ERISA. Forty years after its enactment and still standing. In light of its evolution, one could say that ERISA should stand for the Employee Responsibility Income Security Act due to the shift of the burden of providing an adequate retirement income from the employer to employees, most of whom have little or no experience with determining how much they need to save or how to choose a suitable mix of investments.
The enactment of ERISA in 1974 accomplished several things. It set safeguards for certain employee benefit plans, including pensions, 401(k) and health and welfare plans. ERISA also helps protect trillions of retirement dollars accumulated by American workers not so much from market fluctuations but from fraud, self-dealing and poor oversight. Further, the law also mandated the separation of retirement plan assets from employer assets to correct one of the largest threats to satisfying an employers retirement plan obligations. Another core ERISA provision, pre-emption of state laws that relate to employee benefit plans, has enabled employers operating in multiple states to offer plans to employees under a uniform set of laws, regardless of the states where those employees live.
