September 2022
06Sep

Portugal’s PM announces aid for pensioners and families amid inflation crisis

The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has already promulgated the Government's decree establishing exceptional support measures for families to mitigate the effects of inflation. According to a note published on the official website of the Presidency of the Republic, the Head of State also promulgated the Government's decree allowing the return of gas for consumers with an annual consumption of less than or equal to 10,000 m3 to the regulated tariff regime. This note was released by the...

September 6, 2022
News, ,
Read more...
02Sep

The National Landscape of State Retirement Benefits

By Jonathan Moody, Anthony Randazzo Retirement security is ultimately about retirement income. Families and individuals want to know that during their retirement years they will have enough weekly, monthly, or annual income to live comfortably and meet their basic needs. Of course, many people aspire to more than just the basics. Ask even a handful of individuals about how they want to live in retirement, and you’ll hear a wide range of preferences. Expenses can vary from family-to-family, too, depending on housing, health...

September 2, 2022
Books, Books, System Sustainability, , , , ,
Read more...

August 2022
30Aug

Albania. Only wage increases through more productivity can save public pension system, Word Bank says

By Tirana Times The only way to guarantee that Albanians can rely on a public pension in the future is to increase wages through higher productivity, the World Bank says in a recent report. Albania is going through a major demographic transition with high rates of out-migration and the rapid aging of the population, which is making its social insurance system a huge burden on the economy as the contributor/beneficiary ratio continues to deteriorate. In Albania, expenditures in relation to GDP for...

August 30, 2022
News, OP Ed, , , ,
Read more...
26Aug

State and Local Government Employees Without Social Security Coverage: What Percentage Will Earn Pension Benefits that Fall Short of Social Security Equivalence?

By Jean-Pierre Aubry, Siyan Liu, Alicia H. Munnell, Laura Quinby & Glenn Springstead Social Security is designed to provide a base of retirement income, to be supplemented in part by employer-sponsored retirement plans. However, approximately one-quarter of state and local government employees are not covered by Social Security, which federal law allows if their employer-provided plans provide comparable benefits. Yet many public pensions are less generous for recent hires, raising questions of whether those plans will still provide Social Security–equivalent benefits....

August 26, 2022
Articles, Labor Market, , , ,
Read more...
23Aug

South Korea. At stake is how to reach consensus on contentious issues

The government has finally set about to reform the four major public pensions. In a policy briefing to President Yoon Suk-yeol last Friday, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said it would integrate the national pension with the three occupational pensions ― for public servants, veterans and teachers. It will then link them to the basic pension for people aged 65 and older. The ministry plans to complete the national pension's financial calculation by next March and submit a...

August 23, 2022
News, , ,
Read more...
19Aug

Iran raises pensions for retired workers by over 38%

The Iranian government has approved a raise in monthly pensions paid to millions of retired workers in the country. Caretaker labor minister Mohammad Hadi Zahedivafa said on Thursday that monthly pensions for retired workers who are on the payroll of Iran’s Social Security Organization (SSO) will rise by 38% plus a fixed monthly handout of 5.15 million rials ($17.5) as of September. The raise will be applied retroactively to pensions paid since the start of the calendar year in March, said...

August 19, 2022
News, ,
Read more...
17Aug

U.S. $7T Retirement Crisis Is Only Getting Worse

Americans have been warned for years of an impending retirement crisis. Yet the situation is getting worse. Even when everything was going right — inflation was nonexistent, interest rates were low and stocks were in an extended bull market — there was a multi-trillion dollar savings shortfall. Read more Inflation Moderately Pressures US Public Pension Liabilities Then came a pandemic, war in Europe, decades-high inflation, the fastest rate-hiking cycle since the early 1980s and fears of a recession. The resulting market turmoil...

August 17, 2022
News, , ,
Read more...
16Aug

Inflation Moderately Pressures US Public Pension Liabilities

The high inflation environment in the US is likely to have only moderately negative effects on state and local government public pension plan liabilities via automatic cost of living adjustment (COLA) mechanisms but will pressure plans through weakening asset performance and rising payroll costs, Fitch Ratings says. Market value smoothing and supplemental pension contributions by some governments this year from budget surpluses will help partially mitigate these challenges. While automatic COLA provisions differ across plans, those plans that provide them...

August 16, 2022
News, ,
Read more...
16Aug

UK. Govt to change civil servants’ early pensions access

The government has proposed to change the rules around early access to pensions in the civil service, tracking 10 years behind state pension age, according to a new consultation over reforms to the Civil Service Compensation Scheme. The Cabinet Office had launched a consultation to this effect in 2017, but on August 15 it published a new document with updated proposals to be discussed with trade unions as it considered that a long time has elapsed since the initial consultation,...

August 16, 2022
News, , ,
Read more...
09Aug

June Slump Causes $262 Billion Drop in U.S. Public Pensions’ Assets

Large public pension funds had a difficult second quarter, as the 100 largest U.S. public pension plans lost a combined $262 billion in funding during June, according to actuarial and consulting firm Milliman. The deficit between the estimated assets and liabilities widened to $1.521 trillion at the end of the month from $1.259 trillion at the end of May, as the public funds’ asset value dropped to $4.318 trillion from $4.566 trillion. crisisRead also U.S. public pensions suffer worst year since...

August 9, 2022
News, , ,
Read more...