Nevin's Data "Points"

   Despite a lot of enthusiastic support for SECURE 2.0’s qualified student loan matching provision (QSLP match), employers don’t seem to be adopting that provision. Maybe there’s a reason — or two. Recently only 12% of sponsors answering  Callan ’s annual  DC survey  said they had decided to offer employer-retirement account matches on qualified student loan payments, while 49% said no and 39% said they were still deciding — and that’s a survey that skews toward larger plans, generally viewed as early adopters. Those tepid numbers have been validated in several reader polls conducted by the Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA). In 2023, only 2.2% of respondents said they offer or will offer the program during the year. In 2024, it was 4.7%. In the January 2025 poll covering 154 responses, the adoption rate was just 2.6%. Oh, and the “no” votes over the years were, shall we say, “emphatic”: 66.2%, 64% and 74.7% respectively, according to Pensions and Inve...

 I’ve been writing a weekly column (and then some) for more than two decades now. Some are easier to write (and read)—and some hold up better (and longer) than others. These are some of  my  (and perhaps your) favorites from 2021. Let me know what you think in the comments below… particularly if I have missed one of your favorites…  What’s So Special About College Debt? Student loan debt—or more precisely, the forgiveness of some part of it—has dominated the headlines of late—but it’s been on the minds of retirement plan sponsors for a while now. The question is—why?  https://www.napa-net.org/news-info/daily-news/whats-so-special-about-college-debt Bundled Versus Unbundled: 5 Myths While there are some amazing bundled solutions, ERISA’s admonition to act solely in the interests of plan participants (and beneficiaries), alongside the requirement that those be reasonable in terms of cost and value, call for a careful and considered evaluation. In t...

Life has many lessons to teach us, some more painful than others – and some we’d just as soon be spared. But as graduates everywhere look ahead to the next chapter in their lives, it seems a good time to reflect on some lessons learned along the way. It’s handy to know at least a little about sports and the weather. Paying the minimum due on your credit cards is dumb. Be willing to take all the blame – and to share the credit. Know that there actually  are  stupid questions. Try not to be the one asking them. Shun those who are cruel to others – and don’t laugh at their “jokes” – sooner or later, you’ll be a target. Never say you’ll never. “Bad” people eventually get what’s coming to them, though you may not be around to see it. Always sleep on big decisions. When it seems too good to be true, it’s generally not good nor true.  Never let your schooling stand in the way of your education. Sometimes the grass on the othe...

You have to wonder what the Wall Street Journal has against automatic enrollment. The latest instance of finding the cloud in this silver lining arose in a recent Journal article by Anne Tergesen, “ Downside of Automatic 401(k) Savings: More Debt ” (subscription required). The article, based on the findings of a recent academic study , says that automatic enrollment has “pushed” millions of people who weren’t previously saving for retirement into those plans – but quickly cautions that “many of these workers appear to be offsetting those savings over the long term by taking on more auto and mortgage debt than they otherwise would have.” This “crowding out” concern – that automatic enrollment would stretch already strained financial resources, particularly among lower-income workers – has long been a sticking point for those advocating caution regarding automatic enrollment. The Study So did the study – drawn based on what the researchers termed a “natural experim...

To judge by the headlines, if there’s anybody in more trouble when it comes to retirement planning than Boomers, it’s Millennials. But are they really? Consider this: Millennials are saving for retirement – likely earlier, and at higher rates than you did when you were their age. I’ve seen a number of surveys that suggest that Millennials are, in fact, saving earlier – and saving at higher rates than their Boomer parents. A recent Natixis survey says that on average, Millennials first enrolled in a retirement savings plan at age 23, while Boomers didn’t until 31. Another – this one by Ramsey Solutions – finds 58% of Millennials are actively saving for retirement, and they began saving at an average age of 23. Consider also that, of the Millennials who are actively saving, 39% set aside up to 9% of their income for retirement — $5,000 of the average annual Millennial household income of $55,200. This higher and earlier rate of saving exists despite high levels of college debt...

At a recent conference, our luncheon table got to talking about savings trends and the unique challenges of Millennials, specifically the impact of graduating with so much college debt. While several at the table had graduated with (and since paid off) college debt, the sums paled in comparison to the kinds of figures bandied about in recent headlines — or did, until I loaded up an online calculator that allowed us to see what our college debt at graduation amounted to in today’s dollars. To the collective astonishment of the retirement experts at that table, the totals, adjusted for inflation, were very much in line with the figures reported for today’s graduates. Factoring in those kinds of cost-of-living adjustments is, of course, a crucial aspect of retirement planning. Unlike Social Security, there is no annual cost-of-living “adjustment” for retirement savings—no systematic means by which those accumulated savings are increased to offset the increased costs of things like ...