{"id":10254,"date":"2025-03-02T17:06:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T21:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=10254"},"modified":"2025-03-02T17:14:27","modified_gmt":"2025-03-02T21:14:27","slug":"this-50-year-old-law-changed-retirement-heres-how","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kerryhannon.com\/?p=10254","title":{"rendered":"This 50-year-old law changed retirement. Here’s how."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mention a Packard or Studebaker to classic car buffs and eyes glisten.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n
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These sleek wheels were once the epitome of luxury. In 1954, the two companies merged, but the new company lost its traction and US production came to a screeching halt in 1963. When the company went kaput, thousands of the company\u2019s workers discovered that their traditional defined benefit pensions guaranteeing an income stream for life were terminated too.<\/p>\n

The outrage caught the attention of lawmakers, and although it took more than a decade, federal legislation to protect workers\u2019 retirement savings was signed into law in 1974: the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA.<\/span><\/p>\n

That law is the spine of much of today\u2019s retirement benefit landscape for American workers, but it’s having a midlife crisis.<\/p>\n

Read on Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The gist of it: ERISA was created to protect workers by overseeing retirement accounts like traditional pension plans and, eventually, 401(k) and most 403(b) plans, but it only safeguards some of us.<\/p>\n

In a special episode of\u00a0Decoding Retirement<\/em><\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0I sat down with Robert Powell, a retirement expert and host of the podcast; and Molly Moorhead, Yahoo Finance\u2019s personal finance editor, to discuss how American workers are faring under ERISA.<\/p>\n