For many working Americans, the dream of a financially secure retirement may be slowly slipping away as the retirement landscape continues to face dramatic shifts. Many employers, driven by pressure to reduce risk and contain costs, have withdrawn from the traditional role of providing a guaranteed pension benefit in favor of facilitating individual retirement savings by helping fund a defined contribution plan. Some employers do not even bear the cost of sponsoring a program simply to facilitate retirement savings. The statistics on the insufficiency of individual retirement savings are staggering. Future retirees may find that their only source of guaranteed retirement income is Social Security. However, Social Security has also come under scrutiny following several years of reports predicting a potential risk of insolvency in that program within the next 20 years.

Certainly some aspects of our nation's retirement system are still working well, while others may require significant intervention to make them sustainable. During this year's pension symposium, we explore the three tiers of the retirement system in the U.S. - national security programs, employer-sponsored retirement plans and individual savings - to identify what is working, and what is not.

The work of the Academy's Forward Thinking Task Force serves as a framework for participants to evaluate each tier of our national retirement system. Using the four key principles of alignment, governance, efficiency and sustainability (aka, Retirement for the AGES), together we will discuss how these programs be improved to increase their long-term viability and ensure retirement security for current and future generations.

The Pension Symposium begins with the closing general session of the 2014 Enrolled Actuaries Meeting and then continues Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning with the traditional limited-attendance symposium format. Each symposium segment is facilitated by a short panel pre

Speakers