July 2012
July 5, 2012
Public Perplexed About Annuities
Sales of annuities are slow, because most retirees simply don’t know how to assess their value, new research concludes.
Many of the nation’s top retirement experts agree that annuities are the best solution for retirees struggling with the best way to invest and spend a lifetime of savings.
Annuities have a singular benefit: they guarantee monthly income, no matter how long the retiree lives – something a savings account can’t always do. This constant, pre-determined stream of income has the added advantage of preventing financial mistakes as the elderly lose cognitive capacity, according to Harvard economist David Laibson. Smart Money magazine has dubbed annuities “dementia insurance.”
Yet sales of fixed and variable annuities have been largely flat over the past decade. This “annuity puzzle” has befuddled the academy for years.
Research by the Financial Literacy Center, a joint effort by George Washington University, the Wharton School, and the Rand Corporation, concluded that most people avoid annuities – they “stick to the status quo” – because they don’t understand how they work.
“How can they make these decisions if they don’t understand what a good decision is?” said a Rand senior economist and one of the paper’s co-authors, Arie Kapteyn. “We have to do something about the fact that people have to make these decisions” about managing their retirement wealth. … Learn More
July 3, 2012
Fourth of July Quiz
Just over two-thirds of Americans were able to answer the questions below correctly. Given their “simplicity,” Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia Mitchell called the results “discouragingly low” in their 2011 research published by the National Bureau of Economic research.
Women did worse than men: 59 percent of women got it right, compared with 71 percent of men.
Take the test to see how you do.
1. Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2 percent per year. After five years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow?
a. More than $102
b. Exactly $102
c. Less than $102
d. Do not know
e. Refuse to answer
2. Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1 percent per year and inflation was 2 percent per year. After one year, how much would you be able to buy with the money in this account?
a. More than today
b. Exactly the same
c. Less than today
d. Do not know
e. Refuse to answer
To see the answers, click “Learn more” below. And happy Fourth of July!Learn More
About Squared Away
Learn more about our blog and its writer, Kimberly Blanton, a former Boston Globe reporter.
