Nevin's Data "Points"

Over the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in any number of “projects,” and to manage more than a few. Some were explicitly tagged as such at the start, while others simply expanded to fit that name. Most of those projects turned out well; others faded into the woodwork after a time; some drew to a close after “redefining success;” and a couple actually “crashed and burned.” A lot of variables determine whether a project will be a success or failure, but in my experience, projects that lack either a limited budget and/or a specific timeframe are doomed from the outset. I was therefore interested in some of the findings from the 8th annual America Saves Week survey this week. The survey, sponsored by the Consumer Federation of America, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and the American Savings Education Council (ASEC), found that more than half (57%) of those with a savings plan with specific goals said they were making good or excellent pr...

Plan investment committee members come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes drawn exclusively from staff of the employer sponsoring the plan, sometimes not. More importantly, they are frequently tapped for this important role for reasons that may have little to do with their background or expertise in the matters that will come before the committee. Now, with luck they’ll learn early on about the requirement to act solely in the interests of plan participants and beneficiaries, the importance of process (and documenting that process) and the implications of the prudent expert rule. But as important as those considerations are, there are some important things that every plan committee member should know before  they sit down at their first committee meeting. You are an ERISA fiduciary. Even as a small and relatively silent member of the committee, you’ll direct and influence retirement plan money — and it’s that influence over the plan’s assets that makes you an ERISA fiduciary....

It has become something of an article of faith in our industry that “leakage,” the distribution of money from retirement accounts prior to retirement, is bad. Bad, of course, in the sense that those “premature” withdrawals, via hardship withdrawals, loans or the so-called “deemed distributions” that result when a termination occurs when a loan is outstanding, reduce individual retirement savings. So when the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College published a paper last week entitled “The Impact of Leakages on 401(k)/IRA Assets,” it really wasn’t a question of “if” there was an impact, it was a question of how much. The answer, according to the paper: a reduction in wealth at retirement of a jaw-dropping 25%. Now by any measure, a 25% reduction in retirement wealth is a massive problem — and one that would, if valid, call for the kind of countermeasures touted by the Boston College researchers. But consider the findings published recently by the non-partisan Employ...

One of my favorite movies — and perhaps my favorite “holiday” move — is Groundhog Day , the 1993 film starring Bill Murray as an arrogant weatherman who finds himself stuck in Punxsutawney, Penn. by a blizzard, who then discovers that he is also “stuck” reliving February 2 — over and over and over. A feeling, quite literally, of “déjà vu all over again.” Murray’s character goes through some semblance of the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) as he comes to terms with his predicament, but even as he tries to break out of this cycle, he learns from his past experience(s) and modifies his behaviors accordingly; avoiding stepping in a deep puddle of slush, ducking an insurance salesman, and even carrying his own jack to help change a tire. Eventually, of course, all that “learning” pays off, though not without a lot of pain and frustration. There was, in fact, something of a feeling of déjà vu in President Obama’s budget proposal  yesterday,...