Nevin's Data "Points"

 The latest academic “dig” against 401(k) plans? Vesting schedules. More specifically, firms with a combination of high turnover and vesting schedules, which means that workers are leaving behind employer contributions. Or, in the parlance of these new critics, being “robbed.”  I stumbled across this “scandal” in an op-ed provocatively titled, “ This giant pension scandal is hiding in plain sight ,” which, in turn, drew from the points made in an academic paper titled, “ Megacompany Employee Churn Meets 401(k) Vesting Schedules: A Sabotage on Workers’ Retirement Wealth .” The “scandal” is the legal vesting schedules under ERISA, notably the three-year variety in place at certain large, high-turnover employers. The MarketWatch article [i] —and, more significantly, the academic paper [ii]  upon which it is based, see the vesting schedule as part of some orchestrated conspiracy deliberately crafted to “rob” [iii]  individuals of benefits/compensation to ...

 As kids, we often struggle with our parents’ attempts to help us make good choices—and, at least in my family, Mom caught the brunt of all that (at least from me).  We were probably like most families at the time in that we never really talked about money or finance. Doubtless that was in no small part because neither of those were in abundance in our household. But mostly, I suspect, it was because that was just one of “those” topics that were deemed to be private. In our house Mom was definitely our family’s CFO. See, like many in his generation, my dad wanted to hold the checkbook, but it was Mom who always made sure that there was money in the account. She’s the one who started setting aside money from her paycheck in her 403(b) plan at work—and continued to do so, even when my father was convinced they couldn’t afford it—and made no secret of that opinion. Or did until he got a glimpse of the statement that showed Mom’s retirement account growth—and then...