Nevin's Data "Points"

Like most Americans who have health insurance (and most do), I’m reasonably happy with what I already have. And like many Americans, I’m willing to take the President at his word from the campaign trail—that if you like the insurance you have, you’ll get to keep it. But as I study the text in the two bills that will have to be merged to create legislation to fulfill that promise—well, I have to tell you, I’m not sure how that’s going to happen (1) . That matters, IMHO, not only in the here-and-now world of paying for health care versus saving for retirement (and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that many participants are making those trade-offs), but even more so in the post-retirement world where those burgeoning health-care costs stand to siphon so much from nest eggs that are perhaps already insufficient. But make no mistake—I’m all for health-care reform, just not for what is currently proposed under that banner in Washington. “For” Score I’m all for some kind of safety ne...

Editor’s Note: There’s so much going on in the world of retirement saving and investing that I never feel the need (or feel like I have the opportunity) to recycle old columns – but this one has a certain “evergreen” consistency of message that always seems appropriate – particularly at this time of year. A few years back—when my kids still believed in the reality of Santa Claus—we discovered an ingenious Web site that purported to offer a real-time assessment of their "naughty or nice" status. Now, as Christmas approached, it was not uncommon for us to caution our occasionally misbehaving brood that they had best be attentive to how those actions might be viewed by the big guy at the North Pole. But nothing ever had the impact of that Web site - if not on their behaviors (they're kids, after all), then certainly on the level of their concern about the consequences. In fact, in one of his final years as a "believer," my son (who, it must be acknowledged, ha...

In one of the more challenging economic years in memory, it is not surprising that the pace of change set in motion in defined contribution plans by the Pension Protection Act slackened. If anything, IMHO, it is remarkable that the adoption of devices such as automatic enrollment and contribution acceleration did not decline. That said, among a record number of respondents to PLANSPONSOR’s annual Defined Contribution Survey , the pace of automatic enrollment basically flatlined—just 30.8% of plan sponsor respondents said they now employ that approach (though more than half of the largest plans now do), compared with 29.8% a year ago. And, even after the encouragement afforded by the PPA, among those that have adopted automatic enrollment, only about four in 10 extended that to all workers (the rest applied it to newly hired workers only). Perhaps as a result, the average participation rate declined—slightly—to 72.3% this year from 73.8% a year ago, but was nearly unchanged from th...

Several years back, we decided that our family was ready to upgrade to a high-definition TV (in fairness, that “decision” was in no small part predicated on the untimely “death” of the big-screen projection TV that we had purchased not too long after we married). So, I did what any reasonable consumer would do— – I went to my local appliance warehouse to see what was available. In short order, I was able to enlist the support of a trained professional (a “professional,”, it should be noted, who turned out to be younger than the TV that we were replacing). Not that he wasn’t helpful, after a fashion. But there in that “showroom,”, it was hard for me to see (or appreciate) all the subtle differences that purported to explain the occasionally significant variances in price. Moreover, he spoke in alien terms that were clearly something I was supposed to understand— – but didn’t. And, while I don’t mind probing for explanations, after a while, even the most diligent shopper gets tired...