Labor Department Pulls Back From California Retirement Fight

The Biden administration doesn’t favor either side in a dispute over California’s new automatic-deposit retirement program, the Department of Labor told the Ninth Circuit Friday in a change of course from its prior leadership.

The Labor Department asked the appeals court in June to invalidate the CalSavers Retirement Savings Program, arguing in a friend of the court brief that it’s preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was asked to weigh in on the program after a federal judge in Sacramento rejected a legal challenge filed by a California ...