Companies will no longer be allowed to use their pension programs to treat their employees as an especially loyal and malleable class of shareholder; instead, pension funds will have to be diversified.
Ms. Castro said that a new area of age discrimination had begun to arise over changes in pension programs to cash-balance plans, which often benefit younger workers at the expense of their older colleagues.
Even large state companies are starting supplementary pension programs to retain key staff, says PricewaterhouseCoopers. If there is a bright spot in China's pension situation, it's that the central government after years of debate is opening up to 401 k -style programs to allow workers more ready control of their own investment funds.
The loopholes became starkly apparent at the beginning of this decade, when a number of big steel and airline pension funds collapsed, forcing the federal pension insurance program to absorb billions of dollars in losses.
But that should be only the first step; another compelling option is to make state pension programs similar to a 401(k) plan, so that retirees can help take the state off the hook for exorbitant defined benefits.
The new coordinator, Jeffrey Hon, will advise the mayor on 9/11 health issues and oversee the way municipal pension programs respond to requests from employees who were exposed to the toxic dust.
To drum up more and better reporting, the project has enlisted major investors like Calstrs, the nation's second-largest pension program, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to co-sign letters from the project encouraging companies to take part.
For example, in post-Apartheid South Africa, a pension program was designed to provide a safety net and reduce financial barriers for those of retirement age with insufficient employment-based pension (37).
Organizations like CitiGroup, for example, used illusory financial instruments like derivatives and synthetics to move pension program money from your pocket to theirs.
That is an unlikely course for the Indianapolis Colts' longtime offensive line coach, Howard Mudd, who has filed for retirement because of the changes to the pension program, or the offensive coordinator, Tom Moore, who is considering retiring.
