ERISA

(U.S. GOVERNMENT) Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974); federal law that sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established pension and health plans in private industry to provide protection for individuals in these plans. Very important law was supposed to ensure that employer pension plans were (a) managed by qualified, ethical people, and (b) those people did not take excessive risks with the funds paid into the pensions. ERISA was subsequently weakened by a Department of Labor ruling in 1978 that allowed pension fund managers to invest in riskier types of portfolios. At the same time this occurred, financial managers were stuck with negative real interest rates, and high inflation. So there was an urgent need for financial vehicles with high yield. As a result, pension fund money flowed into the new hedge funds and junk bonds. Another major change to ERISA was the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA-1986) allows workers recently unemployed from a job to keep their group health insurance coverage for a limited period of time. ERISA regulations for vesting pension benefits were watered down during the '90's, resulting in massive risk taking and erosion of income security for middle class Usonians.