Financial planning

There seems little doubt that America faces a looming retirement-income adequacy crisis. By virtually every measure, employees haven't saved anywhere near enough to fund their retirement. To cite just a few of many studies on the subject, a recent McKinsey report estimates that the average American faces a 37% shortfall in the income needed in retirement. Boston College's Retirement Readiness Index estimates 51% of Americans will not be able to maintain their preretirement standard of living. And introducing potential health care and long-term care costs increases the index to 66%.

Do you know what you are? Erisa titles matter. The questions may sound like the title to a Dr. Seuss book, but it has great bearing on how you are treated under ERISA. Knowing your title also creates clarification as to what your duties are, and what they are not.

Eighty-four percent of 401(k) sponsors surveyed by Mercer and the U.S. SIF Foundation (formerly known as the Social Investment Forum Foundation) believe that sustainable and socially responsible investment funds will either hold steady or grow in the next five years.

Investors reaching or in retirement are much more likely to stay in the stock market if they’re invested in financial products that provide guaranteed income. That was one of the major findings this week from an online survey Prudential conducted in May of this year.

Women who take charge, do the math, plan for contingencies and work with their partners and/or financial advisors have a better chance of securing their finances in retirement than those who shrink from the process, according to a new study from the MetLife Mature Market Institute.

You can't throw numbers at Millennials. It just doesn't work, especially in trying to convince them to save for retirement. The focus is on the here and now.

The Labor Department is likely to stick with a plan that could restrict brokers who provide IRA account advice from charging commissions.

Call it the holy grail, silver bullet or magic pill, but the universal goal of benefits professionals is finding a way to lower costs while maintaining employee engagement. Ron Leopold, vice president medical director for MetLife, says the magic ingredients in the “money pill” may be investments in helping employees find physical and fiscal success.

Employers may find new success in influencing employees to make smarter financial decisions. Last week, a program that reaches employees through an employer-based education program announced the results of Investor Education in Your Workplace, and they were hopeful.

Around the time they turn 50, many people unconsciously begin to ratchet up their spending. Instead, prominent retirement planning scholar Alice P. Munnell thinks financial planners and employers need to wage a campaign to get their clients and employees to hit the pause button at this crucial midpoint in their lives. …

A flood of U.S. retirements is threatening to burst its dam and drown aging Americans with rising living costs, but one group is proposing a novel way to protect private-sector workers: Invest in public pension plans.

A recent survey of 3,300 working Americans conducted by Putnam Investments reveals that American households are on track to replace only about 64% of their current income in retirement — significantly less than the 75% of income that most financial professionals recommend.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued additional guidance on how a plan sponsor can demonstrate that it is not using reimbursements received under the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program as general revenue by maintaining the level of its contributions to the plan.

At Draper Laboratory, Allen Hymovitz, the senior manager of benefits and quality of life, takes both facets of his title seriously. Retirement is not just about financial planning, he says. It's about planning for an extended vacation.

The majority of Americans think that planning for retirement is easier for those who are not married, according to Charles Schwab's latest quarterly retirement pulse survey findings released yesterday. More than half (53%) of married Americans and more than two-thirds (69%) of singles say they believe it is easier to make major financial decisions for retirement when there is no spouse in the picture.

According to new survey results from Charles Schwab, 401(k) plan sponsors are offering participants more counseling but less cash to help them prepare for retirement.

Although most retirement plan sponsors train their laser focus on helping participants save adequately for retirement — and rightly so — one nonprofit group is encouraging sponsors also to pay attention to assisting pre-retirees in preparing for the income distribution phase.

In case you missed it, the East Coast has had an odd month or so with an earthquake, hurricane and flooding. In trying to find money to pay for repairs and clean up, some folks might look to their retirement plan savings as a resource. Here are the nuts and bolts of "hardship distributions."

The dot-com crash and the Great Recession have taken a serious and lasting toll on the risk appetites of Generation Y, according to the latest MFS Investing Sentiment Survey. This generation, between the ages of 18 and 30, are “investing more like their parents and grandparents, many of whom grew up in the shadows of the Great Depression,” says William Finnegan, senior managing director of U.S. retail marketing for MFS.

A new study from Fidelity Investments found that 401(k) investors who pulled out of the equities market during the 2008-2009 economic downturn experienced only 2% growth, while those who maintained their investment strategy eventually saw growth of 50% by the second quarter of this year.