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Here's the greatest challenge to retirement planning: You may live a very, very long time.

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits fell as expected last week, with the four-week moving average dropping to its lowest level in more than 2-1/2 years, pointing to a strengthening labor market.

Even after plan design changes, employers can expect their health care costs to increase by 7% in 2011, a sure sign that an aggressive approach to plan design is here to stay, finds research by the National Business Group on Health and Towers Watson.

Faced with the current challenges brought on by the financial crisis, company priorities have been forced to shift, and employees are left often with a lack of understanding and insufficient guidance on their benefits choices at work.

Benefit professionals have tirelessly lobbied for an end to the so-called use-it-or-lose it rule governing pretax employee contributions to a flexible spending account, which is now the centerpiece of a bipartisan proposal in Congress.

Confidence is Americans’ biggest asset for future economic growth, James Paulsen, chief investment strategist with Wells Capital Management, told an audience last week at the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries’ 401(k) Summit.

Conventional wisdom holds that a large dental network can deliver appropriate access and cost savings for employers, but MetLife experts contend that other attributes can come into play on adding value to dental plans.

Most Americans still aren't saving anywhere near enough money to afford the dignified retirement they all claim is so important to them. Even worse, most don't have any idea exactly how much they'll need if they were to begin saving today for their golden years.

The barometer is falling when it comes to how well companies are helping employees focus on their retirement income as well as retirement savings. In a new report on Fortune 1000 companies, MetLife’s inaugural Qualified Retirement Plan Barometer assigned a score across all plan types of 59 out of a possible 100. The higher the barometer, the stronger the overall culture of retirement income. While individual scores vary, the companies that offer broad access to defined benefit and defined contribution plans outpace plan sponsors who offer only a DC plan or incidental access to a DB plan as well as a DC plan.

Target-date funds became the leading default investment option for auto-enrolled retirement plans for a reason: The simplicity of an age-appropriate, asset allocation strategy that grew more conservative as plan participants edged closer to retirement age.