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MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) announced today that in light of tax reform, the company will increase the investment it makes in its employees. The company will strengthen financial security for U.S. employees by increasing the minimum wage it pays, enhancing benefits, and boosting contributions to retirement plans. It will also create a new $10 million skills development fund to help its employees around the world upgrade their workplace skills.

“As a result of tax reform, we are making a significant investment in our employees. We are enhancing pay and benefit programs and helping them develop skills that will make them more valuable members of our team,” said Chairman, President and CEO Steven A. Kandarian. “We are investing in their future and strengthening their long-term financial security with structural improvements that will endure. We are also channeling most of the benefits to employees at the lower end of the compensation spectrum.”

To help the company’s global workforce identify and acquire the skills needed to compete in the 21st century digital workplace, MetLife is establishing a Workforce of the Future Development Fund. The company will invest $10 million to accelerate a culture of learning and innovation.

For all eligible U.S. employees, MetLife’s enhanced programs include:

Establishing a company minimum wage of $15 an hour, well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
Establishing a minimum MetLife-provided group life insurance benefit of $75,000, regardless of the employee’s pay. Previously, the benefit was set at one times annual pay.
Introducing a $300 minimum monthly credit for the cash-balance formula of the company’s defined benefit pension plan, also regardless of the employee’s pay. MetLife is one of a limited number of Fortune 50 companies that continues to provide its employees with both a defined benefit pension plan and a defined contribution plan to help them build secure retirements.
Enhancing the 401(k) plan design by moving to auto-enrollment for employee contributions and immediate eligibility for, and vesting in, employer matching contributions. This is scheduled to take effect in 2019.
Extending company-paid group legal services offered through MetLife’s Hyatt Legal Plans. Currently approximately one third of MetLife employees in the United States are enrolled in this voluntary benefit. With this change, legal services will be provided to MetLife’s 18,000 employees in the United States at the company’s expense.
About MetLife

MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET), through its subsidiaries and affiliates (“MetLife”), is one of the world’s leading financial services companies, providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to help its individual and institutional customers navigate their changing world. Founded in 1868, MetLife has operations in more than 40 countries and holds leading market positions in the United States, Japan, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.metlife.com.

Contact:
MetLife
William Quinn
(212) 578-6371

MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) Chairman, President and CEO Steven A. Kandarian issued the following statement today on the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to dismiss FSOC’s appeal of the district court decision rescinding MetLife’s designation as a non-bank systemically important financial institution:

“This is the right outcome not only for MetLife’s customers, employees and shareholders, but for the broader financial system as well. MetLife has always supported prudent regulation of the insurance industry and is effectively regulated at the state level, but FSOC’s 2014 designation of MetLife was a textbook case of regulatory overreach.

“MetLife wants a level playing field where we are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by regulation. We are not ‘too big to fail’ and never have been. We do not want the burdens that come with that label and, to the extent it has any benefits, we do not want those either. For nearly 150 years, MetLife has stood on its own two feet without any need for a government backstop.

“Regulating companies reasonably is critical to fueling robust economic growth and creating jobs. If systemically important activities are taking place anywhere in the insurance industry, primary regulators should focus on those activities directly, as we have advocated since 2009.”

About MetLife

MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) and the Financial Stability Oversight Council today filed a joint motion to dismiss FSOC’s appeal of the district court decision rescinding MetLife’s designation as a non-bank systemically important financial institution.

MetLife has also agreed that, upon dismissal, it will join FSOC in filing a motion asking the district court to vacate the portion of its opinion concluding that FSOC failed to undertake the required cost-benefit analysis when designating MetLife. The parties will not be asking the district court to set aside any other aspect of its opinion.

These motions will bring the litigation between MetLife and FSOC to an end and preserve the district court’s ruling rescinding FSOC’s designation of MetLife.

About MetLife