FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

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April 6, 2005
JS-2397

The Challenges Before Us: Defined Benefit Pension Plans and
Social Security
Address by The Honorable Mark J Warshawsky
To the 2005 Meeting of Enrolled Actuaries
April 6, 2005

Good morning and thank you for the kind introduction.  I am pleased to have this opportunity to address the 2005 Enrolled Actuaries meeting to discuss the Administration's pension reform proposal for single employer defined benefit plans.  Although the Administration is also considering the problems in the multiemployer system, all my remarks today pertain only to single employer plans. 

What, you might ask, would an economist contribute in an address to a meeting of actuaries?  In part I appear as the spokesman for an important Administrative initiative. But I also have a long-standing interest and background in pensions and pension policy.  Prior to joining the current Administration, I oversaw pension research for TIAA-CREF and was a Senior Economist on the staff of the Assistant Commissioner for Employee Plans and Exempt Organizations at the Internal Revenue Service responsible for a study of underfunded pension plans.  I have also written a number of academic articles and books on pensions and annuities.  Although my duties at the Treasury Department cover a wide range of topics, my interest in pensions has made my work on the Administration's defined benefit pension and Social Security reform proposals particularly satisfying.

REPORTS

• Assistant Secretary Mark Warshawsky's Speech to the 2005 Meeting of Enrolled Actuaries