As a research site, EBRI Online maintains old listings in the "What’s New" page, even though some of the older links may no longer function. If you reach a bad link, go back to the main site by deleting everything after ".com" or ".org" or ".net" in the address. Since we maintain www.ebri.org as a research and education resource, and not current news, we hope you will understand our policy and the use for which it is maintained.

What's new at EBRI this month:

New EBRI/ICI Database on 401(k) Participant Activity: EBRI's January 1999 Issue Brief examines "401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances and Loan Activity."  The result of two years' collaboration between EBRI and the Investment Company Institute (ICI) in the collection of data on participants in 401(k) plans, this new database includes 1996 information on 6.6 million active participants in 27,762 plans holding nearly $246 billion in assets.  The database includes demographic information, annual contributions, plan balances, asset allocation, and loans, and is by far the most comprehensive source of information on individual plan participants.

• Press Release
• EBRI Issue Brief, January 1999, "401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances and Loan Activity" in pdf format. (If your computer does not already have the free Adobe Acrobat viewer software to read these files, click here for the one-time download necessary to read any of our online PDF publications.)

EBRI Research Findings for 1998:

• Overview
• Retirement Income Research
• Health Care Research
• Social Security Research

Consumer Health Education Council (CHEC): The Employee Benefit Research Institute Education and Research Fund  has posted the Strategic Plan of CHEC and a CHEC Tools and Resources page.

• The American Compensation Association provides listings of human resources-related congressional bills with links to the bills and to background information on the bills.
  • Senate bills
  • House bills

• Late-breaking news items from the weekly publication Business Insurance are posted every Friday before the Monday issue date.

• Click here for the latest available issue of the Washington Status Report from the research staff of Hewitt Associates.

• Click here for the daily edition of the Society for Human Resource Management's newspaper, HR News Online.

• Click here for the American Compensation Association's Compensation & Benefits NEWSLINE.

• The following item has been added to the General Accounting Office's Web site in Portable Document (PDF) format:

  Medical Savings Accounts: Results From Surveys of Insurers. HEHS-99-34. 3 pp. plus 1 appendix (14 pp.) December 31, 1998.

  If a title link above no longer works, click here for the GAO Index of Reports and Testimony, FY98, and search for the report by entering words or phrases from the title. Reports will also be added to GAO's searchable WAIS database in ASCII and PDF formats within 24 hours of the original posting. Any individual report may be retrieved directly in text and PDF formats with the following URL: http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?RPTNO replacing RPTNO with the report number (e.g., GAO/OCG-98-1).

If your computer does not already have the free Adobe Acrobat viewer software to read PDF files, click here for the one-time download necessary to read PDF publications.

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(1/29/99) Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman announced January 25 the appointment of five new members to the Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans (the ERISA Advisory Council) who will represent various sectors of the employee benefits field. Click here for the press release.

(1/28/99) The Health Insurance Association of America has released "Mandated Benefit Laws and Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance" by Gail A. Jensen and Michael A. Morrisey. Click here to go to the press release where a link to the report is provided.

(1/27/99) The Kentucky State Auditor's Office published July 1998, a major report on the state's public pension plans. Click here for the page providing access to the pdf format of the title: An Examination of Investments and Investment Practices of the Kentucky Retirement Systems and the Kentucky Teachers' Retirement System.

(1/26/99) Congress Charts HR Reforms: Many New Pieces of Legislation in the Works May Significantly Affect Human Resources Executives by Jim O'Connell and Stephanie Ward is posted on the online version of the January 1999, issue of Benefits & Compensation Solutions.

(1/25/99) The Coalition for Retirement Security is now online.

(1/22/99) A January 20, 1999, press release contains the Congressional Record statement of Senator Bill Roth (R-DE) on the introduction of his "Personal Retirement Accounts Act of 1999" legislation and a summary of the bill.

(1/22/99) Benefits Legislation in the New 106th Congress is covered in the January 1999 issue of KPMG Peat Marwick's BenefitsSpectrum.

(1/21/99) Today's New York Times carries an article, "Greenspan Sees Harm in Proposal" by David E. Rosenbaum, on President Clinton's proposal to have the government invest a portion of the Social Security reserves in the stock market.

(1/21/99) The Heritage Foundation has released four new policy papers:

• Principles to Guide Reform of Health Care for Working Families by Stuart M. Butler
• How Tax Reforms Would Help Protect Patient Confidentiality by Stuart M. Butler and Carrie J. Gavora
• One Cheer for Clinton's Social Security Plan by David C. John
• The Impact of Removing Social Security's Tax Cap on Wages by Gareth G. Davis and D. Mark Wilson

(1/20/99) Click here for the text of the 1999 State of the Union Address delivered January 19, 1999.

(1/20/99) The current issue of IntellectualCapital.com carries Out of the Long-term Care Mess by Peter Spencer.

(1/20/99) Should We Retire Social Security: Grading the Reform Plans by Henry J. Aaron and Robert D. Reischauer is published in the Winter 1999 issue of Brookings Review.

(1/19/99) Preparing for the New Millenium: A Checklist of Trends Impacting the Future of Employer-Sponsored Plans has been prepared by the research staff of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans.

(1/18/99) The Private Pension Plan Bulletin: Abstract of 1994 Form 5500 Annual Reports is now online from the U.S. Department of Labor's Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration.

(1/15/99) The International Society for Retirement Planning has a nice set of links to other sites on life-planning and retirement issues and resources.

(1/14/99) Click here for the recent news release and tables on the Employee Benefits in Medium and Large Private Establishments, 1997, survey.

(1/13/99) Go to Fortune.com for results of the annual survey: 100 Best Companies to Work For.

(1/12/99) The Urban Institute has released two studies by Marilyn Moon:

• Growth in Medicare Spending: What Will Beneficiaries Pay?
• Restructuring Medicare: Impacts on Beneficiaries

(1/12/99) Click here for the December/January 1999 cover story: Does Your Money Manager Measure Up? on Plan Sponsor's Defined Benefit Client Satisfaction Survey.

(1/11/99) Click here for commentary on, and access to, White House Eyes Surplus Funds for Retirement Plan, a January 8, 1999, article in The Washington Post.

(1/8/99) Click here for information from the latest annual Towers Perrin Health Care Cost Survey.

(1/8/99) The latest PaineWebber Index of Investor Optimism shows that the balanced budget and Social Security reform are the top investor priorities for 1999.

(1/7/99) Click here to go to the 401(k) and Profit Sharing Plan Eligibility Survey conducted December 1998 , by the Profit Sharing/ 401(k) Council of America (PSCA).

(1/6/99) The BenefitsLink Web site has introduced a new column: ERISA Questions & Answers.

(1/6/99) Click here to read an article on Plan Sponsor's second annual Defined Contribution Services Survey.

(1/5/99) A ten-city teleconference, concentrating on Social Security issues that particularly affect women, will be held on Saturday, January 23, the organizer, Americans Discuss Social Security (ADSS), announced. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will chair the event.

(1/4/99) Evaluating Erisa Fiduciary Liability Relating to the Year 2000 ("Y2K") Computer Issue contains additional Department of Labor (DOL) guidance on many of the specific questions used by DOL investigators in evaluating whether employee benefit plans are in Y2K compliance.

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