11 ERISA milestones

On Sept. 2, 1974, President Gerald R. Ford signed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act into law. In a statement on Labor Day that year, he surmised that the landmark measure could “finally give the American worker solid protection in his pension plan.”
[Image: Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation]

The administration of ERISA falls under the U.S. Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Currently, the PBGC protects the retirement incomes for more than 44 million American workers.
“ERISA set forth a framework that certain retirement benefits and other benefits couldn’t be subject to alienation,” says Matthew Whitehorn, a partner and chair of Dilworth Paxson’s employee benefits group. “It protected employees from the possibilities of losing their benefits and protects pension benefits from things like bankruptcy.”