Nevin's Data "Points"

“401(k) breaches undermining retirement security for millions,” was the headline of a recent article in the Washington Post .(1) No, we’re not talking about some kind of data hacking scandal, nor some new identity theft breach. Rather, those “breaches” are loans and withdrawals from 401(k)s. Providing the impetus for the article is a new report by HelloWallet(2) that indicates that “more than one in four workers dip into retirement funds to pay their mortgages, credit card debt or other bills.” While the article primarily deals with the potentially negative aspects of loans and withdrawals, it also touches on some broader concerns—and does so with some factual inaccuracies. For example, the article incorrectly states that “in 1980, four out of five private-sector workers were covered by traditional pensions;” in fact, only about half that many actually were at that point (a correct statement would be that 4 out of 5 covered by a plan at that time were in a traditional pension, whi...

Ravens or 49ers – either way, your stock portfolio could have something to cheer about this year. According to the Super Bowl Theory, which was invented/popularized by the late New York Times sportswriter Leonard Koppett, a Super Bowl win by a team from the old National Football League is a precursor to rising stock values for the year (at least as measured by the S&P 500), but if a team from the old American Football League (AFL) prevails, stocks will fall in the coming year. As it turns out both teams in Super Bowl XLVII - the Baltimore Ravens (by way of NFL legacy Cleveland Browns) and the San Francisco 49ers – are NFL legacy – and thus, regardless of which team wins, a legacy NFL team will prevail. Of course, looking back over the years, the record is a bit, shall we say, “inconsistent.” It “worked”for 12 of the first 13 Super Bowls – and, over 45 Super Bowls, it’s proven to be “accurate” 35 times. On the other hand, over the past 15 years, it has only held true about...

British Statesman and Philosopher Edmund Burke famously commented that “”Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”(1) Indeed, those with experience working with employee benefit plans, can attest to a certain déjà vu-esque quality amidst the recent discussions about tax reform, limiting deductions, and “capping” contributions. These, are, in many ways, old “solutions,”(2) albeit these days arguably applied to a new (or at least different) set of circumstances. As the 113th Congress begins its work, and the Obama administration readies for a second term, it is perhaps not surprising that the nuances of employee benefit plans and their tax treatment might not be an area of expertise for many on Capitol Hill. However, for all the longevity in tenure frequently assumed regarding those in Congress, a review of the data shows just how much turnover has taken place. For example, you might not be surprised to learn that no member of the current Senate was in office when Me...

Sooner or later as a parent you’ll be told—as you doubtless you told YOUR parents—that “that’s not the way things are now!” It’s a potent retort to whatever social more is at issue because, whether it involves a choice in dress, curfew, or even resumé preparation, our perspectives are often shaped (and sometimes distorted) by our recollection of the way things were for us at comparable points in time. Or, as we must sometimes admit, “the way things used to be.” When it comes to things like working careers, there is a widespread assumption that past generations worked for a single employer for all, or most of his/her working years, and then retired with a pension and a gold watch. In contrast, current American workers are believed to change jobs (much) more frequently. In fact, many champion the defined contribution plan design as a better “fit” for today’s workforce, which—certainly in the private sector—is seen as lacking the kind of tenure necessary to accrue sufficient benefits un...

You may remember little else about the 1989 film “Field of Dreams,” but odds are you have invoked a version of what is likely its most famous quote, “If you build it, they will come.” Unfortunately, for many, building retirement savings is more complicated than constructing a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa cornfield. Most experts will tell you that the most important decision in retirement saving is deciding how much to save, not how those savings will be invested―and yet, for years, much of the education and discussion about retirement saving has been focused on investing. Enter the target-date fund (TDF), a type of investment fund apportioned according to what investment professionals deem to be an appropriate age-based blend of stocks, bonds, and other asset classes for an individual within a particular target-date of his or her retirement. Perhaps more importantly, that apportioning is automatically rebalanced over time, as the target date approaches, becoming less f...

As we close out 2012, and embark upon a new set of challenges in 2013, this week’s EBRIef offers a roundup of our 2012 research.  Best wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year! Share EBRIef with your friends and colleagues – and let them know they can sign up for their own copy HERE What’s New(s) – Health & Workforce “Findings from the 2012 EBRI/MGA Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey”  MORE . "Views on Employment-Based Health Benefits: Findings from the 2012 Health Confidence Survey"   MORE.  “Self-Insured Health Plans: State Variation and Recent Trends by Firm Size”  MORE . 'Savings Needed for Health Expenses for People Eligible for Medicare: Some Rare Good News,' and 'IRA Asset Allocation, 2010'   MORE . Employment-Based Retiree Health Benefits: Trends in Access and Coverage, 1997-2010”   MORE.  “Sources of Health Insurance and Characteristics of the Uninsured: Analysis of the March 2...

Years ago ― when my kids were still kids ― we discovered an ingenious Web site 1 that purported to offer a real-time assessment of your “naughty or nice” status.   As parents, we rarely invoked the name of Santa to encourage good behavior, and for the very most part our children didn’t require much “redirection.” But no tone of voice or physical threat ever had the impact of that Web site ― if not on their behaviors (they were kids, after all), then certainly on the level of their concern about the consequences. In fact, in one of his final years as a “believer,” my son (who, it must be acknowledged, had been PARTICULARLY naughty that December) was on the verge of tears, worried that he’d find nothing under the Christmas tree but the coal and the bundle of switches he surely deserved.   One could argue that many participants still act as though some kind of benevolent elf will drop down their chimney with a bag full of cold cash from the North Pole, that somehow, ...

Sooner or later, at just about every retirement plan conference, you’ll hear someone—and generally more than just one someone—cite the statistic that “only about half of working Americans are covered by a workplace retirement plan.” It’s a data point that is widely and openly presented as fact—not only by those inclined to dismiss the current system as inadequate (or worse), but even by some of its most ardent champions, who see it as a call to action for expanded access to these programs. It’s drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau’s March 2012 Current Population Survey (CPS).(1) But does it tell the full story? A recent EBRI Issue Brief notes that in 2011, 78.5 million workers worked for an employer/union that did not sponsor a retirement plan. Looking specifically at those who did not work for an employer that sponsored a plan, the report notes that: 8.9 million were self-employed (and were thus barred from having a plan by their own inaction). 6.2 million were under the age of 2...

On December 13, EBRI will hold its 71st biannual policy forum, “’Post’ Script: What’s Next for Employment-Based Health Benefits?” It is a question that has been on the mind of employers, lawmakers and policymakers alike for some time now. It predates the time that the structure for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was put in place, has evolved, but not been resolved, as regulations were, and continue to be issued subsequent to its passage. It has remained on the minds of employers, providers, and policymakers following the various courts’ assessment of the various challenges to the constitutionality of the law, and even as the nation went to the polls last month. Today we know more than we once did about certain aspects of the law, its provisions and applications.¹And yet there is much yet to know about its broader implementation: How the insurance exchanges might work,² for example, or how their presence might affect or influence cost, access, or employer pla...

A recent EBRI Issue Brief examined trends in employment-based retirement plan participation, noting that in 2011, the percentage of all workers participating in an employment-based retirement plan was essentially unchanged from the year before. More specifically, the percentage of all workers (including part-time and self-employed) participating in an employment-based retirement plan¹ stood at 39.7 percent in 2011, compared with 39.8 percent in 2010.² At the same time, the percentage of full-time, full-year wage and salary workers ages 21–64 (those most likely to be offered a retirement plan at work) saw a slight decline, slipping from 54.5 percent in 2010 to 53.7 percent in 2011. While those movements were very small, the increase in the number of workers participating in 2011 halted a three-year decline. Moreover, it’s not as though this gauge has shown a steady trend, even in recent history. When you take into account all workers, the percentage participating in an employment-bas...

Retirement planning is a complex and highly individualized process, but many people find it easier to start by focusing on a single, specific target number. For those interested in a single number for health care expenses in retirement, a recent EBRI report provides that. Among other things, the report noted that a 65-year-old man would need $70,000 in savings and a woman would need $93,000 in 2012 if each had a goal of having a 50 percent chance of having enough money saved to cover their projected health care expenses in retirement. A 65-year-old couple, both with median drug expenses, would need $163,000 in 2012 to have a 50 percent chance of having enough money to cover health care expenses. 1 Determining how much money is needed to cover health care expenses in retirement is complicated. It depends on retirement age, the length of life after retirement, the availability and source of health insurance coverage after retirement to supplement Medicare, the rate at which heal...

Even the best retirement planning requires a fair number of assumptions: the age at which you hope to retire, for one thing; the amount of income that living in retirement will require; the length of time over which your retirement will last; the rate of return on your savings prior to, and following, retirement; the sources of retirement income that will be available to you, and in what amount(s). Consider that in the 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey while worker confidence in having enough money to pay basic expenses in retirement wasn’t exactly high (only 26 percent were very confident), workers were noticeably less likely to feel very confident about their ability to pay for medical expenses after retirement (13 percent) and even less likely to feel very confident about paying for post-retirement long-term care expenses (9 percent) — levels that have remained statistically unchanged since 2010. Indeed, the lack of employment-based retiree health insurance may result in unanti...

Last week the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College provided an update on its National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI).¹ The impetus for the update was the triennial release of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF), published in June, reflecting information as of December 2010. Now, many things have changed since 2007, and in the most recent iteration of the NRRI, the authors note five main changes: the replacement of households from the 2007 SCF with those from the 2010 SCF; the incorporation of 2010 data to predict financial and housing wealth at age 65; a change in the age groups (because a significant number of Baby Boomers have retired, according to the report authors); the impact of lower interest rates on the amounts provided by annuities; and changes in the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) rules that lowered the percentage of house value that borrowers could receive in the form of a reverse mortgage at any given interest rate. And, when all ...

Our industry pays a lot of attention to the investment choices that retirement plan participants make; we fret about the type and number of choices on their investment menu, the efficacy of target-date funds, the utilization of active versus passive investment strategies, and the prudence of the asset allocation choices that individuals make—with or without the benefit of tools and/or professional guidance. Unfortunately, once they leave that part of our private retirement system, not so much. A significant percentage of that retirement plan money winds up in individual retirement accounts, or IRAs. In fact, today IRAs represent more than a quarter of all retirement assets in the U.S., according to a recent EBRI Issue Brief. But there remains a limited amount of knowledge about the investment behavior of individuals who own IRAs, alone or in combination with employment-based retirement plans. In order to fill this gap, EBRI has undertaken an initiative to study in depth this con...

Trying to figure out how much money an individual or couple needs to live on in retirement is, to put it mildly, a complicated business. Among other factors, it depends on the age at which he or she retires, where they live, and how they live. It can be affected by marital status, their health, and the markets, both before and after retirement. And, as a recent EBRI Notes article (see “Savings Needed for Health Expenses for People Eligible for Medicare: Some Rare Good News” ) explains, it can also be affected by the availability and source of health insurance coverage after retirement to supplement Medicare, and the rate at which health care costs increase. Additionally, public policy that changes any of the above factors will also affect spending on health care in retirement. Consequently, trying to hit that target can feel like aiming at a bulls-eye that is not only moving, but moving fast, and zig-zagging away from the bouncing, moving vehicle in which you find yourself. W...