Nevin's Data "Points"

  Retirement surveys tend to read like actuarial obituaries — a long litany of percentages chronicling regret, anxiety, and insufficient preparation. Unless, of course, you look at the underlying data. The latest survey from Schroders [i] offers plenty of the former; inflation remains public enemy No. 1; healthcare costs continue to ambush expectations — and more than half of retirees apparently have no idea how long their money will last. But wait. Buried inside that grim arithmetic are some surprisingly encouraging signs — and you don’t have to look very far. For instance, yes, the survey says that 58% of retirees [ii] don’t know how long their savings will last. Which means … 42% actually do (or at least claim to). Given the complexity of retirement income planning — sequence risk, inflation assumptions, healthcare shocks, longevity projections, required minimum distributions, tax strategy, market volatility, and the occasional Congressional “enhancement” — it’s arguably rema...

  A new report suggests that small business owners broadly support state-run IRA programs — with the strongest backing among newer firms. Or at least they did. The just-published  survey  comes from Pew Charitable Trusts, which has previously (and consistently) chronicled support for these programs among small businesses.  This latest was conducted among employers in three states where that type of legislation has been introduced:  Massachusetts , Pennsylvania, and  Washington .  According to Pew, support is strong across the board: 84% of respondents in Massachusetts, 76% in Pennsylvania, and 73% in Washington favor establishing an automated savings program (ASP). The report also highlights bipartisan backing, with majorities of Republican, Democratic, and independent business owners expressing support.  It further finds “statistically significant” support among newer firms, those with moderate revenues, service-sector businesses, and — perhaps n...

   I recently did a roundup of some of the most significant retirement-related events of 2025. Then Jack VanDerhei, PhD fed that column through ChatGPT applying the style that famed humorist Dave Barry takes with HIS annual Year-in-Review. The result follows... Enjoy! The Year in Retirement Plans: 2025 By someone who survived it and would like credit By almost any measure, 2025 was a remarkable year for retirement plans, largely because it managed to be historically consequential without passing a single massive, system-rewriting law. This is unusual in the same way it is unusual when your roof collapses even though no meteor hit it. There was no SECURE Act sequel. No Pension Protection Act reboot. Congress flirted with something called the One Big Beautiful Bill , then decided retirement plans should sit this one out, possibly because they were tired. Instead, 2025 delivered something far more subtle and far more exhausting: implementation problems, interpretive confu...