March 2023

Thailand. Political parties grapple with funding constraints for pension plans in run-up to general election

“Thailand will be a full-fledged aging society this year, as citizens 60 years old and above will represent 20 per cent of the total population,” said Worawan Plikhamin, deputy secretary-general at the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), a state-run think-tank. Senior citizens will comprise 30 percent of the country’s population in 2037, making the country a super-aging society. The rising number of senior citizens offer both opportunities and challenges to the country. On the business side, there is scope...

February 2023

Putting Labor’s Capital to Work for Labor: Restoring a Worker-Centric Vision of Fiduciary Duty

By David H. Webber  This report has two goals: first, to illustrate how the legal concept of fiduciary duty, designed to protect worker retirement funds, has been captured and distorted in ways that harm workers. Second, to propose means of restoring fiduciary duty to its proper purpose. The state-level fiduciary duties addressed in this report govern the investment of up to $10 trillion in assets and directly shape the retirements of 26 million working-class Americans. They are also just about...

US. Public pension funds lowered expectations for returns as expenses spiked in fiscal 2022

Public retirement systems saw their expenses rise in fiscal 2022, while many reduced their assumed rates of return, according to an annual study by the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems. In fiscal 2022, the pension systems averaged 64 basis points in administrative costs and investment manager fees, up from 54 points the year before. Systems lowered their assumed rates of returns to an average 6.86%, from 7.07% a year earlier. Among all respondents, 60% said they lowered those rates...

Ghana. Pensioners protest at finance ministry over debt exchange programme

A rather rare incident but it has come to that because of the introduction of government’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme. A group of persons – over 60 years have gathered at the premises of the finance ministry Monday morning to register their displeasure about the suggested inclusion of pensioners in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP). Read also Ghana debt swap deal ‘good for you’, finance minister tells retirees The group; Pensioner Bondholders Forum say their petition to the government on January...

US pension funds are on the brink of implosion – and Wall Street is ignoring it

By David Sirota As public officials across America prepare to funnel even more of government workers’ savings to private equity moguls, an alarm just sounded for anyone bothering to listen. It is a warning that Wall Street executives, busy skimming fees off retirement nest eggs, want you to ignore. The longer the warning goes unheeded, however, the bigger the financial time bomb may be for workers, retirees and the governments that pay them. Earlier this month, PitchBook – the go-to news...

January 2023

Should Labor Abandon Its Capital? A Reply to Critics

By: David H. Webber Several recent works have sharply criticized public pension funds and labor union funds (“labor’s capital”). These critiques come from both the left and right. Leftists criticize labor’s capital for undermining worker interests by funding financialization and the growth of Wall Street. Laissez-faire conservatives argue that pension underfunding threatens taxpayers. The left calls for pensions to be replaced by a larger social security system. The libertarian right calls for them to be smashed and scattered into individually-managed...

Switzerland. Thousands of retired seniors falling into poverty

In Switzerland a huge wealth gap exists among retirees. While most senior citizens can comfortably make ends meet, one in five is living either below or close to the poverty line. Some 50,000 pensioners have no financial cushion to offset their low income. Bernard and Pierrette Apothéloz are both in their early 70s. With their meagre pensions and no savings or additional benefits, the couple often struggle to pay their bills. Because of their financial situation, they are unable to...

China: Unified pension management system ensures more equity

More Chinese people have access to coverage provided by the country's government-run basic old-age insurance, since the adoption of unified management of insurance funds, according to the authorities. China's basic old-age insurance covered 1.05bn people as of the end of 2022, 24.3m more than a year earlier, reported the Xinhua News Agency quoting data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. The country formally implemented the national unified management of basic old-age insurance funds for enterprise employees in January...

U.S. State, Local Public Pensions Saw Funding Statuses Fall in 2022

The national average funded ratio for U.S. state and local public pension plans is estimated to have declined from 83.9% in 2021 to 77.3% in 2022, once all public pensions release their 2022 data, according to a recently released end-of-year report on public pensions from the Equable Institute. Equable used figures from 76.4% of the 225 retirement systems with available data that reported preliminary investment returns for their full fiscal 2022 to inform the prediction. The remaining plans with available...

Key Actuarial Changes for Public Pension Plans in 2023

Funding valuation reports for public pension plans will have to include additional information following several actuarial changes approved by the Actuarial Standard Board, part of the American Academy of Actuaries, in the finalized Actuarial Standards of Practice No. 4., Measuring Pension Obligations and Determining Pension Plan Costs or Contributions. “In some cases, these are things that some [public pension plan] reports already include. So for any given public pension plan, they may see all of these as changes or some...