Overview
Revenue
Non-Applicable per year
Category
Government Administration
The Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) is an independent agency in the executive branch of the Federal Government. The RRB's primary function is to administer comprehensive retirement-survivor and unemployment-sickness benefit programs for the nation's railroad workers and their families, under the Railroad Retirement and Railroad Unemployment Insurance Acts. As part of the retirement program, the RRB also has administrative responsibilities under the Social Security Act for certain benefit payments and railroad workers' Medicare coverage. The RRB was created in the 1930s by legislation establishing a retirement benefit program for the nation's railroad workers. The railroad industry had pioneered private industrial pension plans, with the first industrial pension plan in North America established by a railroad in 1874. By the 1930s, railroad pension plans were far more developed than in most other businesses or industries, but these plans had serious defects which the Great Depression magnified. A three-member Board appointed by the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of the Senate, leads the RRB. The President appoints one member upon the recommendation of railroad employers, another upon the recommendation of railroad labor organizations and the third, who is the Chairman, to represent the public interest. The Board Members' terms of office are 5 years and expire in different years. The President also appoints an Inspector General for the RRB. National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust is a trust established to manage and invest Railroad Retirement assets. The Railroad Retirement and Survivors Improvement Act of 2001 authorizes the Trust to invest the assets of the Railroad Retirement Account in a diversified investment portfolio in the same manner as those of private sector retirement plans. If you've been working on the railroad all your livelong life, the US Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) will help take care of you after you retire. Serving railroad workers and their families in the US, the board manages retirement-survivor and unemployment-sickness benefit programs under the Railroad Retirement and Railroad Unemployment Insurance Acts. Annually, it administers more than $10 billion in retirement-survivor benefits to about 590,000 beneficiaries and more than $160 million in unemployment-sickness benefits to some 40,000 claimants. Established in the 1930s, the RRB acts as an independent arm of the federal government's executive branch, with more than 50 field offices across the US.
