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Disability Insurance: SSA Should Strengthen Its Efforts to Detect and Prevent Overpayments

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Social Security Administration's (SSA) Disability Insurance (DI) program is one of the nation's largest cash assistance programs for disabled workers. In fiscal year 2003, the DI program provided about $70 billion in financial assistance to approximately 7.5 million disabled workers, their spouses, and dependent children. This program has grown in recent years and is poised to grow further as the ba… more
Date: September 10, 2004
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Retirement Decisions: Federal Policies Offer Mixed Signals about When to Retire

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "While many factors influence workers' decisions to retire, Social Security, Medicare, and pension laws also play a role, offering incentives to retire earlier and later. Identifying these incentives and how workers respond can help policy makers address the demographic challenges facing the nation. GAO assessed (1) the incentives federal policies provide about when to retire, (2) recent retirement patte… more
Date: July 11, 2007
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Private Pensions: Recent Experiences of Large Defined Benefit Plans Illustrate Weaknesses in Funding Rules

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Pension funding rules are intended to ensure that plans have sufficient assets to pay promised benefits to plan participants. However, recent terminations of large underfunded plans, along with continued widespread underfunding, suggest weaknesses in these rules that may threaten retirement incomes of these plans' participants, as well as the future viability of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation … more
Date: May 31, 2005
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Retirement Income: Ensuring Income throughout Retirement Requires Difficult Choices

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As life expectancy increases, the risk that retirees will outlive their assets is a growing challenge. The shift from defined benefit (DB) pension plans to defined contribution (DC) plans also increases the responsibility for workers and retirees to make difficult decisions and manage their pension and other financial assets so that they have income throughout retirement. GAO was asked to review (1) str… more
Date: June 7, 2011
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Private Pensions: Alternative Approaches Could Address Retirement Risks Faced by Workers but Pose Trade-offs

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Recent losses in the stock market and poor economic conditions underscore that many U.S. workers are at risk of not having an adequate income in retirement from pension plans. The dramatic decline in the stock market has diminished pension savings and reportedly led to low levels in older Americans' confidence in their ability to retire. Even before the current economic recession, research indicated tha… more
Date: July 24, 2009
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Pension Plans: Additional Transparency and Other Actions Needed in Connection with Proxy Voting

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 1998, about 100 million Americans were covered in private pension plans with assets totaling about $4 trillion. The retirement security of plan participants can be affected by how certain issues are voted on during company stockholders meetings. Fiduciaries, having responsibility for voting on such issues on behalf of some plan participants (proxy voting), are to act solely in the interest of partici… more
Date: August 10, 2004
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Private Pensions: Information on Cash Balance Pension Plans

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The nation's private defined benefit (DB) pension system, a key contributor to the financial security of millions of Americans, is in long-term decline. Since 1980, the number of active participants in Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) insured single employer DB plans has dropped from 27.3 percent of all national private wage and salary workers in 1980, to about 15 percent in 2002, and more re… more
Date: November 3, 2005
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Private Pensions: Better Agency Coordination Could Help Small Employers Address Challenges to Plan Sponsorship

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Based on available data, about 14 percent of small employers sponsor some type of retirement plan. Overall, GAO found that the likelihood that a small employer will sponsor a retirement plan largely depends on the size of the employer’s workforce and the workers’ average wages more than on the industry in which the employer operates and the geographic region in which the employer is located. GAO found t… more
Date: March 5, 2012
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Social Security Administration: Preliminary Observations on the Death Master File

Description: Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Social Security Administration's (SSA) procedures for handling and verifying death reports may allow for erroneous death information in the Death Master File (DMF) because SSA does not verify certain death reports or record others. SSA officials said, in keeping with its mission, the agency is primarily focused on ensuring that it does not make benefit payments to deceased Social Security program benefici… more
Date: May 8, 2013
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Private Pensions: Opportunities Exist to Further Improve the Transparency of PBGC's Financial Disclosures

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's (PBGC) single-employer insurance program insures the pension benefits of over 34 million participants in almost 29,000 private sector defined benefit pension plans. The increase in PBGC's probable claims has raised questions about PBGC's monitoring and financial disclosure practices, including whether the information that PBGC discloses is sufficient for intere… more
Date: March 27, 2006
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Retirement Savings: Automatic Enrollment Shows Promise for Some Workers, but Proposals to Broaden Retirement Savings for Other Workers Could Face Challenges

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Although employer-sponsored retirement plans can be an important component of income security after retirement, only about half of all workers participate in such plans. To foster greater participation among workers who have access to such plans, Congress included provisions that facilitate plan sponsors' adoption of automatic enrollment policies in the Pension Protection Act of 2006. To foster greater … more
Date: October 23, 2009
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Thrift Savings Plan: Delayed Allocation of Failed System Development Costs to Participant Accounts

Description: Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is a retirement savings and investment plan for federal employees, governed by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (Board). The TSP is a defined contribution retirement plan available to eligible federal employees. The TSP had about 2.6 million participants and held about $100.6 billion in Net Assets Available for Benefits as of December 31, 2001, and about 3 million par… more
Date: July 22, 2003
Creator: United States. General Accounting Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Veterans' Pension Benefits: Improvements Needed to Ensure Only Qualified Veterans Receive Benefits

Description: Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In summary, we identified over 200 organizations that market financial and estate planning services to help pension claimants with excess assets qualify for pension benefits. These organizations consist primarily of financial planners and attorneys who offer products such as annuities and trusts. All 19 organizations our investigative staff contacted said a claimant can qualify for pension benefits by transfe… more
Date: June 6, 2012
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Income Security: Older Adults and the 2007-2009 Recession

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The recession of 2007 to 2009 has been the most severe in this country since the 1930s. After adjusting for inflation, gross domestic product declined by 5.1 percent and the national unemployment rate peaked at 9.5 percent. While the recession officially ended in June 2009, our economy has experienced a weak recovery, with unemployment still above 9 percent. While the recession has affected all age grou… more
Date: October 17, 2011
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Veterans' Benefits: More Transparency Needed to Improve Oversight of VBA's Compensation and Pension Staffing Levels

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, asked GAO to assist the committee in its oversight of the Veterans Benefits Administration's (VBA) disability compensation and pension programs. This report examines (1) VBA's determination and justification of claims processing staffing levels, and the role of productivity in such determinations, and (2) VBA's projections … more
Date: November 15, 2004
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Private Pensions: Clarity of Required Reports and Disclosures Could Be Improved

Description: A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Sponsors of private sector pension plans are required to submit various reports to federal agencies and disclosures to participants depending on the plans' type, size, and circumstances. GAO identified more than 130 reports and disclosures stemming from provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (ERISA), and the Internal Revenue Code, as administered largely by three E… more
Date: November 21, 2013
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Reemployment of Retirees: Six Agencies' Use of Dual Compensation Waiver Authority is Limited

Description: Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In summary, the six agencies we reviewed made very little use of the NDAA waiver authority in fiscal years 2010 and 2011. The Department of Treasury made the most, although still very little, use of the waiver authority in both fiscal years--167 waivers in fiscal year 2010 and 214 waivers in fiscal year 2011. Agency officials told us that their agencies used a combination of NDAA and other waiver authori… more
Date: September 10, 2012
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Social Security: Proposed Totalization Agreement with Mexico Presents Unique Challenges

Description: A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Totalization agreements foster international commerce, protect benefits for persons who have worked in foreign countries, and eliminate dual social security taxes that employers and their employees pay when they operate and reside in countries with parallel social security systems. Because Mexicans are believed to represent a large share of the millions of unauthorized workers present in the United States, a t… more
Date: September 30, 2003
Creator: United States. General Accounting Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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401(k) Plans: Several Factors Can Diminish Retirement Savings, but Automatic Enrollment Shows Promise for Increasing Participation and Savings

Description: Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past 25 years, the number of defined benefit (DB) plans has declined while the number of defined contribution (DC) plans has increased. Today, DC plans are the dominant type of employer-sponsored retirement plans, with more than 49 million U.S. workers participating in them. 401(k) plans currently cover over 85 percent of active DC plan participants and are the fastest growing type of employer-sponso… more
Date: October 28, 2009
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Social Security Reform: Implications for Women

Description: Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed: (1) how women currently fare under social security; (2) how they might be affected by some of the proposed changes in benefits to restore solvency; and (3) how women might fare under a system restructured to include individual accounts."
Date: February 3, 1999
Creator: United States. General Accounting Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Private Pensions: Participants Need Information on Risks They Face in Managing Pension Assets at and during Retirement

Description: A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The decisions that retiring workers make about how and when to draw down their pension plan assets determine in part whether they will have pension income that lasts throughout retirement. Individuals will need pension and other retirement income to sustain them over a longer period of time than in the past. Moreover, the continuing trend towards pension plans with individual accounts has increased participant… more
Date: July 29, 2003
Creator: United States. General Accounting Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Pension Plans: Characteristics of Persons in the Labor Force Without Pension Coverage

Description: A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) portion of the labor force without pension coverage and how that proportion has changed over the past decade; (2) characteristics of workers in that labor force; and (3) proportion and characteristics of retired people who lack pension income or pension assets."
Date: August 22, 2000
Creator: United States. General Accounting Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Commercial Aviation: Preliminary Observations on Legacy Airlines' Financial Condition, Bankruptcy, and Pension Issues

Description: Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2001, the U.S. airline industry has confronted unprecedented financial losses. Two of the nation's largest airlines--United Airlines and US Airways--went into bankruptcy, terminating their pension plans and passing the unfunded liability to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). PBGC's unfunded liability was $9.6 billion; plan participants lost $5.2 billion in benefits. Considerable debate has… more
Date: June 22, 2005
Creator: United States. Government Accountability Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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Retirement Income: Intergenerational Comparisons of Wealth and Future Income

Description: A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Today's workers will rely to a large extent on Social Security, private pensions, and personal wealth for their retirement income. But some analysts question whether these sources will provide sufficient retirement income to maintain workers' standards of living once they leave the labor force. Indeed, the Social Security trust funds are projected to become exhausted in 2042, at which time, unless action is ta… more
Date: April 25, 2003
Creator: United States. General Accounting Office.
Partner: UNT Libraries Government Documents Department
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