Nevin's Data "Points"

Having just concluded a long driving trip, I was reminded again just how helpful the technology under the hood of today’s automobiles can be: the warning lights when you’ve still got enough gas left to find a gas station, the low tire pressure light that tells you of a slow leak before you have a flat tire, the binging that lets you know you’ve left your headlights on (again), and my personal favorite, the klaxon-like bell that alerts you that your parking brake is still engaged (since that red “brake” light on the dashboard clearly wasn’t sufficient notice). Before such warning signs were standard features, I’ve had the decidedly unpleasant experience of running out of gas in the middle of nowhere, finding myself driving on (two) flat tires, and—many years ago—I’m pretty sure I was responsible for ruining the brakes on my Dad’s car simply because I didn’t realize that the smell of burning rubber was coming from the car I was driving. For some time now, the Federal Reserve has held...

Last week we looked at how the trends in employment-based retirement plans and employment-based health plans seem to be heading in opposite directions: fewer choices for workers to make in the former, more in the latter (see Consumer “Driven,” online here.  Recent EBRI research suggests a potential divergence in other areas as well. According to the EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey, 26–40 percent of respondents reported some type of access-to-health-care issue for either themselves or family members last year. “Access” in this case refers not to availability, per se, but is broadly defined as not filling prescriptions due to cost, skipping doses to make medication last longer, or delaying or avoiding getting health care due to cost. Not surprisingly, access is more of a problem among those with lower incomes, who appear to be forgoing spending on health care. In fact, regardless of health plan type, individuals in households with less than $50,000 in annual ...

Over the last several years, the trend in employment-based retirement plans has been to put in place structures to make more decisions for workers through the expansion of automatic enrollment plan designs.(1) At the same time, the trend in employment-based health plans has been to look for ways to better manage costs, while providing workers more choice, and flexibility in those choices, by looking to so-called consumer-driven health plans, or CDHPs.(2) In the case of the former, the shift has been to help workers make better decisions, to boost savings by not only increasing plan participation, but to direct contributions to more diversified investment options than many seem to choose on their own accord. In the case of healthcare plan designs, the expansion of choice is similarly rooted in a desire to help workers make “better” decisions, albeit with a slightly different emphasis. The addition of CDHP designs (and in many cases it is an addition, rather than a replacement for, t...

While drawing boards have been used by engineers and architects for more than two centuries, the phrase “back to the drawing board” is of much more recent origin, coined by the Peter Arno in a cartoon first published in the March 1, 1941 issue of New Yorker magazine.(1) The cartoon features a crashed plane in the background, a parachute in the distance, several military officials and rescue workers rushing to help/investigate—and one remarkably nonchalant individual, walking in the opposite direction with a rolled up document tucked under his arm as he comments, “Well, back to the old drawing board.” For all the much-deserved focus on retirement savings accumulations, a growing amount of attention is now directed to how those already in (and fast-approaching) retirement are actually investing and drawing down those savings. A recent EBRI analysis(2) found that at age 61, only 22.2 percent of households with an individual retirement account (IRA) took a withdrawal from that account...

I’ve never been much good in the kitchen.  I’ve neither the patience/discipline to follow most recipes, nor the innate sense for the right balance of ingredients that those with culinary talent seem to have.  That said, I learned the hard way years ago that if you mix the right items in the wrong order, or the wrong amounts of the right items, leave something to bake too long – or not long enough – the results can be disastrous. A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts posed the question, “ Are Americans Prepared for Their Golden Years? ”  Perhaps not surprisingly, the report indicated that many are not.  What was surprising, however,  was the assertion that Gen-Xers (those born between 1966 and 1975), in the Pew analysis, looked to be in even worse shape than either early or late Boomers. Previous EBRI research has found that approximately 44 percent of simulated lifepaths for Baby Boomer and Gen-Xer households are projected to run short of money in r...