FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
Television news trucks line up outside of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals building September 22, 2003 in San Francisco, California. (David Paul Morris/Getty Images/TNS)
US appeals court upholds California program for workers without retirement benefits
A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a California program that provides retirement savings accounts to workers whose employers don’t offer them.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided unanimously that the program, CalSavers, did not interfere with federal law.
The state established CalSavers in 2017 to encourage savings for future retirees. Private workers whose employers do not provide pensions or 401(k) programs were automatically enrolled in CalSavers. Unless workers opt out, their employers are required to remit money from payroll deductions to CalSavers to be deposited in IRAs set up on the employees’ behalf.
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Here’s an alarming statistic: According to research by the Federal Reserve, one out of every four Americans has nothing saved for retirement. Part of the reason is that, according to the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, more than 60% of Americans aren’t participating in an employer’s pension or retirement savings plan. Surveys find that such plans are extremely popular with workers, but many employers simply don’t offer them they’re put off by the accompanying paperwork, costs and responsibilities.
So, under the leadership of then-Sen. Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), the state of California did its residents an enormous service in 2017 when it launched a simple and automatic retirement savings program for workers whose employers do not offer pensions or a 401(k). That program CalSavers Retirement Savings, or CalSavers has begun enrolling its first participants, although it won’t be fully phased in until the middle of next year.
Are you a worker worried you won’t have enough money to retire?
But the court said CalSavers did not interfere with the goals of the U.S. Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.
The federal law “does not preclude California’s endeavor to encourage personal retirement savings by requiring employers who do not offer retirement plans to participate in CalSavers,” Judge Daniel A. Bress, a Trump appointee, wrote for the panel.
The anti-tax group argued that the federal law, which established minimum standards for pensions, barred California from creating CalSavers. Laws passed by Congress are generally controlling over state law and prevent states from enacting measures on the same subject.
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LA Recusals, Public Comment, and Other Musings Details
LOS ANGELES-
Metro: Thanks to the LA Metro records team for providing the AT&T invoices for teleconferencing service for metro meetings.
We ve been paying $386/hour for speaker sub/conference administration management and $309/hour for an Event Producer on meeting days. That s $695/hour to put on a conference call.
Bonin who loves pumping NextGen Bus service and fareless anything told the board when he was finally called up to speak, my hand has been up since the beginning.
It s work in progress. . . More than $30,000 to AT&T over six months September 2020 to February 2021 for routinely bad service. I m going to save the list of grievances for another article.