Nevin's Data "Points"

Recently the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report titled with its conclusion: “ Most Households Approaching Retirement Have Low Savings .” The title was no surprise — though the definitions of “most” and “low” bear further understanding. The GAO Analysis The GAO based most of its conclusions on findings from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF), conducted by the Federal Reserve every three years. It is a reputable and well-regarded source of consumer information, drawn from a sampling of about 6,000 households (different ones every cycle). That said, the information contained is “self-reported,” which is to say that it tells you what the individual thinks they have (or perhaps wishes they had), but not necessarily what they actually have. More on that in a minute. The rationale for the “most” in the headline appears to come from its focus on households age 55 and older, where the GAO noted that (only) 48% had some retirement savings, and thus one mig...

After a winter filled with predictions of winter weather that never quite measured up to the forecasts, the nation’s capital (and the Southeast) finally got a taste of what those in the Midwest and Northeast have been contending with for weeks.  Not that there haven’t been close calls here, but up until this week, the multitude of factors that have to come together to produce a significant snowfall here—hadn’t.  Much to the discomfiture of those who ply their trade making such predictions, it should be noted. While Mother Nature can be notoriously fickle, technologies like Doppler radar are able to discern with greater precision real-time activity which can be fed into sophisticated computer models that draw on the experience of the past to extrapolate a series of potential outcomes—some deemed more likely than others.  Projected outcomes that, despite the recent experience here, do an increasingly accurate job of helping each of us plan our daily commute or that vacati...

At a time when the nation’s legislative wheels seem mired in partisanship, the last week of January turned out to be a busy one for retirement plan proposals. First the president unveiled his myRA concept in the State of the Union (along with a reference to an automatic IRA proposal previously included in the White House’s annual budget), followed a day later by introduction of the Retirement Security Act of 2014, a bipartisan proposal by Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Susan Collins (R-ME). A day after that, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, formally introduced the Universal, Secure, and Adaptable (USA) Retirement Funds Act of 2014,  an updated version of his 2012 proposal. All three were intended to expand and improve the retirement savings of Americans—although, as you might expect, the three take quite different approaches. Consider that the myRA calls for the development of a “new retirement savings secu...

I’m one of those travelers who absolutely dreads cutting it to the last minute. Not that I haven’t been forced to do so, from time to time, but I’m generally the one chomping at the bit to get to the airport, or to hit the highway an hour before anyone else. In my defense, on more than one occasion that “cushion” has been the difference between catching a flight or not. Planning that only considers a “best” or “normal” scenario too often overlooks the unexpected—and sometimes that margin of error is all you have. For over a decade EBRI has modeled the nation’s potential retirement savings shortfall, and the EBRI Retirement Readiness Ratings™ provide an assessment of how many Americans are at risk of running short of money for needed expenses in retirement. In contemplating expenses, that model considers the regular expenses of living in retirement, as well as uninsured medical expenses, and the potential costs of nursing home care. However, we have also documented and quantified ...

This is the time of year where, in many parts of the county, the weather—and weather forecasters—dominate the nightly news coverage, certainly when the predictions are dire.  Indeed, having had the opportunity to live in several different parts of the country, I can assure you that the bigger the projected snowfall, the more hyped the coverage. Several weeks back, the local meteorologists were all agog about an impending snowfall in the Washington, DC area—a snowfall  initially projected at 2–4 inches of accumulation, but that was quickly revised to 3–5 inches, and then to 4–7 inches.  The local mass transportation systems sprang into action, announcing alternative schedules, state officials advised those who didn’t need to be on the roads to stay home, non-emergency federal employees in the area were granted an excused absence, while others were directed to telecommute. As it turned out, it did snow—but not much, and certainly not in the amounts that had garnered all...

Having just concluded a long driving trip, I was reminded again just how helpful the technology under the hood of today’s automobiles can be: the warning lights when you’ve still got enough gas left to find a gas station, the low tire pressure light that tells you of a slow leak before you have a flat tire, the binging that lets you know you’ve left your headlights on (again), and my personal favorite, the klaxon-like bell that alerts you that your parking brake is still engaged (since that red “brake” light on the dashboard clearly wasn’t sufficient notice). Before such warning signs were standard features, I’ve had the decidedly unpleasant experience of running out of gas in the middle of nowhere, finding myself driving on (two) flat tires, and—many years ago—I’m pretty sure I was responsible for ruining the brakes on my Dad’s car simply because I didn’t realize that the smell of burning rubber was coming from the car I was driving. For some time now, the Federal Reserve has held...