Nevin's Data "Points"

   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...

   We’re often told (via surveys) of any number of retirement plan options that plan participants want. Should it matter? Most recently, we’re assured that participants are  clamoring to have access to private market investments . Before that, it was  cryptocurrency  — and for what seems like months now it’s all been about  retirement income . Apparently vast majorities of participants are eager to have access through their 401(k) to an array of complex financial instruments to which they have, thus far, been largely (or totally) barred — or so surveys say. Indeed, I’ve always been amazed that organizations are able to find so many ostensibly knowledgeable participants to weigh in on these complex topics — particularly since there is an abundance of (other) surveys that suggest that when it comes to financial matters, participants are, largely, clueless. Not that that seems to dampen their collective interest in these new options — though when given a chanc...

   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...

   Did you hear the one about how a rollover delay could cost you $76,000? Hard to believe? Well, there’s a reason. To get to that number, the folks at PensionBee had to make not just one, but a series of worst-case assumptions. To get to $76,000, you have to assume: that you are waiting for a $100,000 check… that you get out of the market at exactly the wrong time — a low point right before an extraordinary market surge (that you miss, of course)… that continues unabated while you’re “out” of the market… (cause markets only go up) oh, and you’re assumed to be out of the market for EIGHT WEEKS because it’s assumed that your rollover check got lost in the mail, and you had to have it reissued (during which, of course, the markets continue to rise)... Oh, and THEN you take that market uptick that you missed (cause, as we all know, markets NEVER go down)... and then assume a 7% positive return thereafter on the money you missed (with fees of just 0.85%)… compound it for 30 years ...

  A recent survey “revealed” a big disconnect between participants and plan sponsors — or did it? The  survey , conducted from mid-January to mid-February earlier this year by Voya, found that while 91% of sponsors thought participants were either very or somewhat prepared for retirement, “just” 69% of participants felt that way. A finding that I think it’s fair to say surprised — well, probably no one.  Indeed, I’m sure there are any number of advisors out there who saw this as an opportunity to tell plan sponsors that while they may THINK the participants they serve and support are in good shape, their reality may be different. Particularly since this survey also found that advisors’ perspective was pretty much aligned with that of the participants surveyed.   But could plan sponsors’ “read” of participant readiness really be so strong as to be so out of touch with participants’ perception? The authors of the report opined that the bull market might explain the lev...

   There were some   good headlines   about 401(k)s last week — but the numbers underneath those “averages” were even better. Those headlines — reporting on  Fidelity’s Building Financial Futures: Q1 2025 report  — noted that savings rates hit a record high in Q1, driven by a milestone employee contribution rate of 9.5%, and an employer contribution rate of 4.8% — the highest level to date in that survey. Those types of increases have previously been noted in surveys by the Plan Sponsor Council of America, but this one commented that the combined savings rate of 14.3% is the closest it’s ever been to Fidelity's suggested savings rate of 15%.  That said, when you look inside those averages — Fidelity noted that Boomers [i]  actually had a total savings rate of 17.2%, buoyed by a  12%  employee savings rate, while Gen Xers had a 15.4% total savings rate (a  10.3%  employee savings rate). Gen Z’s 7.3% employee savings rate and Mil...