Nevin's Data "Points"

   It’s been said that politics makes strange bedfellows — but it doesn’t get much stranger than President Trump and Teresa Ghilarducci. At least temporarily, they appear aligned on one of retirement policy’s most persistent challenges: how to reach workers who don’t have access to a retirement plan at work. President Trump’s April 30 executive order directs Treasury to develop a federal IRA savings framework aimed at uncovered workers — contract workers, part-timers, the self-employed, and employees of small businesses. And while the proposal is still light on details, it has drawn enthusiastic support from one of the nation’s most consistent critics of the employer-based retirement system: Professor Teresa Ghilarducci. The Trump initiative — hinted at in the State of the Union address — would synchronize with the expanded Saver’s Match included in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. The Saver’s Match is one of the more consequential — if still underappreciated — changes in that leg...

  A new study shows how a proposed government-run retirement program said to increase coverage could actually undermine the nation’s retirement readiness. The  report  — by Morningstar’s Spencer Look and Jack VanDerhei (yes, that Jack VanDerhei) — considers the potential effects of the Retirement Savings for Americans Act (RSAA) on retirement-income adequacy for Generation Z and millennial workers. The  proposed legislation  — which aims to expand retirement coverage for American workers by creating a federal retirement plan for those not covered through their employer — has been introduced in both the House and the Senate. [i]   The legislation has been positioned as a means of helping close the coverage gap — of creating not only an opportunity for those without access to a retirement plan at work to save for retirement, but to receive the incentive of a matching contribution from the federal government. How then, would such a proposal undermine the natio...

   A recent headline asks: “ Why Aren’t We Talking About America’s Retirement Crisis?”   Really? It seems to me that that’s ALL we’re talking about! Even more ironically, that headline appeared in an op-ed crafted by none other than Teresa Ghilarducci (and her new co-author, Christopher Cook) who, so far as I can discern, talks (and writes books) about little other than the so-called “crisis.” And this specific op-ed, as hers often do, got picked up in syndication (see  this link for details ).   But then, this week I stumbled across a LinkedIn post from Andrew Biggs, which matter-of-factly stated, “After a period of trying-in-good-faith, I've concluded I have to be more, um, forthright in calling out, shall we say, misinformation regarding Americans' retirement income security.” Said another way, it appears that Mr. Biggs has come to the conclusion –  as I have  – that polite commentary and even-handed discussions are insufficient to put to bed w...

“What if the entire retirement-crisis narrative playing out in opinion polls, the government, and the media was a massive case of confirmation bias?” That’s the provocative position of an intriguing new white paper titled “ America’s ‘Retirement Crisis’: The Emperor Has No Clothes ” by  Andrew Biggs . [i]   Readers of my work will note that with frightening regularity there are any number of assertions, “studies” and surveys all painting a dismal picture of the state of the nation’s retirement—each and every one embraced and promoted with attention-grabbing headlines without so much as a question as to the veracity of the underlying data, the logic of the conclusions drawn, or the motivations of the proponents that have drawn them. Consequently, I was delighted to come across this paper that provides a detailed, thoughtful, and data-driven analysis that focuses on a number of points that have been made (and uncritically trumpeted by the media) by none other than Teresa Ghilard...