Needed The Right of a Retiree to Convert a 401(k) Account into a Federally Guaranteed Annuity[文献翻译]2011-01-10.docVIP

原文： Needed: The Right of a Retiree to Convert a 401(k) Account into a Federally Guaranteed Annuity By Lawrence A.Frolik America’s retirees are faced with a potential financial disaster. Economic security in retirement has long depended on Social Security, private savings, and employer-provided retirement plans. The national movement from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans has been extensively written about, but little attention has been paid to the inability of many retirees to successfully manage the retirement funds they’ve accumulated in their 401(k) and similar accounts during the long years of their retirement. Asking individuals to husband a lump-sum payout from a 401(k) retirement account for the 20 to 30 years of retirement—years during which they physically and mentally decline—is a recipe for disaster. The solution is to create federally guaranteed lifetime annuities that retirees can purchase with the funds accumulated in their 401(k) retirement accounts. The Decline of the Defined Benefit Plan The last decade has seen a sea change in the nature of employee retirement plans. In the past, the defined benefit plan predominated, typically paying a pension for the life of the retiree [ Henry H. Drummonds, “The Aging of the Boomers and the Coming Crisis in America’s Changing Retirement and Elder Care System,” 11 Lewis Clark L. Rev. 267, 276 (2007)]. The payment of that pension depended upon adequate funding by the employer into the plan, but even if the plan was unable to meet its obligations, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation would pay most, if not all, of the promised pension Unfortunately, the number of employees participating in defined benefit plans is rapidly receding as fewer and fewer employers sponsor such plans. The number of employees participating in defined benefit plans fell from 27 million in 1985 to 19.5 million in 2008 [Patrick Purcell, “Pension Sponsorship and Participation: Summary of Recent Trends,” p. 4; Congressio