As outlined in previous Duane Morris Alerts, the coronavirus, or COVID-19, presents a potentially serious risk to the safety and welfare of employees and the financial health of companies. With employers facing the prospect of government-mandated business closures and employees who need time off to care for children unexpectedly home for multiple weeks due to school closures, COVID-19 presents numerous employee benefit-related questions and challenges. This Alert will provide employers with a roadmap for addressing COVID-19 concerns that affect health insurance plans (including potential HIPAA privacy obligations thereunder), welfare benefit plans and retirement plans.
U.S. Department of Labor Finalizes Regulations Authorizing States to Establish Retirement Savings Programs
Blog post by Lawrence I. Davidson
On August 25, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released its Final Rule that will facilitate state legislatures in establishing employee retirement savings programs that are ERISA compliant. Currently, roughly one-third of all workers do not have an opportunity to save for retirement through retirement savings accounts offered by their employers. To date, eight states, including Illinois and California, have already passed legislation which creates retirement savings account programs for employees. While the specific rules of these employee retirement savings programs vary for each state, all of them have the purpose of encouraging residents of their State to save for retirement. Often this is accomplished through a state “auto-IRA” law which requires employers that do not offer workplace retirement savings programs to automatically enroll their employees in payroll deduction IRAs administered by the state. Continue reading “U.S. Department of Labor Finalizes Regulations Authorizing States to Establish Retirement Savings Programs”