concurring in part and dissenting in part.
This case involves an important issue of matrimonial law. The question concerns the Chancery Division’s authority, on a husband’s motion to modify an alimony obligation set forth in a property-settlement agreement, to consider the husband’s monthly benefit payments from a pension that was treated as an asset for purposes of equitable distribution when the parties divorced. Reversing the Appellate Division, the Court today holds that prior decisional law absolutely bars such consideration of the pension benefit. The Court also holds that a recent amendment to N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23, A. 1988, c. 153, absolutely bars any such consideration of the pension benefit. That amendment provides in part:
*515When a share of a retirement benefit is treated as an asset for purposes of equitable distribution, the court shall not consider income generated thereafter by that share for purposes of determining alimony.
The Court concludes that this amendment is intended to apply retroactively to property-settlement agreements executed and to divorce judgments entered prior to the amendment.
In my view, the Court has overstated the precedential significance of prior decisional law on the issue in this case. It has also accorded the statutory amendment a scope and effect neither contemplated nor intended by the Legislature. Most important, the Court’s opinion needlessly restricts the broad equitable powers of the Chancery Court to consider all relevant factors in deciding applications to modify alimony based on changed circumstances.
I.
The majority opinion sets forth the relevant facts. I restate them only to the extent necessary to frame the issue. The trial court had to resolve an alimony-modification motion in a case in which both parties had limited funds. The Inneses divorced in March 1984, after thirty-three years of marriage, the last ten years of which they lived apart. Plaintiff was sixty-years old at the time of the divorce and had net earnings of $2,054 a month from his full-time employment. The agreement incorporated in the divorce judgment required plaintiff to pay alimony to defendant of $650 per month, terminable on the death of either party or the defendant’s remarriage. The net proceeds from the sale of the marital home were to be equally divided. Defendant was to receive $19,000, representing forty percent of the value of plaintiff’s pension as of the date the divorce complaint was filed, reduced by plaintiff’s forty-percent share of the value of defendant’s pension.1 Plaintiff also agreed to *516pay child support of $100 per month and to maintain defendant as beneficiary of a $50,000 life-insurance policy. The child-support obligation had terminated when the trial court issued the alimony-modification order that is the subject of this appeal.
Plaintiffs employer fired him in June 1985, fifteen months after the divorce. Two weeks later he moved to terminate alimony based on his changed circumstances. While that motion was pending, defendant moved to compel plaintiff to pay accumulated arrearages of $3,250, alleging that plaintiff had unilaterally terminated alimony payments after his discharge. Granting defendant’s motion, the trial court compelled payment of alimony and the accumulated arrearages. On plaintiff’s appeal the Appellate Division, with the consent of both parties, remanded to the trial court for reconsideration.
The trial court conducted the remand proceedings in March 1987, relying only on the parties’ certifications and arguments of counsel. Although there are slight discrepancies between plaintiff’s Case Information Statement and his certification filed in May 1986, both the Appellate Division, 225 N.J.Super. 242, 247-48, and the majority, ante at 501, adopt the following categorization of his monthly income at the time of the remand proceedings:
Pension............................ $ 720.00
Social Security..................... 622.00
Annuity (Purchased from proceeds of sale of marital home)............... 160.00
Income from IRA and other savings. 139.00
$1,641.00
Plaintiff's assets, excluding the annuity, had a value of $19,800.
At the time of the remand proceeding defendant was disabled and living in Florida. She received social security disability benefits of $280 monthly and a monthly payment from the *517University of Pennsylvania of $420. (The record contains various references to this payment as a “pension.” Presumably it is this pension that was valued and deducted from defendant’s share of plaintiff’s pension in calculating the amount payable to defendant in equitably distributing the marital assets.) Defendant also received unspecified income from a $60,000 cash-management account, established with defendant’s share of equitable distribution proceeds. The Appellate Division estimated that income at $271 monthly, 225 N.J.Super. at 248. The majority’s estimate is $400 per month. Ante at 501-502. Thus, depending on which estimate is used, defendant’s income at the remand proceeding was between $971 and $1,100 monthly-
The trial court considered the needs and income of both parties, including their respective pensions, and modified plaintiff’s future alimony obligation from $650 to $550 monthly. The court also awarded defendant arrearages and counsel fees.
The Appellate Division reversed and remanded for reconsideration because the trial court “made no findings as to the parties’ circumstances.” 225 N.J.Super. at 248. However, the Appellate Division, which did not address the propriety of the trial court’s consideration of defendant’s pension in resolving the alimony-modification motion, was divided on whether the trial court had properly considered plaintiffs pension benefits in calculating the appropriate amount of alimony. The majority held that the trial court should have considered plaintiff’s pension benefits even though defendant had received a percentage of plaintiff’s pension as equitable distribution in the divorce judgment. Id. at 247. According to the dissent, because plaintiff’s pension was his “equitable share of [a] marital asset,” it was not “includable in the calculation of available income for an alimony award.” Id. at 249. Neither the majority nor dissenting opinion referred to the recent amendment to N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23.
*518II.
Because the Court relies in part on “pre-existing case law,” ante at 500, it is useful first to restate the general principles that govern resolution of alimony-modification motions. We need look no further than Lepis v. Lepis, 83 N.J. 139 (1980), in which Justice Pashman, writing for a unanimous Court, set forth the guiding substantive and procedural standards. Acknowledging that N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23 specifically recognizes the judiciary’s equitable power to modify alimony and support orders, we noted in Lepis that
alimony and support orders define only the present obligations of the former spouses. Those duties are always subject to review and modification on a showing of “changed circumstances.” [Id. at 146 (citations omitted).]
With respect to property-settlement agreements, we observed that at one time the judiciary’s statutory power over alimony was considered to have terminated the Chancery Court’s pre-existing equitable power specifically to enforce spousal support agreements. Ibid. (citing Apfelbaum v. Apfelbaum, 111 N.J.Eq. 529 (E. & A.1932)). Repudiating that rule, Schlemm v. Schlemm, 31 N.J. 557 (1960), reaffirmed the long-standing power of the Chancery Court, apart from its statutory authority, specifically to enforce spousal-support agreements “to the extent they are just and equitable.” Id. at 581-82. The relevant considerations for determining whether support agreements are equitable “include not only the ability to pay and the respective incomes of the spouses but the needs of each spouse as well.” Petersen v. Petersen, 85 N.J. 638, 645 (1981); accord Martindell v. Martindell, 21 N.J. 341, 355 (1956) (“When an application for alteration of alimony is presented, the court should justly consider all relevant circumstances, including particularly the changed needs of the former wife and the changed financial resources of the former husband.”).
In Lepis we also noted our holding in Smith v. Smith, 72 N.J. 350 (1977), disapproving of the rule that had developed requiring that “[a] far greater showing of changed circumstances * * * be made before the court can modify a separation agree*519ment than need be shown to warrant the court amending an order for alimony or support.” Lepis, supra, 83 N.J. at 147 (quoting Schiff v. Schiff, 116 N.J.Super. 546, 561 (App.Div.1971), certif. denied, 60 N.J. 139 (1972)). We held in Smith:
Henceforth the extent of the change in circumstances, whether urged by plaintiff or defendant, shall be the same, regardless of whether the support payments being questioned were determined consensually or by judicial decree. In each case the court must determine what, in the light of all the facts presented to it, is equitable and fair, giving due weight to the strong public policy favoring stability of arrangements. [72 N.J. at 360.]
We also set forth in Lepis examples of factors that have been held to constitute changed circumstances and emphasized
that “changed circumstances” are not limited in scope to events that were unforeseeable at the time of divorce. * * * The proper criteria are whether the change in circumstance is continuing and whether the agreement or decree has made explicit provision for the change. [83 N.J. at 151, 152.]
We acknowledged in Lepis that parties should be permitted to prove that other provisions of the agreement were included for the purpose of anticipating or offsetting the “changed circumstance” alleged as the basis for modification of a spousal-support agreement:
If the existing support arrangement has in fact provided for the circumstances alleged as “changed,” it would not ordinarily be “equitable and fair,” Smith, 72 N.J. at 360 , to grant modification. For example, although a spouse cannot maintain the marital standard of living on the support payments received, this would not ordinarily warrant modification if it were shown that a single large cash payment made at the time of divorce was included with the express intention of meeting the rising cost of living. In other cases, the equitable distribution award — which we have recognized is intimately related to support, id. — might have been devised to provide a hedge against inflation. The same might be true with respect to child support. A lump sum payment or a trust established for the benefit of the children could be shown to have been designed to cover the certain eventuality of increasing needs. [Id. at 153 (footnote omitted).]
We emphasized in Lepis the bifurcated procedure to be employed in post-judgment motions to modify the support provisions of spousal agreements. We held:
The party seeking modification has the burden of showing such “changed circumstances” as would warrant relief from the support or maintenance provisions involved. A prima facie showing of changed circumstances must be made before a court will order discovery of an ex-spouse’s financial status.
*520Only after the movant has made this prima fade showing should the respondent’s ability to pay become a factor for the court to consider. * * * Courts have recognized that discovery and inspection of income tax returns should only be permitted for good cause. Because financial ability of the supporting spouse may be crucial to the proper disposition of a motion for modification, we conclude that a prima fade showing of changed circumstances meets this good cause standard. [Id. at 157-58 (citations and footnote omitted).]
Finally, we held in Lepis that not every application for modification, of support requires a plenary hearing:
[A] party must clearly demonstrate the existence of a genuine issue as to a material fact before a hearing is necessary. [Id. at 159.]
Application of the Lepis principles to the facts of this case raises the preliminary issue whether the plaintiff’s loss of full-time employment and the reduction of his net income from $2,054 to $1,641 monthly, offset by termination of his child-support obligation, constituted a change of circumstances sufficient to warrant modification of defendant’s monthly alimony. Determination of that question — which is a pre-condition to resolving whether modification of alimony is appropriate and, if so, whether plaintiff’s pension can be taken into account in re-establishing alimony — should focus on the intention of the parties as expressed in the property-settlement agreement. The agreement, entered into when plaintiff was sixty years of age, provides that alimony is payable until the death of either party or until defendant’s remarriage, but does not provide for termination on cessation of full-time employment. It would have been preferable for the parties to have made express provision in the agreement to indicate the effect on alimony, if any, of plaintiff’s discharge from or termination of employment. Id. at 154. But Lepis does not preclude this defendant, or other supported spouses similarly situated, from attempting to prove that the amount of alimony set forth in the agreement was intended to be maintained whether or not plaintiff continued to be employed. Cf. Berkowitz v. Berkowitz, 55 N.J. 564 (1970) (modification of child-support payments was unjustified where parties envisioned alleged “changed circumstances” and provided for them in agreement). Thus, in cases raising the *521preliminary issue whether termination of employment is a changed circumstance sufficient to justify modification of alimony, consideration of a supporting spouse’s pension may be highly material to the question whether the parties intended alimony to continue at the prescribed level after the husband’s retirement, even if the pension was taken into account for purposes of equitable distribution.
The majority opinion relies in part on pre-existing case law for its conclusion that pension benefits treated as assets for equitable distribution cannot be considered as income in an alimony-modification proceeding, citing D’Oro v. D’Oro, 187 N.J.Super. 377 (Ch.Div.1982), aff'd, 193 N.J.Super. 385 (App.Div.1984), and Staver v. Staver, 217 N.J.Super. 541 (Ch.Div.1987). Ante at 505-506. I find the pre-existing case law on this question to be both inconclusive and unpersuasive.
In D’Oro v. D’Oro, supra, 187 N.J.Super. 377, the parties divorced in 1982 after thirty-seven years of marriage. The defendant was sixty-four years old and intended to retire in July 1982. Unlike this case, the parties in D’Oro had not entered into a property-settlement agreement. As part of equitable distribution, the trial court awarded plaintiff one-third of the value of defendant’s pension and also awarded her alimony of $685 monthly. In October of that year, after his anticipated retirement, defendant moved for elimination of alimony on the basis that his monthly income, exclusive of his pension benefit, was less than plaintiff’s income. The court granted defendant’s motion to eliminate alimony, concluding that defendant’s pension could not be considered as income in determining his ability to pay alimony. The court expressly left open the question whether defendant’s pension could be considered as a source of alimony after defendant had received payments equalling two-thirds of the value of the pension at the time of the divorce:
[T]his court finds that plaintiff has received the present use of her share of defendant’s pension. Defendant has not. He must, perforce, survive for a *522stated time to receive such dollars as may equate to % of his share of "present value,” including developmental and cumulative interest.
This court finds that plaintiff is not entitled to have defendant’s pension flow considered as income to him for modification consideration. Whether such consideration should be given after such point in time as defendant has received his share of “present value” is left to another day. [Id. at 379-80.]
The holding in D’Oro cannot be regarded as a settled principle of matrimonial law. It was distinguished in Johns v. Johns, 208 N.J.Super. 733 (Ch.Div.1985), in which the court held that benefits from a pension that had been equitably distributed in the divorce judgment should nevertheless be considered as income for purposes of child support. Id. at 736-37. D’Oro was followed in Staver v. Staver, supra, 217 N.J.Super. 541, in which the court also ruled that the husband’s pension could be considered for purposes of alimony to the extent that post-divorce earnings had enhanced its value. Id. at 545.
However, in Horton v. Horton, 219 N.J.Super. 76 (Ch.Div.1987), Judge Krafte, who decided D’Oro, declined to apply that case when the plaintiff-husband took early retirement at age fifty-six, one-and-one-half years after the parties had divorced. The divorce decree incorporated a property-settlement agreement that provided for alimony of $125 weekly; it also provided for distribution of the marital home to the wife and the full value of the pension to the husband. The court rejected plaintiff’s contention that the value of his pension could not be considered as income in determining his ability to pay alimony:
Plaintiff’s reliance upon D’Oro is misplaced. In that case, it was expressly stated at the trial that the husband intended to retire in several months. In the present case, no such imminent retirement was considered. There was no reason for defendant to consider that plaintiff would not work for the normally anticipated time. No early retirement was anticipated or bargained for. Plaintiff surrendered employment paying some $34,000, at age 55, and now has a pension income of $13,794.36, gross. D’Oro must be limited to its facts. When imminent retirement is anticipated and equitable distribution and alimony are bargained for, or, barring those factors, the parties specifically anticipate alimony adjustment on retirement (early or otherwise) D’Oro will apply. [Id. at 78.]
Implicit in the holding in Horton is the suggestion that in certain cases a husband’s voluntary termination of employment *523might be regarded as a self-induced “changed circumstance,” not warranting modification of a prior alimony agreement. Whatever its underlying rationale, Horton illustrates that the scope and precedential force of D’Oro is unresolved. In view of Judge Krafte’s comment in Horton that “D’Oro must be limited to its facts,” ibid., it is clear that D’Oro affords but fragile support for the majority’s conclusion that the recent amendment to N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23 “is curative, merely reflective of preexisting law.” Ante at 509. Significantly, the Appellate Division decision here, filed six months prior to the amendment to N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23, specifically rejects the D’Oro rule. 225 N.J.Super. at 247. I would characterize the law prior to the statutory amendment as unsettled and sorely in need of this Court’s clarification.
III.
Subsequent to the Appellate Division decision in this case, the legislature passed L.1988, c. 153, which “establishes standards to guide the courts in rendering decisions related to child support, alimony and equitable distribution.” Senate Judiciary Statement, Senate Bill No. 976 (emphasis added). The Legislature explicitly mandated that L.1988, c. 153 “shall take effect on September 1, 1988, and shall apply only to orders and judgments entered after that date.’’ L.1988, c. 153, § 9 (emphasis added); cf. Gibbons v. Gibbons, 86 N.J. 515, 520-21 n. 4 (1981) (When signing into law L.1980, c. 181, exempting from equitable distribution property acquired during marriage by gift, devise or bequest, Governor acknowledged absence of any legislative consensus on Act’s retroactive application.). Remarkably, the majority ignores the Legislature’s explicit direction and concludes that the pertinent provision of the amendment should be applied retroactively to the 1984 divorce judgment in this case and to the property-settlement agreement incorporated in that judgment. The majority’s conclusion is clearly erroneous. Equally erroneous, although perhaps not so clear, is the majority’s conclusion that the pertinent language of *524the amendment should apply not only to original awards of alimony but also to modifications of property-settlement agreements.
I first address the majority’s holding that the pertinent provision of chapter 153 applies retroactively. As amended by chapter 153, N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23b provides in part:
In all actions brought for divorce, divorce from bed and board, or nullity the court may award permanent or rehabilitative alimony or both to either party, and in so doing shall consider, but not be limited to, the following factors:
(1) The actual need and ability of the parties to pay;
(2) The duration of the marriage;
(3) The age, physical and emotional health of the parties;
(4) The standard of living established in the marriage and the likelihood that each party can maintain a reasonably comparable standard of living;
(5) The earning capacities, educational levels, vocational skills, and employability of the parties;
(6) The length of absence from the job market and custodial responsibilities for children of the party seeking maintenance;
(7) The time and expense necessary to acquire sufficient education or training to enable the party seeking maintenance to find appropriate employment, the availability of the training and employment, and the opportunity for future acquisitions of capital assets and income;
(8) The history of the financial or non-financial contributions to the marriage by each party including contributions to the care and education of the children and interruption of personal careers or educational opportunities;
(9) The equitable distribution of property ordered and any payouts on equitable distribution, directly or indirectly, out of current income, to the extent this consideration is reasonable, just and fair; and
(10) Any other factors which the court may deem relevant.
When a share of a retirement benefit is treated as an asset for purposes of equitable distribution, the court shall not consider income generated thereafter by that share for purposes of determining alimony. [Emphasis added.]
Prior to the enactment of chapter 153, the corresponding portion of N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23 provided:
In all actions brought for divorce, divorce from bed and board, or nullity the court may award alimony to either party, and in so doing shall consider the actual need and ability to pay of the parties and the duration of the marriage. In all actions for divorce other than those where judgment is granted solely on the ground of separation the court may consider also the proofs made in establishing such ground in determining an amount of alimony or maintenance that is fit, reasonable and just.
*525The Senate Judiciary Committee Statement to chapter 153 emphasizes that the amendment authorizes the award of both permanent and rehabilitative alimony and supplements the criteria formerly used to set alimony — actual need, ability to pay, and duration of the marriage — with a number of additional statutory factors. As Justice O’Hern points out in his dissent, the predecessor bill to chapter 153, relying on the Report of the Commission on Sex Discrimination in Marriage and Family Law, was introduced “for the express purpose of eliminating inequities in divorce and alimony statutes that had worked to the detriment of women * * Post at 536. The statutory factors established by chapter 153, consistent with that objective, mandate that courts consider a variety of historic, economic, and personal factors in arriving at an appropriate award of alimony. Because the new criteria set forth in chapter 153 effect so substantial a change in the alimony statute, it is understandable that the Legislature explicitly provided that chapter 153 apply only prospectively.
We explained in Gibbons that the traditional rule of statutory interpretation is one favoring prospective application of statutes:
The courts of this State have long followed a general rule of statutory construction that favors prospective application of statutes. E.g., Skulski v. Nolan, 68 N.J. 179, 202 (1975); LaParre v. Y.M.C.A. of the Oranges, 30 N.J. 225, 229 (1959); Kopczynski v. County of Camden, 2 N.J. 419, 424 (1949); Burdett v. Municipal Employees Pension Comm’n of Newark, 129 N.J.L. 70, 72-73 (E. & A.1942); Weinstein v. Investors Savings and Loan Ass’n, 154 N.J.Super. 164, 167 (App.Div.1977). The rationale for this rule has been succinctly stated as follows:
“It is a fundamental principle of jurisprudence that retroactive application of new laws involves a high risk of being unfair. There is general consensus among all people that notice or warning of the rules that are to be applied to determine their affairs should be given in advance of the actions whose effects are to be judged by them. The hackneyed maxim that everyone is held to know the law, itself a principle of dubious wisdom, nevertheless presupposes that the law is at least susceptible of being known. But this is not possible as to law which has not been made. [2 Sutherland, Statutory Construction, § 41.02 at 247 (4th ed. 1973) quoted in Weinstein v. Investors Savings, supra, 154 N.J. Super. at 167.].”
*526[86 N.J. at 521-22 (footnote omitted).]
Moreover,
[a] cardinal rule in the interpretation of statutes is that words in a statute ought not to have a retrospective operation unless they are so clear, strong and imperative that no other meaning can be annexed to them, or unless the intent of the Legislature cannot otherwise be satisfied. [Kopczynski v. County of Camden, 2 N.J. 419, 424 (1949).]
We took note in Gibbons of some exceptions to the general rule of prospectivity: statutes in which the Legislature has expressed a contrary intent; statutes that are ameliorative or curative; and statutes lacking clear provision for prospective application where retroactive application would better serve the expectations of affected parties. 86 N.J. at 522-23. None of these exceptions applies to chapter 153.
The Legislature has unmistakably expressed its intent that the statute apply prospectively. Although the majority asserts that chapter 153 is “curative, merely reflective of preexisting law,” ante at 507, that statement is simply incorrect, whether it is addressed to all of the alimony-related provisions of chapter 153 or merely to the specific provision at issue in this case. As noted, the statutory criteria for alimony adopted by chapter 153 are new, replacing the significantly-less-specific standard of prior law. The uncertain state of prior law concerning the relevance of a pension, considered as an asset for equitable distribution, to an application to modify the alimony provision of a property-settlement agreement has been previously discussed. Supra at 507-509. Moreover, it is inaccurate to characterize chapter 153 as “curative” to sustain its retroactive application. As explained by Sutherland:
A curative act is a statute passed to cure defects in prior lawá * * *. Generally, curative acts are made necessary by inadvertence or error in the original enactment of a statute or in its administration. [N. Singer, 2 Sutherland Statutory Construction § 41.11 (Sands 4th ed.1986).]
The Legislature adopted chapter 153 to set new and more comprehensive standards to guide courts in determining alimony and equitable distribution, not to “cure” a defect in the prior law.
*527We also observed in Gibbons the need to avoid “manifest injustice” in determining the appropriateness of retroactivity, focusing on whether a party “relied, to his or her prejudice, on the law that is now to be changed as a result of the retroactive application of the statute” and on whether “it would be unfair to apply the statute retroactively.” 86 N.J. at 523-24. This inquiry highlights the most persuasive argument against retroactive application of chapter 153’s prohibition against the double-counting of pensions. The prohibition’s underlying premise is quite obvious: it ordinarily would be unfair for a court to compel a husband to pay alimony out of a pension that he has already shared with his ex-spouse as part of equitable distribution of their assets.
Notwithstanding this theoretical unfairness, parties to settlement agreements executed prior to chapter 153 were completely free to negotiate and execute agreements that took into account a retirement benefit as a source of both equitable distribution and alimony. Perhaps the wife’s equitable share of a retirement benefit might have been diminished in order to justify greater alimony. Or the overall payout of equitable distribution might have been deferred over a longer term in return for higher alimony. Alternatively, a husband might agree to equitable distribution of a pension, and a level of alimony dependent in part on that pension, in return for other negotiated advantages — the right to continue to live in the marital home or the right to retain a vacation home. The nuances of give-and-take negotiation that may find expression in complex property-settlement agreements are unlimited.
In that context it would be incongruous to attempt to apply chapter 153’s prohibition against double-counting of pensions retroactively. It is one thing for the Legislature to prohibit courts in the future from treating a pension simultaneously as an asset for equitable distribution and as income for purposes of alimony. But the Legislature would not and did not ordain that previously-negotiated agreements, in which the parties had voluntarily considered a pension for both purposes, must retro*528actively be invalidated. Retroactive application of chapter 153 to the property-settlement agreement in this case is clearly erroneous and contradictory to the statute’s express provision mandating only prospective application.
The majority’s reliance on Rothman v. Rothman, 65 N.J. 219 (1974), is misplaced. Noting that Rothman held that the equitable distribution statute “was to be retroactively applied,” ante at 510, the majority reasons that chapter 153 should also be retroactive. The Rothman analogy does not support the majority’s conclusion. Although we held in Rothman that the equitable-distribution statute, A. 1971, c. 212, would apply to property acquired prior to the statute’s effective date, in all other respects the statute’s application was prospective only. See N.J.S.A. 2A:34-1. Thus, we held in Smith v. Smith, 72 N.J. 350 (1977), that the equitable-distribution statute does not invalidate an earlier property-settlement agreement that constituted the “substantial equivalent of an equitable distribution of marital assets.” Id. at 358.
In my view, the Court’s holding that chapter 153 applies to agreements executed prior to its enactment is most extraordinary, particularly in the face of the legislative directive that it apply prospectively. There is the potential for unjust results if the holding is applied to agreements in which the parties anticipated that a pension benefit might serve as a source for both equitable distribution and alimony. I trust that trial judges, alert to such potential injustices, will consider in such cases whether the party seeking a reduction in alimony has demonstrated the existence of changed circumstances, a question whose resolution may make consideration of chapter 153 unnecessary.
Similar analysis suggests that chapter 153’s prohibition against double-counting of pensions should not apply even prospectively to applications for modification of alimony agreements entered into after its effective date. Rather, I would construe the prohibition to apply only to cases in which a court *529is determining both equitable distribution and alimony, and not to cases involving modification of property-settlement agreements.
The plain language of the statute supports limiting application of chapter 153’s prohibition against double-counting of pensions. As amended, N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23b provides in pertinent part as follows:
In all actions brought for divorce * * * or nullity the court may award permanent or rehabilitative alimony or both to either party, and in so doing shall consider but not be limited to the following factors. [Emphasis added.]
After itemizing the ten specific criteria to be considered by a court in fixing alimony, the statute provides:
When a share of a retirement benefit is treated as an asset for purposes of equitable distribution, the court shall not consider income generated thereafter by that share for purposes of determining alimony. [Ibid. (emphasis added).]
The literal language of N.J.S.A. 2A:34-23b appears to restrict the bar against double-counting of pensions only to cases in which a court — not the parties — is determining equitable distribution and alimony.
The most basic tenet of statutory interpretation is that the words of a statute, absent any ambiguity, should be construed in accordance with their plain meaning. State v. Butler, 89 N.J. 220, 226 (1982); N Singer, 2A Sutherland Statutory Construction § 46.01 (Sands 4th ed.1984). This principle dictates that chapter 153’s prohibition against double-counting of pensions applies only to court-determined awards of alimony where the court has treated the retirement benefit as an asset for purposes of equitable distribution. The statutory prohibition against double-counting of pensions does not mention property-settlement agreements, and nothing in the legislative history of chapter 153 remotely suggests that the Legislature intended that prohibition to apply to voluntarily-negotiated agreements. Although prohibiting a court from relying on a retirement benefit for purposes of both equitable distribution and alimony is an obvious legislative purpose, prohibiting parties from voluntarily negotiating property-settlement agreements *530that contemplate the use of a pension for both those purposes serves no legislative goal.
Prospective application of the pension double-counting prohibition to alimony-modification motions directed at property-settlement agreements would also have the effect of inhibiting parties from negotiating in good faith agreements that consider one spouse’s pension for both equitable distribution and alimony. Although such agreements may be relatively unusual, a variety of circumstances might induce parties voluntarily to consider a pension benefit for both purposes. Apart from any other factors, a dependent spouse might agree to accept a relatively small share of a pension for equitable distribution in return for a guaranteed amount of alimony that contemplates payments in part from the supporting spouse’s pension. Application of the statutory prohibition against double-counting to such an agreement, on a motion to modify alimony, would plainly frustrate the parties’ understanding: in effect, the statute would prohibit a court from considering pension benefits that the parties intended to be a partial source of permanent alimony. Such an application of chapter 153 would unnecessarily inhibit parties from voluntarily negotiating agreements in which a retirement benefit is intended, at least in part, to contribute both to equitable distribution and alimony.
Finally, the majority's application of chapter 153’s prohibition against double-counting of pensions to property-settlement agreements encroaches on the historic power of the Chancery Court to modify such agreements based on changed circumstances. Lepis, supra, 83 N.J. at 146; Chalmers v. Chalmers, 65 N.J. 186, 192 (1974); Martindell v. Martindell, 21 N.J. 341, 352-53 (1956); Boorstein v. Boorstein, 142 N.J.Eq. 135 (E. & A.1948); Lindquist v. Lindquist, 130 N.J.Eq. 611, 613 (E. & A.1941); Parmly v. Parmly, 125 N.J.Eq. 545, 548-49 (E. & A.1939). No sound reason exists for construing chapter 153 to restrict the long-standing equitable power of courts to consider and resolve alimony-modification motions. In Schlemm v. Schlemm, supra, 31 N.J. 557, the Chancery Court’s power *531specifically to enforce property-settlement agreements was challenged on the basis that the statutory provisions relating to alimony were preemptive. Justice Jacobs, writing for a unanimous Court, held that the Chancery Court’s statutory authority over alimony does not supersede its inherent jurisdiction to grant specific performance of such agreements.
Apfelbaum [v. Apfelbaum, 111 N.J.Eq. 529 (E. & A.1932)] (and the eases which followed it) broadly intended to withdraw from Chancery the equitable power to grant specific performance of support agreements in the belief that the statutory provisions relating to alimony were more flexible and should be dealt with as exclusive. But, as we have already indicated, such belief failed to take into account the highly flexible nature of Chancery’s specific performance jurisdiction and its earlier application by the New Jersey courts in the enforcement of husband-wife support agreements to the extent that they were just and equitable. We are satisfied that the restrictive approach in Apfelbaum was an unnecessary departure from fundamental principles of equitable jurisdiction, was not dictated by any sound reason or any statutory policy, and does not effectively serve the interests of justice; it may now be considered as discarded in favor of the view that, apart from its statutory authority, the Superior Court has power to direct the specific performance of the terms of husband-wife support agreements to the extent that they are just and equitable. [Id. at 581-82 (citation omitted).]
IY.
On the assumption that chapter 153’s prohibition against double-counting of pensions does not apply at all to motions to modify property-settlement agreements, or at least does not apply retroactively to such agreements, there remains for consideration only the question left unresolved by D’Oro v. D’Oro, supra, 187 N.J.Super. 377, and its progeny: on the motion to modify alimony provided for in this property-settlement agreement, to what extent should the court have considered pension benefits' that the parties treated as an asset for purposes of equitable distribution.
Lepis provides the proper analytical approach. The preliminary issue is whether the moving party has sustained “the burden of showing such ‘changed circumstances’ as would warrant relief from the support or maintenance provisions involved.” Id. at 157. Presumably the supporting spouse, as here, would rely on a reduction in income resulting from termi*532nation of full-time employment and would seek to exclude the pension benefit as a source of alimony. The dependent spouse should be permitted to prove, for example, that the parties had negotiated the alimony award set forth in the property-settlement agreement with the expectation of retirement and use of the pension as a partial source of alimony, and hence that circumstances have not changed. Assuming the court is satisfied that alimony was determined with the expectation of continued full-time employment and that retirement or discharge constitutes proof of “changed circumstances,” the question of modification of alimony must be resolved case by case. In the ordinary case, requiring a supporting spouse to pay alimony out of a pension that has already been subject to equitable distribution would obviously be unfair. However, on a modification motion, where the focus is on the proper amount of support for an economically dependent spouse,
the general considerations are the dependent spouse’s needs, that spouse’s ability to contribute to the fulfillment of those needs, and the supporting spouse’s ability to maintain the dependent spouse at the former standard. [Id. at 153.]
In the Appellate Division, the majority held that the pension could be considered on the modification motion as a source of alimony, reasoning that “equitable distribution and alimony are not the same” and hence that it was
not inconsistent for a dependent wife to receive the value of a portion of her husband’s pension as her share of the marital partnership, and nevertheless look to later pension payments as evidence of her former husband’s ability to contribute towards maintaining her at their former marital economic standard. [225 N.J.Super. at 245-46.]
The dissenting judge took the position that the pension, treated as an asset for equitable distribution, could not thereafter be regarded as income for alimony purposes:
Here, the pension payments sought to be tapped by defendant as alimony are plaintiff’s equitable share of the marital asset; as such they are not includable in the calculation of available income for an alimony award. It is not the fact that the pension was part of the marital distribution which is pivotal. It is that the pension is not income. Simply stated, no asset, however derived, should be considered part of the income available for alimony purposes. [Id. at 249.]
*533In my view, a middle ground between these two positions better expresses the traditional function of the Chancery Court. Although equitable distribution and alimony serve different purposes, courts should recognize that parties ordinarily would be disinclined to look to a pension as a source for both. But it is too categorical to conclude that because a pension is treated as an asset for equitable distribution purposes, it can never be regarded as a partial source of alimony. Thus, if the pension has already been the subject of equitable distribution, a court must take that use of the pension into account in adjusting alimony. Ideally, a pension that was divided for equitable distribution purposes should be excluded as a source of alimony. Even if the circumstances of the parties are such that total exclusion of the pension would result in a disproportionate burden on the dependent spouse, a court must consider the pension’s role in equitable distribution. Thus, the greater the dependent spouse’s share of the pension’s value as equitable distribution, the less a court should rely on the pension as a source for alimony.
Therefore, the general rule should be that when the parties valued a retirement benefit for purposes of equitable distribution, a court reviewing a motion to modify the alimony provisions of a property-settlement agreement would not ordinarily consider it as a source of alimony. The dependent spouse should be permitted to contest the existence of changed circumstances by proving that the parties contemplated that the retirement benefit would replace employment earnings as the source of alimony. If the court finds that changed circumstances have been established, resort to the retirement benefit as a partial source of alimony should be restricted only to those cases in which the minimal needs of the dependent spouse cannot otherwise be addressed. In such cases, the extent to which the retirement benefit may be looked to as a source of alimony should be influenced by the extent to which its value was distributed to the supported spouse as part of equitable distribution. Thus, the bar against double-counting of the *534retirement benefit should be presumptive, but not absolute, in order that the Chancery Court may properly perform its intended function:
When an application for alteration of alimony is presented, the court should justly consider all relevant circumstances, including particularly the changed needs of the former wife and the changed financial resources of the former husband. [Martindell v. Martindell, supra, 21 N.J. at 355.]
Although I am in accord with the majority’s conclusion that the matter should be remanded to the trial court for reconsideration, my view is that such reconsideration should be based on the principles set forth in this opinion.
Justice O’HERN joins in this opinion.
When the marital home was sold and the proceeds distributed, plaintiff received $39,028.70 and defendant, $74,042.52; the difference reflected plaintiffs payment to defendant of approximately $17,500, representing her forty-*516percent share of the value of plaintiffs pension, reduced by plaintiffs forty-percent share of the value of defendant’s pension.