Retirement

In five years, the cost to taxpayers for Rhode Island's public retirement system will more than double if nothing is done to curb runaway pension costs.

Even as leading Democrats offered assurances to the contrary, government experts repeatedly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan could go belly up, saddling taxpayers with another underfunded benefit program, according to emails disclosed by congressional investigators.

The economy is poor, retirement funds are down, and wages have been stagnant for years. Workers across all generations are feeling the effects, especially the baby boomers who cant afford to retire, says John Sweeney, human resources knowledge adviser for the Society for Human Resource Management.

Rhode Island lawmakers waded into state government's most dizzying fiscal problem Monday ahead of a special legislative session dedicated to addressing the rising costs of public pensions.

Some Social Security advocates fear that President Barack Obama's desire to cut taxes supporting the program will undermine its vaunted stature as a self-financing pension system that provides checks to retirees based on contributions they made while working.

Employee benefit plans want the right to waive a proposed rule that would require swap counterparties to give benefit plans extra scrutiny and advice.