Allegheny Technologies is making the switch to a 401(k)-style plan despite the fact that the company’s defined-benefit plan is currently 87 percent funded. Regardless of how well funded some defined-benefit plans can be, the plans are no longer affordable or sustainable.
The new federal spending bill, dubbed the “CRomnibus,” codifies that the ACA payments to insurers are budget-neutral, as the revenue to fund them will come from fees already assessed on health-insurance plans. This is not the blank check that insurers were hoping for.
There’s a reason Bruce Rauner topped Institutional Investor’s Pension 40 list – he has the potential to fix the nation’s worst pension crisis.
But Chicago’s minimum-wage hike is a stopgap for jobs.
Chicago City Council claims that over 400,000 workers in Chicago will get pay hikes. What lawmakers should be studying is how many tens of thousands of those workers are going to be unnecessarily thrown out of work the next time the economy slows down, property taxes go up or a new technology comes along that can replace human labor.
The state’s entrenched culture of cronyism is blindingly clear, especially to those who report on it for a living.