Blackwell Reference Online

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The Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) was enacted in 1974 as the first piece of US legislation governing employee pension and welfare benefit plans. Although not mandating pensions for employees, ERISA governs virtually all aspects of employer‐sponsored pensions ( see pension plans ). Because of ERISA's exemption for governmental plans, those pension plans operated by federal, state, or local governments are not covered under ERISA. ERISA is organized under four titles, with Title I being the most important to the human resource function. In Title I, rules regarding participation and participant vesting, funding, fiduciary responsibility, administration, enforcement, reporting, and disclosure are provided. Some of these rules apply only to pension plans, but rules regarding fiduciary responsibility, administration, enforcement, reporting, and disclosure apply also to welfare benefit plans and many other plans. The remaining Titles (Titles II–IV) provide key language in the Internal Revenue Code for plans seeking or maintaining qualified status (i.e., preferential tax treatment), establish the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and plan termination insurance, and institute other miscellaneous provisions. ERISA has been amended numerous times, but particularly by the Multiemployer Pension Amendments Act of 1980 (MPPAA), which brought multiemployer plans (in which ... log in or subscribe to read full text