Nevin's Data "Points"

I recently stumbled across a provocative article in the  New York Times  with that intriguing headline. Honestly, I laughed out loud (drawing my wife’s quizzical attention on an otherwise quiet Saturday morning) when I read it. I’m a (proud) Boomer, of course, and while Gen X basically slipped quietly into the workplace (much to their frustration), Millennials (to my experience) landed with a bang, upending traditional norms of business and meeting etiquette, demanding a voice that seemed well beyond their experience (and, yes, sometimes knowledge)—and, frustratingly (certainly for those of us who played by a different set of rules at their age), getting it.  So the notion that they were now feeling the same kind of pressures from the  next  generation of workers (a.k.a. Gen Z) was somewhat humorous to me in a “so, how do  you  like it?” kind of way.   Yes, having lived through the not-so-subtle eye-rolling of younger co-workers...

If you’re still struggling to figure out how to reach Millennials (even if you are a Millennial), take heart – there’s (already) another generational cohort entering the workforce. This new cohort is called Generation Z (at one point, Millennials were referred to as Gen Y, so…) – they are, generally speaking, children of Gen X – born in the mid-1990s, and separated from Millennials by their lack of a memory of 9/11. Gen Z is, in fact, already entering the workforce – and, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, they currently comprise a quarter of the population. They are seen as being more “realistic” when it comes to life and working than Millennials, who have been characterized as more “optimistic.” Gen Z is said to be more independent and competitive in their work than the collaborative Millennials, more concerned with privacy (Snapchat versus Facebook), and are said to have a preference for communicating face-to-face. It’s said they’ll eschew racking up big college debt, and are...

The use of assumptions was the focus of a recent report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), which not only highlighted the assumptions used in two separate retirement studies, but illustrated a real problem with their results. The EBRI report examined two earlier  studies — one by Pew Trusts, the other by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College — that purported to show that the retirement prospects for Gen Xers were worse than those of the Baby Boomers. The EBRI report not only highlighted the questionable assumptions, but took the time to quantify the impact (see “ EBRI Report Calls Out Pew, CRR on Retirement Conclusions ”). Such public criticisms are a rarity, as evidenced by the media coverage accompanying the release of the EBRI report. As recently as a few years ago, I would have assumed that findings published by credentialed individuals associated with a reputable institution of higher learning could be taken at face value, if only because I...

After a winter filled with predictions of winter weather that never quite measured up to the forecasts, the nation’s capital (and the Southeast) finally got a taste of what those in the Midwest and Northeast have been contending with for weeks.  Not that there haven’t been close calls here, but up until this week, the multitude of factors that have to come together to produce a significant snowfall here—hadn’t.  Much to the discomfiture of those who ply their trade making such predictions, it should be noted. While Mother Nature can be notoriously fickle, technologies like Doppler radar are able to discern with greater precision real-time activity which can be fed into sophisticated computer models that draw on the experience of the past to extrapolate a series of potential outcomes—some deemed more likely than others.  Projected outcomes that, despite the recent experience here, do an increasingly accurate job of helping each of us plan our daily commute or that vacati...

I’m one of those travelers who absolutely dreads cutting it to the last minute. Not that I haven’t been forced to do so, from time to time, but I’m generally the one chomping at the bit to get to the airport, or to hit the highway an hour before anyone else. In my defense, on more than one occasion that “cushion” has been the difference between catching a flight or not. Planning that only considers a “best” or “normal” scenario too often overlooks the unexpected—and sometimes that margin of error is all you have. For over a decade EBRI has modeled the nation’s potential retirement savings shortfall, and the EBRI Retirement Readiness Ratings™ provide an assessment of how many Americans are at risk of running short of money for needed expenses in retirement. In contemplating expenses, that model considers the regular expenses of living in retirement, as well as uninsured medical expenses, and the potential costs of nursing home care. However, we have also documented and quantified ...