Retirement benefits

Commentary: With too many choices, the net result is that participants make poorer choices, or simply make no choice, writes blogger Aaron Friedman about one particular retirement vehicle.

The IRS last week issued Notice 2014-19, which sets forth the rules for recognition of same-sex spouses in retirement plan administration. Here's what employers need to know.

Commentary: Required minimum distributions can be tricky. Columnist John Ludwig has tips for advising employees on this topic.

A new PwC survey suggests millennial employees are feeling the pinch more strongly than other workers, and notes that ongoing financial stress can be a tremendous drain on worker productivity and performance – and will be until remuneration begins to match the rapidly increasing cost of living.

MetLife has launched a new voluntary life insurance product aimed at baby boomers nearing retirement.

Wondering whether your plan design is still market competitive? Leading-edge 401(k) and 403(b) plans have the following plan design features in common.

Commentary: Research shows that the financial services industry remains the least trusted business, according to blogger Jerry Kalish. However, people trust business overall to innovate and change, more than the government. Here’s how you can start to build trust back.

A new study finds that retirement readiness among the baby boomer generation continued its decline in key confidence measurements that look at whether the age cohort was comfortable with covering medical expenses and income needs when they exit the workforce.

As hopeful evidence that a half-decade of retirement savings doldrums may finally be over, a new examination of employee 401(k) participation suggests workers are back on the savings path – and increasingly using HSAs as a new form of long-term financial planning.

Retirement plan sponsors and their consultants are attentively following the Supreme Court today as it hears oral arguments in Fifth Third Bancorp v. Duddenhoeffer, a case that has implications for the retirement plan industry’s fiduciary standard in employee stock ownership plans.

Typically thought of as the employees’ responsibility, plan sponsors should actually facilitate all aspects of required minimum distributions – from alerting participants about them to activating the fund withdrawal.

Overall, state public-sector pension programs continue claw out of the unfunded liabilities that have buried them since the financial collapse, as the total pension debt was over $1 trillion at the close of the fiscal year 2012.

A new analysis finds that retirement coverage in the private sector remains a “serious problem” for plan sponsors and employees despite previously reported high levels of access to retiree options, according to researchers from the Center of Retirement Research at Boston College.

Fewer than a third of plan sponsors measure the effectiveness of their defined contribution plan’s investment offerings by evaluating if projected participant income replacement ratios are being met at retirement, finds a new poll from SEI.

The Department of Labor has proposed a rule requiring pension plan service providers to offer a guide to help employers navigate disclosures about fees and potential conflicts of interest. Who would it affect and why?

For retirement plan advisers – and the plan administrator community – it remains more than a bit problematic to cope with the prospect of a new threshold of responsibility for the financial decisions of plan participants. Or, having their hands tied and only being able to offer extremely financial guidance, as the case may be.

Even as the April 15 tax deadline looms for individual retirement account contributions, American adults still spend more time selecting a restaurant for a special occasion than they allocate to planning their IRA’s important investments.

Commentary: The deadline for discrimination testing has come and gone. If your clients are like many employers, they didn’t do so well.

Commentary: Employer group waiver plans provide a solution for the struggling public sector

While a flurry of recent, presidential-level focus on America’s retirement system might be a good opportunity for dialog on its shortfalls, those in the retirement industry fear that a new era of potential tax grabs is on the horizon.