Ron DeSantis :New law boosts retirement benefits public employees

Retirement reform is currently a hot topic for lawmakers as many Americans do not have enough money saved for retirement. During 2022, various bills seeking to enhance retirement savings passed through U.S. Senate committees but stopped short of becoming ratified until recently.  

The massive $1.7 trillion federal spending bill President Biden signed into law at the end of December includes even more significant changes to the U.S. retirement system. These new provisions, known as SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, are intended to build upon the original Setting Every Community Up for Retirement (SECURE) Act of 2019, which included sweeping changes intended to enhance and protect retirement security for Americans.

Ron DeSantis Florida Gov. signed into law called “digital bill of rights”  which aimes to give residents more control of their data, boosting children’s protections online and barring social networks from coordinating with the government officials to “censor” speech, so Public employees are getting some of their benefits restored.

The Senate budget package (SB 7024) DeSantis approved reverts many aspects of the state’s retirement system for some back to pre-2011, when many changes were made in the face of a recession that saw much of the state’s real estate value evaporate.

The new law includes provisions that restore age and years of service requirements; improve retiree health insurance subsidies; increase the length of time allowable in the Deferred Retirement Optional Program (DROP); and increase employer contributions to investment plans by 2 percentage points for all participants in the Florida Retirement System (FRS).

DeSantis signed in 2021 a controversial bill to prohibit digital platforms from suspending political candidates during the run-up to elections, citing claims of social media “censorship.” Tech industry groups quickly sued and a federal judge blocked it soon after, saying it would likely be found unconstitutional. The high-stakes legal bout is still up in the air.

DeSantis’s “digital bill of rights” is unique among state privacy measures because it lumps in requirements for search engines to disclose whether their results are influenced by political ideology, among other restrictions tied to allegations of bias in Silicon Valley.

Privacy advocates have also criticized the measure for focusing too narrowly on the tech giants.

FRS and 151,913 current retirees.

An analysis of the bill said the new law will increase the state’s employer group contributions to be paid into the FRS Trust Fund over the next year by $350 million, compared to the current budget year. And the amount employer groups must contribute to the Retiree Health Insurance Subsidy Trust Fund will increase by $139.3 million from the current year.

By that low Florida’s got new data privacy protections to shield users from the collection of their online information but it may come at a cost to small businesses. It requires online platforms to offer their users better control of collected data, whether that’s through access to it or the power to delete it.Online games and products targe

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 .Sarah H

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