{"id":47757,"date":"2017-11-08T08:11:32","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T13:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=47757"},"modified":"2024-09-01T09:56:09","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T13:56:09","slug":"armstrong-pensions-gold-standard-has-become-tarnished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/11\/armstrong-pensions-gold-standard-has-become-tarnished\/","title":{"rendered":"ARMSTRONG: Pensions gold standard has become tarnished"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Armstrong, an associate professor of operations research in\u00a0Brock\u2019s Goodman School of Business, wrote a piece <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thespec.com\/opinion-story\/7848217-pensions-gold-standard-has-become-tarnished\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recently published in the Hamilton Spectator<\/a> about the risks to employee pensions when businesses go bust.<\/p>\n<p>Armstrong writes:<\/p>\n<p><em>Sears Canada&#8217;s bankruptcy is eliminating 12,000 jobs, including 5,400 in Ontario. It&#8217;s also leaving 16,000 retirees worried about their pensions. This is the latest signal that workers and regulators need better approaches to defined-benefit pensions.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Pensions are promises to employees. With defined-contribution plans, employers make short-term promises to invest each year. The resulting pensions depend on investment performance.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>With defined-benefit plans, employers also promise to invest more if returns are poor. That reassurance makes those plans the &#8220;gold standard.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But such top-ups may be needed decades later. If you start work at 25 and retire at 65, pension cheques start arriving 40 years after the first paycheque. That long-term promise poses two risks for employees.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>First, the promise might not be kept. Defined-benefit plans should out-pay defined-contribution plans during recessions. But that&#8217;s when employers are least able to invest.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Continue reading the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thespec.com\/opinion-story\/7848217-pensions-gold-standard-has-become-tarnished\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Armstrong, an associate professor of operations research in\u00a0Brock\u2019s Goodman School of Business, wrote a piece recently published in the Hamilton Spectator about the risks to employee pensions when businesses go bust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,6],"tags":[594,5610,4395],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47759,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47757\/revisions\/47759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}