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DOL to Issue Guidance on State Retirement Plans

Taking a cue from the boss, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez has said that the DOL will issue guidance to help facilitate state-based retirement plans. Perez made his remarks on the DOL blog.

As President Obama did on July 13, Perez hailed state-based plans as a tool to strengthen retirement and noted efforts at the federal level to institute a program through which employees would be enrolled automatically in an IRA.

But that’s easier said than done, Perez indicated, observing that states have expressed uncertainty regarding whether ERISA would preempt state plans. Perez said that the courts are the “ultimate arbiter on that question,” but that “the department can try to help reduce the risk of litigation challenges to state retirement savings initiatives.”

To help the states, and in accordance with Obama’s directive that the DOL issue a rule on state-based retirement plans that would clarify the path for state-based retirement savings initiatives, Perez said that “forthcoming” DOL guidance “will safeguard worker retirement savings and offer pathways for states to adopt retirement savings programs that are consistent with federal law.”

Although Perez did not give a timetable for the guidance, he declared that bolstering retirement security is a matter that “must be addressed immediately.”