What is a pension? Put simply, a pension is a vehicle to provide deferred compensation to employees (and usually their partners) in retirement. Properly managed, a pension must cover its liabilities as these become payable.…Read More
retirement
Target Date Funds: The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown
Target Date Funds, which automatically diversify, adjust and rebalance retirement saving allocations over very long periods of time, are among the most successful individual investing products of the past decade. Initially introduced in 1994, target date funds (TDFs) really took off after the U.S. Pension Protection Act of 2006 allowed defined contribution (DC) pension plans to use them as a default option for plan participants. Assets in TDFs rose from a total of $100 billion in assets in 2005 to over $700 billion in 2015, and more than 60% of new DC pension contributions are now flowing into these funds. At least 36 mutual fund companies offer TDFs to pension plans, and a growing part of the pension consulting business consists of helping pension plan sponsors to “customize” their TDFs.…Read More
How Financial Ignorance Can Ruin Retirement
There are compelling reasons to be worried about retirement preparedness. My work with Olivia S. Mitchell of Wharton’s Pension Research Council has found that only a minority of individuals gives any thought to retirement, even when people are only 10 to 15 years away from it. Planning can make the difference between security versus fragility in retirement. Our research shows that those who plan end up with double or triple the wealth of those who do not.…Read More
A New Approach To Timing Pension Payouts
US federal law requires retirees to annually withdraw a minimum amount from their retirement accounts after the age of 70 ½. [1] This is driven by a tax rationale: since pension contributions are generally tax-deferred, Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) rules require that taxes should be paid on pension benefits during old age. Yet a criticism has been levied at RMD rules, namely that they may prejudice good retirement policy. To the extent that some households are required to draw down their pension wealth too soon, this increases the risk that they will outlive their resources.…Read More
What’s Wrong With Our Retirement System & What We Can Do About It
As the Baby Boom moves into retirement, confidence in our retirement system is waning, for good reason. Plan sponsors, including public and private employers, are rapidly freezing their defined benefit plans—those that promise a guaranteed level of income in retirement—by closing the plans to new hires or stopping current employees from earning additional benefits.…Read More
Seven Retirement Gaps And What To Do About Them
What do we expect to happen as we age, and how do our ideas about retirement planning change? New research on post-retirement risks by the Society of Actuaries identifies where the knowledge gaps are and how we can do better.…Read More
Capping Pension Costs? Cautionary Lessons from the UK
Economists typically criticize price regulation because, for most products, competition is seen as sufficient to drive pricing to reasonable economic levels. Moreover, consumers are usually better off as a result of the competitive process. Exceptions would include cases where significant economies of scale exist, as in the case of utilities, and also where imperfect information impedes the orderly operation of markets.…Read More
Argentina’s Pension Policy In The Last 20 Years: Chronicle Of A Death Foretold
Argentina is one of several countries that implemented a major structural reform of the pension system during the 1990s and then, more recently, decided to reverse itself. This note presents a summarized discussion of the motivations and main characteristics of the early reform, the performance of the system since then, and the rationale for and impacts of the recent changes.…Read More
Financial Savvy Key To A Secure Retirement
Over the last 40 years, we as individuals have been given increasing responsibility for ensuring our own financial well-being in retirement. But it’s gotten quite complex, with an alphabet soup of retirement saving vehicles – from 401(k) to 403(b) plans to IRA and Roth IRAs – and our responsibilities loom large. Not only must we figure out how much to save and how to invest our retirement assets, but we also must take advantage of a variety of tax-favored assets, employer matches, payout options, and much more.…Read More
Key Retirement Concerns And 7 Planning Tips For Women
Retirement planning is extremely important for women, and ideally it should consider the big picture including financial resources, the family’s situation, risks, and employment. Nevertheless, many women are more focused on meeting their families’ current needs than on their longer-term futures. This article looks at how family issues can shape women’s retirement plans and examines issues and planning steps that might otherwise be overlooked.…Read More