The overriding objective of ERISA was to promote and protect the retirement and other benefit interests of American workers. ERISA was a watershed legislative accomplishment which has substantially altered the design, administration, funding and communication of retirement plans for the vast majority of American workers and plan sponsors over the past 40 years.

Overall, ERISA has proven successful in accomplishing many of its aims. 

It established a meaningful framework within which employers can design and operate retirement plans. It also provided a number of reasonable protections for participants, including the 404(a) fiduciary rules, some of the disclosure requirements, the basic funding rules, the termination insurance program, and the rules regarding accrual of benefits, vesting and nondiscrimination. 

Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.

Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.