Wharton Professors Olivia S. Mitchell and Marshall Meyer put GE’s pension freeze/buyout in context and discuss potential fallouts: @WhartonKnows journal & podcast here. Image courtesy of Jeff Turner.
GE’s Pension Freeze: Will It Help — or Hurt?
News and Media
More Troubles For GE As 20,000 Pensions Are Frozen
Only 16% of the Fortune 500 still offer defined benefit plans, vs 60% 30 years ago, says Wharton’s Olivia S. Mitchell, discussing the announcement that GE will freeze pension accruals for 20K employees & offering lump sums to 100K more. Read here.http://bit.ly/2MlBmbk Image courtesy of Chuck Miller.
GE Freezes Pensions for 20K Workers In Bid To Trim Debt Pile
GE plans to freeze defined benefit accruals of 20K workers and offer lump sum buyouts to 100K former employees, seeking to cut debt. This aligns GE with most larger US companies today as defined benefit pension plans grow rare, says Wharton’s Olivia S. Mitchell here. Image courtesy of…Read More
GE Will Freeze 20,000 Worker Pensions In Effort To Cut Deficit By $8 Billion
GE is freezing defined benefit plans for 20K workers and offering 100K former workers lump-sum buyouts, as it seeks to cut debt and risk. This is part of a decades-long trend away from defined benefit pension and toward defined contribution plans in the US, states Wharton’s Olivia S. Mitchell in…Read More
FINRA Foundation Awards 2019 Ketchum Prize to Dr. Olivia S. Mitchell
On October 3, the FINRA Foundation awarded its highest honor, the 2019 Ketchum Prize, to Olivia S. Mitchell for her outstanding research and analysis of pensions, retirement income, and savings, and her efforts to promote financial literacy. Press release here.
Wharton’s Prof. Olivia S. Mitchell Among Recipients of $2 Million ICMM Grant
The Institute of Consumer Money Management recently announced a $2 million grant for studying the financial health of low and moderate income Americans near or in retirement. Prof. Mitchell, Dr. Robert Clark of North Carolina State University, and Dr. Annamaria Lusardi of George Washington University will be working together on…Read More
Auto-Enrollment Retirement Plans for the People: Choices and Outcomes in OregonSaves
Oregon is leading the way expanding access to workplace retirement plans via its OregonSaves program. How has it affected participation and outcomes among eligible employees? A new paper entitled “Auto-Enrollment Retirement Plans for the People: Choices and Outcomes in OregonSaves,” by John Chalmers, Olivia S. Mitchell, Jonathan Reuter, Geoffrey Sanzenbacher…Read More
SECURE Act Update
Professor Olivia S. Mitchell contends that deferred lifetime annuities encouraged by the SECURE Act will protect retirees from longevity risk: see here at the Philadelphia Inquirer and our paper here.
The Problem With Bonds in a Retirement Portfolio
Nobody knows how long they’ll live, which makes bonds a more risky prospect for retirees’ long term planning. Benjamin Harris cites work by Vanya Horneff, Raimond Maurer and Wharton’s Olivia S. Mitchell showing the advantage of putting 10% of 401(k) wealth into deferred annuities instead.…Read More
Multiemployer Pension Bailout Plan is Fatally Flawed
Multiemployer pension plans in the United States are in dire financial straits. It’s estimated that the retirement plans of workers and retirees covered by these plans in the mining, retail trade, construction, transportation and other such sectors face a $54 billion shortfall today.…Read More