Pensions and Benefit Law

Against the “Safety Net”

Matthew B. Lawrence

Abstract Then-Representative Jack Kemp and President Ronald Reagan originated the “safety net” conception of U.S. health and welfare laws in the late 1970s and early 1980s, defending proposed cuts to New Deal and Great Society programs by asserting that such cuts would not take away the “social safety net of programs” for those with “true […]

Thomas J. Fitzpatrick IV & Amy B. Monahan, Who’s Afraid of Good Governance? State Fiscal Crises, Public Pension Underfunding, and the Resistance to Governance Reform

Much attention has been paid to the significant underfunding of many state and local employee pension plans, as well as to efforts by states and cities to alleviate that underfunding by modifying the benefits provided to workers. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to the systemic causes of such financial distress—such as chronic underfunding […]

John H. Rains IV, Searching for Fairness in all the Wrong Places: Valuing the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation's Unsecured Claim in Bankruptcy

58 Fla. L. Rev. 1107 (2006) | | | | INTRODUCTION :: Imagine waking up to this headline: “Major American Corporation Seeks Bankruptcy Protection.” Amid concern over lost jobs, reduced benefits for current employees, dramatic changes in stock prices, protracted litigation, enormous losses for creditors, and the displacement of current owners of the business, two […]