Forty years ago, President Gerald Ford signed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which enshrined the concept that pension promises were sacred.
Companies could change, or even eliminate, pension plans, but workers were entitled to the benefits they had already earned. A government agency was set up to guarantee that pensions would be paid even if the sponsoring company went broke.
This year may well be remembered as the one when the fundamental tenet of Erisa, as the law came to be known, was abandoned.
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