American Benefits Council: About the Council

The American Benefits Institute is the policy and research affiliate of the American Benefits Council. It is governed by a separate Board of Directors. The Institute's mission is to sponsor research that will promote knowledge about employee benefits and related topics. Although the Institute does not advocate for public policy positions, the reports and analyses sponsored by the Institute – and the seminars that the Institute supports – assist public policy makers, the media and other interested organizations and individuals in making informed decisions about timely and vital employee benefits policy matters.

The Institute continues a tradition of scholarship for which the American Benefits Council has been known. For many years the predecessor of the American Benefits Council (the APPWP) sponsored a program known as the Center for Employer-Sponsored Health Care to help promote knowledge about the crucial role played by employers in providing health coverage to American workers and their families. Analyses of the employer implications of various managed care proposals were the focus of the Center's work.

The Institute also continues the work begun by the Shannon Schieber Retirement Policy Institute. The Shannon Schieber Retirement Policy Institute was made possible through the direction of funds donated to APPWP in memory of Shannon Schieber. Shannon, the daughter of Vicki and Sylvester Schieber, was a brilliant and promising graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania whose life was tragically cut short. The focus of the Shannon Schieber Institute funds was to elevate the dialogue on national retirement policy issues by conducting research and supporting other scholarly endeavors that provided policy-makers with useful and thoughtful facts and analysis.

Finally, the American Benefits Institute continues the efforts of the American Employee Benefits Institute – a New York City based organization of benefits professionals that had been established in the 1940s and over its long history had provided a forum for benefits professionals to advance their knowledge on both emerging policy issues and more practical employee benefits compliance matters.

The American Benefits Institute incorporates the past efforts of the Center for Employer Sponsored Health Care, the Shannon Schieber Retirement Policy Institute and the American Employee Benefits Institute under the umbrella of one entity whose mission is to promote and advance scholarship and knowledge on important employee benefits topics.

Among the activities that the Institute has supported is research, including white papers such as:

In addition, the Institute has helped support the work of, and the participation of Institute personnel in, the Pensions Working Group of the 29-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the "Global Aging Initiative" of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Conversation on Pension Coverage organized by the Pension Rights Center and numerous retirement and health care conferences both in the United States and abroad.