Independent Sector found. Yet some labor experts argue that using hospital volunteers, particularly at for-profit institutions, provides an opportunity for facilities to run afoul of federal rules, create exploitative arrangements, and deprive employees of paid work amid a larger fight for fair wages.

The federal government instructs that any person performing a task of “consequential economic benefit” for a for-profit entity is entitled to wages and overtime pay. That means profit-generating businesses, like banks and grocery stores, must pay for labor. A Chick-fil-A franchise in North Carolina was recently found guilty of violating minimum wage laws after paying people in meal vouchers instead of wages to direct traffic, according to a Department of Labor citation.

Author(s): Lauren Sausser

Publication Date: 10 Jan 2023

Publication Site: Kaiser Health News

To Attract In-Home Caregivers, California Offers Paid Training — And Self-Care

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://khn.org/news/article/california-paid-training-self-care-in-home-caregivers/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

The class is a little touchy-feely. But it’s one of many offerings from the California Department of Social Services that the agency says is necessary for attracting and retaining caregivers in a state-funded assistance program that helps 650,000 low-income people who are older or disabled age in place, usually at home. As part of the $295 million initiative, officials said, thousands of classes, both online and in-person, will begin rolling out in January, focused on dozens of topics, including dementia care, first-aid training, medication management, fall prevention, and self-care. Caregivers will be paid for the time they spend developing skills.

Whether it will help the program’s labor shortage remains to be seen. According to a 2021 state audit of the In-Home Supportive Services program, 32 out of 51 counties that responded to a survey reported a shortage of caregivers. Separately, auditors found that clients waited an average of 72 days to be approved for the program, although the department said most application delays were due to missing information from the applicants.

The in-home assistance program, which has been around for nearly 50 years, is plagued by high turnover. About 1 in 3 caregivers leave the program each year, according to University of California-Davis researcher Heather Young, who worked on a 2019 government report on California’s health care workforce needs.

Author(s): Laurie Udesky

Publication Date: 9 Dec 2022

Publication Site: Kaiser Health News

2022 Employer Health Benefits Survey

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.kff.org/health-costs/report/2022-employer-health-benefits-survey/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

This 24th annual survey of employers provides a detailed look at trends in employer-sponsored health coverage, including premiums, employee contributions, cost-sharing provisions, offer rates, wellness programs, and employer practices. The 2022 survey included 2,188 interviews with non-federal public and private firms.

Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $22,463 this year, with workers on average paying $6,106 toward the cost of their coverage. The average deductible among covered workers in a plan with a general annual deductible is $1,763 for single coverage. Workers at smaller firms contribute on average contribute nearly $2,000 more toward the cost of family coverage than workers at smaller firms. They also face general annual deductibles that are $1,000 higher on average. This year’s report also looks at employers’ experiences and views about mental health and substance use services, telemedicine, and wellness programs.

Publication Date: 27 Oct 2022

Publication Site: Kaiser Family Foundation