1.  Corporations want to suspend contributions to pension funds.

About 800 of the largest companies in America, including Pfizer, IBM, and UPS, are collectively short of $280 billion needed to make payments to their pension funds and are seeking relief from Congress. 

An article in Business Week said, "New rules are hitting companies that are already down and could make a painful recession worse."

Under a 2006 law, companies are required to have 92% of their pension obligations funded.  An industry group said the law requires "huge, countercyclical contributions when companies desperately need cash to keep their businesses afloat."

But Jeremy Gold, founder of a New York actuarial consulting firm, said, "This is a failure of risk management by America's pension plans. They failed to reduce their exposure to the equities markets, they continued to gamble, and they lost the gamble.  So, like all the other losers, they're standing on the Capitol Hill steps, saying, ‘Help!'  They're trying to stampede Congress."

Senators Max Bacus (D-MT), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Charles Grassely (R-IA), and Mike Enzi (R-WY) have introduced legislation that would maintain the funding targets but ease the consequences for missing them.

Senator Grassely said the bill "strikes an appropriate balance between helping plan sponsors cope with the recent economic downturn, while also protecting the worker safeguards established two years ago."

However, the industry group was not satisfied with that approach, saying it does not go far enough.

2.  Bill introduced in House for moratorium on mandatory 401(k) withdrawals.

Congressmen George Miller (D-CA), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Jim McCrery (R-AL), and Buck McKeon (R-CA) have just introduced legislation to provide for a one-year moratorium on the requirement that retirees older than 70 ½ years of age withdraw money from their 401(k) accounts by the end of 2009.

Some retirees are facing the prospect of having to make withdrawals after their portfolios have suffered significant losses in the stock market.

The House is currently in a "lame-duck" session in which some members, such as McCrery, will not be returning in 2009.

3.  Supreme Court hears case on pensions of older women who took maternity leave.

AT&T Corporation is currently arguing a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to reverse a ruling of the 9th Court of Appeals that the company must comply with the 1979 Pregnancy Discrimination Act in regard to women who took maternity leave during the 1960s and early 1970s.

Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer questioned AT&T on whether it was discriminating against former employees by paying smaller retirement checks to some women.

The case will affect the size of the retirement checks for thousands of women who lost seniority when they took maternity leave prior to the passage of the legislation that required pregnancy to be treated like any other disability.

During the oral arguments, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that if all of the women were treated equally, there would be less money available for each pension.