Does anyone know if MGM Studios had a pension plan for their stars?
Generally speaking, pension plans have been around since well before 1945. The first defined-benefit pension plan was started by American Express all the way back in 1928. In your particular case, there may be other possibilities. A star could have a contract that included a pension clause (today, many executives have such clauses in their “golden parachutes”), so the studio would pay her a pension on a one-off basis, without creating any sort of pension plan. The reason today’s pension plans are structured so uniformly is that employers want to qualify them under ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) to get a tax benefit out of them. Before ERISA, pension plans could be structured in all kinds of ways, as compliance for the purpose of qualifying for a tax benefit wasn’t an issue. Or she could be receiving royalties and only think of it as a pension…
