852
Opinion of the Court
they would have acquired, as of 1980, an interest in Isaac's pension plan at the expense of plan participants and beneficiaries.
As was true with survivors' annuities, it would be inimical to ERISA's purposes to permit testamentary recipients to acquire a competing interest in undistributed pension benefits, which are intended to provide a stream of income to participants and their beneficiaries. See Guidry, supra, at 376 ("[The anti-alienation provision] reflects a considered congressional policy choice, a decision to safeguard a stream of income for pensioners . . . and their dependents . . ."). Pension benefits support participants and beneficiaries in their retirement years, and ERISA's pension plan safeguards are designed to further this end. See § 1001(c). Besides the anti-alienation provision, Congress has enacted other protective measures to guarantee that retirement funds are there when a plan's participants and beneficiaries expect them. There are, for instance, minimum funding standards for pension plans and a pension plan termination insurance program which guarantees benefits in the event a plan is terminated before being fully funded. See §§ 1082, 1301- 1461. Under respondents' approach, retirees could find their retirement benefits reduced by substantial sums because they have been diverted to testamentary recipients. Retirement benefits and the income stream provided for by ERISA-regulated plans would be disrupted in the name of protecting a nonparticipant spouses' successors over plan participants and beneficiaries. Respondents' logic would even permit a spouse to transfer an interest in a pension plan to creditors, a result incompatible with a spendthrift provision such as § 1056(d)(1).
Community property laws have, in the past, been preempted in order to ensure the implementation of a federal statutory scheme. See, e. g., McCune v. Essig, 199 U. S. 382 (1905); Wissner v. Wissner, 338 U. S. 655 (1950); Free v. Bland, 369 U. S. 663 (1962); Hisquierdo v. Hisquierdo, 439
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