Nevin's Data "Points"

  We’re often told that actions — or lack thereof — have consequences. Indeed, this is the time of year where many a stressed-out parent often falls back on the admonition from that holiday classic “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” — you know, “you better watch out, you better not cry…” because Santa is keeping tabs.    In fact, as Christmas approached, it was not uncommon for my wife and I to caution our occasionally misbehaving brood that they had best be attentive to how their actions might be viewed by the big guy at the North Pole. That said, a few years back — when my kids were still “kids” (and “believers”) — we stumbled across an ingenious website; one that did more than caution. It actually purported to offer a real-time assessment of one’s "naughty or nice" status. Our parental admonitions notwithstanding, nothing we ever said or did had the impact of that website — if not on their behaviors (they were kids, after all), then certainly on their level of concern abo...

  Changing jobs can be a time of great energy and excitement — but if you’re not attentive, it can also undermine your retirement security. Here are five ways it can do so. Cashing It Out Probably the biggest job change risk to retirement security is the rollover decision. Generally speaking, most with balances less than $1,000 are automatically issued a check of their savings minus income tax and 10% penalties, those with between $1,000 and $7,000 are given two other options to cashing out: to roll over assets into a qualified IRA or to transfer to a new employer’s plan, while those with balances over $7,000 also have the option to leave their account with that old employer plan. As you might expect, smaller balances are not only the most likely to be those of lower income individuals, but they also tend to be lower tenured and are more likely to be women. Oh — and if that individual has an outstanding loan? Well, that’s where the real “leakage” occurs. Remembering of course that...

   I recently stumbled into a bit of controversy on LinkedIn.  Honestly, I’m not even sure how this wound up in my “feed” — but there was a post from the  Atlanta Journal-Constitution  on the topic of “micro-retirements.” Now, if you’re like me, you may be wondering — what the heck is a MICRO-retirement?  Turns out that, unlike actual retirement, it’s a series of multiple, intentional “mini-breaks” from work throughout life — rather than waiting until the traditional “big” retirement at the end of a career.  Some of you are going to say — oh, we used to call that a sabbatical. Others might well see this as some kind of extended PTO or vacation break. But those, of course, are generally employer supported/sanctioned, whereas these micro-retirements presumably would not be.  Oh, and none other than  sidehustles.com [i]  (who admittedly might be biased on the subject) claims that 1 in 10 Americans plan to take one this year. That said, it’s...

   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...