November 5, 2019

401k Balances are Far Below Potential

If a 60-year-old baby boomer started saving consistently at the beginning of his career back in the 1980s, he would have some $364,000 in his 401(k)s and IRAs today.

How much does he actually have? One-fourth of that, according to a new study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR).

One obvious explanation for the enormous gap is that the 401(k) system was in its infancy in the 1980s, and it took time for employers to widely adopt the plans and for young adults to get into the habit of saving for retirement.

Another likely reason is the large share of workers who do not have any type of employer-sponsored retirement plan.  This coverage gap, which predates the introduction of 401(k)s, persists today and leaves about half of private-sector workers without a plan at any given point in time.

And this gap isn’t just a problem for baby boomers. A majority of young workers are not saving in a retirement plan, despite their advantage of having entered the labor force after the 401(k) system was more mature. …Learn More

September 24, 2019

What Personality Says about Your Wealth

A person’s finances are not determined simply by obvious factors like how much they earn – personality can also make a difference.

A new study has identified three personality traits that play a role in how individuals handle their nest eggs. For example, conscientious people – self-disciplined planners – are more careful and have more wealth at the end of their lives.

The University of Illinois researchers looked at two types of wealth: within employer retirement plans and outside of these plans. They did not find a connection between the wealth levels in employer plans and various personality traits, a result they anticipated because retirement wealth has more to do with a retiree’s work history and earnings.

But they did find a connection between personality and the wealth individuals hold outside of their retirement plans. Even though the majority of retirees have very little of this wealth, it’s still interesting to see the connections.

For example, retirees who are open to new experiences – they are imaginative, proactive, and broad-minded – behave like conscientious people and preserve their wealth, especially after their mid-60s, according to the study, which was conducted for NBER’s Retirement and Disability Research Center.

Agreeableness works in the opposite direction. Agreeable people are known for being soft-hearted, friendly and helpful – they also tend to care less about money or about managing it. Not surprisingly, they have less wealth. …Learn More

August 20, 2019

Modifying a Retirement Plan is Tricky

Employers beware: changing your retirement plan’s design can have unfortunate, unintended consequences for your employees.

That’s what happened to the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) for federal workers, says a new study by a team of researchers for the NBER Retirement and Disability Research Center.

Like many private-sector savings plans, the $500 billion TSP – one of the nation’s largest retirement plans – has automatic enrollment. Federal employees can make their own decision about how much they want to save and, in a separate decision, how to invest their money. But if they don’t do anything, their employer will automatically do it for them.

In 2015, the TSP changed its automatic, or default, investment from a government securities fund to a lifecycle fund invested in a mix of stocks and bonds with the potential for higher returns than the government fund. However, the employer did not change the plan’s default savings rate for workers – 3 percent of their gross pay. (The government matches this contribution with a 3 percent contribution to employees’ accounts.)

After the TSP switched to the lifecycle fund, the new employees at one federal agency – the Office of Personnel Management – started saving less, the researchers said.

This probably occurred because, in passively accepting the TSP’s new lifecycle fund – a more appealing option than the old government securities fund – they were also passively accepting the relatively low default 3 percent contribution.

Employees seem to “make asset and contribution decisions jointly, rather than separately,” the researchers concluded. …Learn More

July 11, 2019

Video: Retirement Prep 101

Half of the workers who have an employer retirement plan haven’t saved enough to ensure they can retire comfortably.

This 17-minute video might be just the ticket for them.

Kevin Bracker, a finance professor at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, presents a solid retirement strategy to workers with limited resources who need to get smart about saving and investing.

While not exactly a lively speaker, Bracker explains the most important concepts clearly – why starting to save early is important, why index funds are often better than actively managed investments, the difference between Roth and traditional IRAs, etc.

Some of his figures are somewhat different than the data generated by the Center for Retirement Research, which sponsors this blog. But both agree on this: the retirement outlook is worrisome.

The Center estimates that the typical baby boomer household who has an employer 401(k) and is approaching retirement age has only $135,000 in its 401(k)s and IRAs combined. That translates to about $600 a month in retirement.

Future generations who follow Bracker’s basic rules should be better off when they get old. …Learn More

June 20, 2019

Index Fund Rise Coincides with 401k Suits

Employee lawsuits against their 401(k) retirement plans are grinding through the legal system, with mixed success. Many employers are beating them back, but there have also been some big-money settlements.

This year, health insurer Anthem settled a complaint filed by its employees for $24 million, Franklin Templeton Investments settled for $14 million, and Brown University for $3.5 million.

More 401(k) lawsuits were filed in 2016 and 2017 than during the 2008 financial crisis, and the steady drumbeat of litigation could be affecting how workers save and invest. For one thing, the suits have coincided with a dramatic increase in equity index funds, according to a report by the Center for Retirement Research. Last year, nearly one out of three U.S. stock funds were index funds, double the share 10 years ago.

Some see this change as positive. Many retirement experts believe that the best investment option for an inexperienced 401(k) investor is an index fund, which automatically tracks a specific stock market index, such as the S&P500. Federal law requires employers to invest 401(k)s for the “sole benefit” of their workers, and index funds usually charge lower fees and carry less risk of underperforming the market than actively managed funds – two issues at the heart of the lawsuits.

To avoid litigation – and to comply with recent regulatory changes – employers are also becoming more transparent about the fees their workers pay to the 401(k) plan record keeper and to the investment manager. This transparency may have had a beneficial effect: lower mutual fund fees, which translate to more money in workers’ accounts when they retire. The average fund fee is about one-half of 1 percent, down from three-fourths of 1 percent in 2009, according to Morningstar.

In short, these lawsuits appear to be changing how people invest and how much they pay in fees for their 401(k)s. …Learn More

April 25, 2019

Do Couples Save Enough for Two?

Since only about half of all private sector workers currently have access to an employer 401(k) plan, it’s not at all unusual for spouses who are both working to have only one saver in the family.

When that’s the case, is the person who is contributing to the employer retirement plan saving for two?  The answer is definitely not, concludes a new study by the Center for Retirement Research.

The challenge for couples living on two paychecks is that they have to save more money to maintain their current lifestyle after they retire. But households with two earners and only one saver end up saving less than others – only about 5 percent of the couple’s combined incomes, compared with more than 9 percent when both spouses are working and saving, the study found.

Couples who rely on a lone saver need that person to pick up the slack. Employers could help them if they considered the employee’s family situation when setting a 401(k) contribution rate in plans that automatically enroll workers. …Learn More

April 9, 2019

Retirement Saving – Latinos Get an App

Amid a growing awareness that many Americans aren’t properly prepared for retirement, various efforts have ramped up to push the non-savers to save.

A notable initiative is occurring in state government. California, Illinois, and Oregon have started IRA savings programs that require private employers to offer the state-sponsored IRAs to workers if the company doesn’t already have a 401(k).

Cell phone apps are also popping up to make saving easier. One such app – Finhabits – is being marketed directly to Latinos, who financial experts say are particularly unprepared for retirement. Two out of three Latino workers aren’t saving in a retirement plan, often because they work in low-wage restaurant and hotel jobs that don’t offer one.

The Finhabits app offers both traditional and Roth IRAs, which can also be set up online. The IRA regularly deducts an amount, designated by the customer, from his bank account and invests the money in low-cost exchange-traded index funds managed by Vanguard or BlackRock.

Carlos A. Garcia created the app – in English and Spanish – to confront a barrier to saving that he experienced in his own family as a child growing up in the border towns of El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico.  Saving “is not part of [Latino] culture,” he said. “Everybody’s working so hard. But you never talk about retirement.”

He carried this sentiment into his first job at Merrill Lynch after college graduation. He turned down the 401(k) option, because “I had no clue what a 401(k) was.”

This blog doesn’t recommend financial products, and Finhabits has advantages and disadvantages over competing apps. The app’s management fee is slightly higher than some, according to expert reviews. Nevertheless, Finhabits follows sound principles, such as investing in low-cost index funds. The Washington state government chose Finhabits as one of its vendors to provide a retirement plan through the state’s Retirement Marketplace for small businesses. …Learn More