Administration on Aging Funds Projects to Help Older Adults Protect Pension Rights

Administration on Aging, Oct 03, 2007

The Health and Human Services' (HHS) Administration on Aging (AoA) awarded $787,500 in grants under the Pension Counseling and Information Program. The projects funded under this program are designed to educate and promote pension and retirement savings plan counseling and assistance among older Americans. Awards of $157,500 each have been made to five regional pension counseling projects, covering 22 states.

We are proud that our pension counseling projects are continuing to help older individuals become better educated about their pension rights and to remain independent in their own homes and communities,” HHS Assistant Secretary for Aging Josefina G. Carbonell said. “By promoting the financial security of older people, we empower them to make better choices in planning for their own long-term care.”

The AoA first funded pension counseling and information projects in 1993. The success of those original projects resulted in Congress establishing pension counseling as a permanent program under the Older Americans Act in 2000. The projects have directly helped more than 30,000 older individuals, resulting in an estimated $70 million recovered for individual claimants.

Services provided by AoA pension counseling projects include providing direct legal assistance to individuals pursuing pension claims; locating pension plans that have been lost as a result of mergers, acquisitions and terminations; and answering questions about complex provisions of pension plans.