2025 - The (Retirement) Year in Review
By almost any measure, 2025 was a remarkable year for retirement plans — perhaps especially because it passed without any sweeping, system-altering legislation. Not that that is (necessarily) a bad thing. There was no SECURE Act moment, nor Pension Protection Act-scale reset. While retirement plans “ducked” the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, 2025 brought with it challenges of implementation, interpretation, and an extraordinary amount of litigation. Rules were finalized, challenged, and reconsidered; courts grappled with fundamental ERISA questions; a new Administration “recalibrated” long-held positions; and plan fiduciaries were reminded — again — that prudence is ultimately, if not immediately, judged by process, not outcomes. Taken individually, many of these developments might seem incremental. Taken together, they made 2025 one of the most consequential years for the retirement system in quite some time. Let’s take a look back at the year that was… January In the waning days ...