Nevin's Data "Points"

Nevin and his mom. This weekend will mark the 12th anniversary of my father’s passing. There’s sadness associated with that date, of course, but he left behind a rich legacy in friends, family, and his life’s ministry that manages in the oddest ways to touch me at least once a month, even now. At 76, Dad lived longer than I think any of the men on his side of the family had to that point (as a lineal descendant, I’m happy to note that on my mother’s side, my grandfather and great-grandfather made it past 90). Ultimately, he was with us longer than he expected to be – but a lot less time than I ever anticipated. However, for all the good that Dad did in this life for others, as I have thought about my father this week, it’s my mother that is more often in my thoughts. Because she, like many women, have spent longer in retirement than their husbands. As is the case in many families, “Mom” was our family’ CFO. She was the one who encouraged me to start saving in my ...

The title of a new report by the Society of Actuaries poses an intriguing question: “Retirement Adequacy in the United States: Should We Be Concerned?” When all is said and done, the answer from the report’s authors seems to be “it depends.” And, as it turns out, it depends on a lot of things: who is asking the question, who you are asking the question about, and what you think the answer should be. And that doesn’t even take into account the questions about the assumptions one makes to come up with the answers. The SOA report draws some conclusions: The current system of voluntary employment-based retirement plans has been largely successful from the perspective of companies sponsoring plans for individuals with long-term employment covered by such plans. The mandatory Social Security system has done much to reduce poverty in old age, though adequacy studies using replacement ratios may overstate the success of this safety net for those in the lowest-income grou...

While it’s hardly a new topic, the subject of missing participants is much in the news today – and arguably a growing concern for plan sponsors, particularly with the expansion of automatic enrollment. Earlier this year the Government Accountability Office published a report – and some recommendations – on the subject of (re)connecting participants with their “lost” account balances. That report noted that from 2004 through 2013, more than 25 million participants in workplace plans separated from an employer and left at least one retirement account behind, “despite efforts of sponsors and regulators to help participants manage their accounts.” The report acknowledged that there are costs involved in searching for these “lost” participants, going on to note that there are no standard practices for the frequency or method of conducting searches. Once upon a time the IRS provided letter-forwarding services to help locate missing plan participants, but with the Aug. 31...

There’s a new proposal being floated that proponents say would “increase retirement income security and reform Social Security.” And yes, a mandate is involved. The proposal involves something tagged “Supplemental Transition Accounts for Retirement” (a.k.a. “START”), and it’s being touted by AARP. The proposal is the work of Jason Fichtner of George Mason University, Bill Gale of the Brookings Institute and Gary Koening of AARP’s Public Policy Institute. The basic concept is to help people postpone claiming Social Security benefits (the most common age to start claiming remains 62) since – as an executive summary  of the proposal indicates – between the ages of 62 and 70, monthly Social Security benefits increase by about 7% to 8% for each one-year delay in claiming. This is accomplished by creating the aforementioned START accounts, which are funded by a new layer of mandated withholding: 1% each from workers and employers (2% combined) up to the annual max...

The Plan Sponsor Council of America recently released its 60th Annual Survey of Profit-Sharing and 401(k) Plans , documenting increases in participation, deferral rates, target-date funds, automatic enrollment and advisor hiring, among other key trends. Here are five key trends highlighted in the survey that you may have missed. Automatic enrollment is still (mostly) a large plan thing. One of the most celebrated plan design features of the 401(k) era is automatic enrollment. Nearly as old as the 401(k) itself, once upon a time (when it wasn’t as popular) it was called a “negative election.” Regardless of the name, the concept has been extraordinarily effective at not only getting, but keeping, workers saving via their workplace retirement plans. However, adoption of the design, after a surge in the wake of the passage of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, now seems to have plateaued. A decade ago, only about a third (35.6%) of respondents to the PSCA su...