Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers

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Air date: 
Mon, 03/12/2012 - 8:00am to 9:00am
Hosts Celeste Carey and Cecil Prescod interview Ellen Schultz about her book, "Retirement Heist"

 
Hosts Celeste Carey and Cecil Prescod interview Ellen Schultz about her book, "Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers."
It's no secret that hundreds of companies have been slashing pensions and health coverage earned by millions of retirees. Employers blame an aging workforce, stock market losses, and spiraling costs — what they call "a perfect storm" of external forces that has forced them to take drastic measures.
But this so-called retirement crisis is no accident. Ellen E. Schultz, award-winning investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, reveals how large companies and the retirement industry — benefits consultants, insurance companies, and banks — have all played a huge and hidden role in the death spiral of American pensions and benefits.
A little over a decade ago, most companies had more than enough set aside to pay the benefits earned by two generations of workers, no matter how long they lived. But by exploiting loopholes, ambiguous regulations, and new accounting rules, companies essentially turned their pension plans into piggy banks, tax shelters, and profit centers.
Drawing on original analysis of company data, government filings, internal corporate documents, and confidential memos, Schultz uncovers decades of widespread deception during which employers have exaggerated their retiree burdens while lobbying for government handouts, secretly cutting pensions, tricking employees, and misleading shareholders.
Ellen E. Schultz is an investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has covered the so-called retirement crisis for more than a decade. Her reporting has led to Congressional hearings, proposed legislation, and investigations by the Treasury and the GAO.
Schultz has won dozens of journalism awards for economics, financial, and investigative reporting, including three Polk Awards, two Loeb awards, and a National Press Club award. In 2003, Schultz was part of a team of Wall Street Journal reports awarded the Pulitzer Prize, for articles on corporate scandals.

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