Retirement planning officials take note: The Obama administration is ramping up enforcement efforts to combat the large number of retirement plans that it says are not compliant with retirement planning rules and regulations.
The Department of Labor has stated that 77% of 401(k) plans are noncompliant "in some form," said John Carl, president of the Retirement Learning Center, which is sponsored by Columbia Management, the investment manager owned by Ameriprise Financial, at the SPARK Institute's national conference in Washington on Tuesday.
While 2009 was a bad year for the economy, Carl said, it wasn't so bad for DOL — it managed to add 997 employees that year — with 70% of those employees added to its enforcement division. The department's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), for instance, saw a 28% budget increase in 2009, and EBSA added 29 enforcement personnel.
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Melanie Waddell
Melanie is senior editor and Washington bureau chief of ThinkAdvisor. Her ThinkAdvisor coverage zeros in on how politics, policy, legislation and regulations affect the investment advisory space. Melanie’s coverage has been cited in various lawmakers’ reports, letters and bills, and in the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule in 2024. In 2019, Melanie received an Honorable Mention, Range of Work by a Single Author award from @Folio. Melanie joined Investment Advisor magazine as New York bureau chief in 2000. She has been a columnist since 2002. She started her career in Washington in 1994, covering financial issues at American Banker. Since 1997, Melanie has been covering investment-related issues, holding senior editorial positions at American Banker publications in both Washington and New York. Briefly, she was content chief for Internet Capital Group’s EFinancialWorld in New York and wrote freelance articles for Institutional Investor. Melanie holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Towson University. She interned at The Baltimore Sun and its suburban edition.
