Restoring the promise: Recent trends, examples from key industries, and future prospects for retirement security

Events of the past several years have brought a renewed focus on the importance of pensions and retirement security. Financial crises in certain high-profile industries, like airlines, have imperiled the retirement prospects of hundreds of thousands of workers as companies abandoned their pension plans. Even financially healthy employers are moving away from providing traditional pensions, turning instead to 401(k) and other types of retirement plans. As a result, pension coverage in the U.S. has declined, even as the economy has grown, and employers' shift from providing traditional pensions, with defined benefits, toward 401(k)-style plans means workers are facing ever greater risks to their retirement security. This presentation will address these recent trends and provide concrete examples from airlines and other key industries. It will also discuss what the Pension Protection Act of 2006 might mean for workers' retirement prospects. Public and private-sector solutions to the emerging crisis in retirement security will also be explored.