Retirement Trends

Under a proposal announced April 15, Detroits emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, agreed to pay retired city police officers and firefighters their full monthly pensions. Hours later, the pension system for general employees, such as city hall clerks and street workers, said it, too, had settled.

Costs for employee salaries, benefits and pensions will increase by $192 million, or more than 10 percent, the citys top budget official said.

Christie has attacked employee benefits, saying that 50 percent of all new spending in his latest budget goes to pay for pensions, 30 percent pays for debt and 14 percent pays for health benefits.

Faurecia has 4,800 plan participants in its defined contribution plan, with $200 million in assets, and more than 2,000 plan participants in its defined benefit plan, with $45 million in assets.

More than 70 percent of consultants surveyed said they are concerned or very concerned about each of these topics.

Yellen said to pay attention to shortfalls in both inflation and the jobless rate for signals on the Federal Open Market Committees decisions on the policy rate.