Federal workers are more likely to have fat compensation packages of government-defined benefit plans and pensions.
In recent years, defined contribution plans have been steadily replacing defined benefit plans across most industries.
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As of year-end 2005, 627 of the nation's largest 1, 000 corporations still sponsored defined benefit plans.
To punish private sector defined contribution plans and reward public sector defined benefit plans is egregiously self-serving.
Politicians cannot be trusted to resist the temptation of balancing the budget by underfunding defined benefit plans.
The investment performance shortfall between defined contribution and defined benefit plans cannot be blamed entirely upon participants.
FORBES: A Nation on the Precipice: Our Failed Retirement System (October 12, 2007)
The result: Only 39% of covered workers still have defined benefit plans, down from 83% in 1980.
Participants in defined benefit plans are generally less concerned about and aware of plan performance and asset allocation.
Private-sector employers jumped on the bandwagon, but took it one step further, eliminating their defined benefit plans.
The private sector mostly has defined contribution retirement plans whereas government union workers mostly have defined benefit plans.
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Saving for retirement is not as easy as it used to be in the days of defined benefit plans.
And these were defined benefit plans, but no one had thought through or predicted what would happen when inflation ran up.
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Who would have thought that this broad-based attack upon defined contribution plans would follow the well- documented demise of defined benefit plans?
Employees are instead absorbing higher costs for insurance premiums and co-pays, and there is nearly a complete elimination of defined benefit plans.
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It is indisputable that defined contribution plans substantially underperform defined benefit plans.
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See also: How Entrepreneurs Can Get Big Tax Breaks For Retirement Savings for details on SEP-IRAs, individual 401(k)s and defined benefit plans.
Public-sector unions are enjoying defined benefit plans, whereas the rest of lucky America who has a retirement plan has a defined contribution plan.
The country will not be able to afford to make good on the promises of all the defined benefit plans that experienced inadequate investment returns.
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. statistics show that the number of private sector defined benefit plans in the U.S. has plunged to 30, 000 from 112, 000 since 1985.
Plenty of companies see the value of defined benefit plans, especially in the wake of the financial crisis as employees have seen the shortcomings of 401(k) plans.
The advocate of public pension plan reform did, however, point to bad outcomes for public employees in selected states that substituted 401(k)-style retirement packages for traditional defined benefit plans.
Unlike defined benefit plans, where corporate sponsors are ultimately responsible for ensuring that retirement obligations to employees are met, defined contribution sponsors who fail to diligently manage plans heretofore have escaped liability.
While the DOL and PBGC exert tremendous influence over the more than 34 million workers and retirees in over 29, 000 single-employer defined benefit plans, in many respects these two agencies operate in secrecy.
In addition, higher contributions for Medicare and Social Security are expected while 401(k)s and other self-funded retirement plans continue to replace employer-funded defined benefit plans, particularly for state and local government workers.
As a result, taxpayers were forced to ante up more money to make sure government employees would enjoy a financially secure retirement while at the same time, private sector employers closed their defined benefit plans to avoid funding them.
Eighteen percent of the 1, 000 big companies with defined benefit plans had, as of last December, frozen at least one of their plans, with the majority of those freezes occurring in 2004 or 2005, according to consultants Watson Wyatt Worldwide.
The high cost of pensions and health care for retirees has long been a burden for American automakers, which have tried to rein in costs by freezing their traditional defined benefit plans and steering workers toward new 401(k) retirement savings programs.
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Activists investors like Loeb are still criticized in the U.S. A few weeks ago, for example, Loeb was knocked for allegedly supporting an effort to deny teachers and other public-sector workers guaranteed benefits while raising money from such defined benefit plans for his hedge funds.
With the shift from defined-benefit plans to defined-contribution plans, and the uncertain future of social security, boomers are on their own when it comes to financing retirement.
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