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Strange Bedfellows

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   It’s been said that politics makes strange bedfellows — but it doesn’t get much stranger than President Trump and Teresa Ghilarducci. At least temporarily, they appear aligned on one of retirement policy’s most persistent challenges: how to reach workers who don’t have access to a retirement plan at work. President Trump’s April 30 executive order directs Treasury to develop a federal IRA savings framework aimed at uncovered workers — contract workers, part-timers, the self-employed, and employees of small businesses. And while the proposal is still light on details, it has drawn enthusiastic support from one of the nation’s most consistent critics of the employer-based retirement system: Professor Teresa Ghilarducci. The Trump initiative — hinted at in the State of the Union address — would synchronize with the expanded Saver’s Match included in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. The Saver’s Match is one of the more consequential — if still underappreciated — changes in that leg...
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A Retirement ‘Journey’

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  Mother’s Day tends to come packaged in the usual ways — cards, flowers, reservations, and a few familiar phrases about gratitude. There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But it also flattens something that, in real life, is anything but simple: the steady, unglamorous work that holds everything together long before anyone thinks to acknowledge it. A recent driving trip out West brought that into sharper focus for me. Now, my wife and I had been talking about making this particular trip for years. We had specific things we wanted to see, and a rough idea of their proximity to each other. And, thanks to a speaking engagement, we had a departure date, and a “jumping off” point.  Now, on paper, a road trip sounds straightforward enough — pack the car, set the route, go. In practice — and especially when you’re traveling with two dogs who are very much part of the family structure (and not very accustomed to travelling), it becomes something closer to project management. Timing, ...
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Retirement Realities Better Than Pre-Retirement Perspectives

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   If you read only the headlines from the latest Employee Benefit Research Institute Retirement Confidence Survey, the takeaway feels familiar: confidence is slipping, worries are rising, and concern about retirement readiness is once again in focus. Seriously? Look, once you move past the year-over-year decline [i] and look at the levels themselves, the picture changes shape. Yes, confidence is down from recent highs. But retirees, in particular, remain broadly confident in their ability to live comfortably in retirement despite all the “noise” about inflation, Social Security, and volatile markets. Roughly three-quarters still say they feel secure about their financial footing in retirement. That is not a fragile number. It is a resilient one. ad space What stands out even more is how consistently the survey shows a gap between expectations and actual experience. Workers — still on the near side of retirement — are meaningfully less confident than those already in it. That...
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The ‘New’ 401(k) Retirement Savings ‘Problem’

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   For years, the retirement industry has been obsessed with one key problem: people aren’t saving enough. Now, “suddenly,” we have another. Retirees aren’t spending “enough.” There’s a certain irony in that. After decades of urging discipline, restraint, and delayed gratification, we’re now concerned that retirees are  too  disciplined — that they’re depriving themselves of the very retirement they spent a lifetime preparing for. Some of that is clearly a byproduct of the defined contribution system itself. We’ve spent years focusing workers on how much they can accumulate, not how much they can spend. Defined benefit plans answered a very different question: What will I get? Defined contribution plans leave retirees staring at a balance and wondering how long it will last.  And once the paycheck stops, that question gets very real, very fast. Because while you can model returns, you can’t model life. Inflation, healthcare costs, longevity—those aren’t just var...
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Do Small Businesses (Still) Back Mandatory State-Run IRAs?

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  A new report suggests that small business owners broadly support state-run IRA programs — with the strongest backing among newer firms. Or at least they did. The just-published  survey  comes from Pew Charitable Trusts, which has previously (and consistently) chronicled support for these programs among small businesses.  This latest was conducted among employers in three states where that type of legislation has been introduced:  Massachusetts , Pennsylvania, and  Washington .  According to Pew, support is strong across the board: 84% of respondents in Massachusetts, 76% in Pennsylvania, and 73% in Washington favor establishing an automated savings program (ASP). The report also highlights bipartisan backing, with majorities of Republican, Democratic, and independent business owners expressing support.  It further finds “statistically significant” support among newer firms, those with moderate revenues, service-sector businesses, and — perhaps n...
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Brackets, Busts — and Building a Resilient Retirement Plan

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By now, most brackets tied to NCAA March Madness   are already busted . That didn’t take long. Then again, it never does. Every March, millions of us confidently — or at least optimistically — predict outcomes in a tournament defined by unpredictability. We study matchups, trends, seeding history, and (too) often assume that the track record of colleges of our youth remains constant — and then watch a 12-seed dismantle our assumptions before the first weekend is out. Though in fairness,  alumni  affections DO plan a role (well, for those of you whose alma mater makes it into the tournament, anyway). If that sounds familiar, it should. Because in a lot of ways, retirement planning isn’t all that different. It’s focused (or should be) on projections based on reasonable assumptions — expected returns, steady contributions, rational behavior over time. And then reality intervenes. Markets don’t cooperate. Emergencies emerge. Excrement occurs. Life happens. And ...
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