Employee Retirement Income Security Act

Paper Summary:

This report looks at the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) in terms of what the benefits and drawbacks of the program are in the current political and economic environment, as well as making specific recommendations about what seems to be working as a result of ERISA and what may need to be changed in the act to make it more contemporary. The report also looks at a rationale for change in the context of ERISA and related programs, including both retirement pension programs and healthcare programs.

From the Paper:

"Overall, ERISA in the existing literature seems to be more beneficial than derogatory for society and employees, although there are plenty of critics of the act in the existing literature including those who state that ERISA is unfair or that it has led to or contributed to, directly or indirectly, corporate abuses of power such as the relatively recent Enron scandal. Overall however the benefits of the program are also strong in the existing literature because it is essentially an act with an overriding positive message: protection for the worker. In part the act was created to guarantee that "The men and women of our labor force will have much more clearly defined rights to pension funds and greater assurances that retirement dollars will be there when they are needed."1 In many ways President Ford was prescient: many of ERISA's reforms have improved the retirement security of American workers, particularly in the areas of vesting,2 plan funding,3 and insurance protection for defined benefit plans" (Stein, 2002). These benefits show forward progress associated with the act because they give the worker greater independence and financial power by safeguarding the rights of the worker at retirement."

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