Nevin's Data "Points"

Last week we explored the reasons why small businesses DON’T offer a retirement plan to their workers. But there are quite different—and positive—reasons for choosing to do so. The obstacles that keep most small businesses from offering a retirement plan to their workers are an assortment of factors, real and (somewhat) imagined . There ARE remedies for those concerns, [i] but mediation of those concerns doesn’t seem to be a factor in the motivations of small businesses that DO choose to offer a plan. Reasons ‘Able’ According to that recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald Research, when the small business owners who offer retirement plans were asked the reasons that they do so, factors associated with attracting and retaining workers were the most prominent. Indeed, the vast majority—more than 9 in 10 of the small business owners [ii] —said that a reason they offer a plan is the positive effect on employee attitude and performanc...

 There’s nothing like a global pandemic to fuel interest in, if not the need for, emergency savings. Indeed, there are a half dozen provisions [i] in the new SECURE 2.0 designed to make it easier for workers to tap into their retirement savings—two aimed specifically at emergency savings. Though the financial impact of the pandemic (not to mention a series of natural disasters) has arguably been uneven, a report from Vanguard [ii] highlighted the longer-term impacts of the economic slowdown and inflation’s growing bite of the household budget. It's also widely acknowledged that concerns about the inability to fund an unexpected financial emergency is a source of stress for workers, undermining financial wellness.    All that said, well before COVID-19, there have been concerns about Americans’ lack of emergency savings [iii] and, perhaps more broadly, that they were using their retirement savings accounts as that resource. Behavioral finance-types have ...

 It’s ironic that programs designed to provide retirement income pay so little attention to the realization of that objective. Still, some have said that this could be the year for retirement income—a combination of new offerings, volatile markets, and rising interest rates—and yet, it still seems that there are obstacles to overcome.  Here are six: 1. There is no legal requirement to provide a lifetime income option. Let’s face it, it’s a full-time job just keeping up with the plan provisions, standards, participant notices and nondiscrimination tests that are required by law. The notion that a plan sponsor would, in the absence of a compelling motivation take on extra work, and work that carries with it additional financial and fiduciary responsibility as well, doesn’t seem very realistic. Indeed, with no legal obligation to provide this offering, and an underlying concern that providing the option does involve taking on additional liability… 2. The safe ...

 Thanksgiving has been called a “uniquely American” holiday —and so, even in a year in which there has been an unprecedented amount of disruption, stress, discomfort, and loss—there remains so much for which to be thankful.  I’m thankful that so many employers (still) voluntarily choose to offer a workplace retirement plan—and, particularly in this extraordinary year, that so many have remained committed to that promise. I’m thankful that the vast majority of workers defaulted into retirement savings programs tend to remain there—and that there are mechanisms (automatic enrollment, contribution acceleration and qualified default investment alternatives) in place to help them save and invest better than they might otherwise. I continue to be thankful that participants, by and large, continue to hang in there with their commitment to retirement savings, despite lingering economic uncertainty and competing financial priorities, such as rising health care costs a...

The headline in a recent  New York Times  piece cautions that “Confusing Options May Be Coming to Your 401(k). It Could Cost You.” Those “confusing options”? Retirement income. And, ironically, they might undermine support for the most significant piece of pro-retirement legislation in a decade. In fairness, the article  begins by acknowledging to its readers that there might soon be some “welcome changes to the rules governing their retirement savings plans,” but quickly moves on to take to task the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act of 2019 , which not only brings with it those welcome changes, but a key element that has some consumer advocates all atwitter (literally) – a fiduciary safe harbor for the selection of a lifetime income provider. For years the retirement industry has bemoaned the lack of a lifetime income option in defined contribution plans. Indeed, for all the vaunted talk of the so-called “DB-ificat...