August 19, 2009 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – The fact that 20% of participants in defined contribution plans administered by The Vanguard Group invested their entire nest eggs in an asset allocation fund at year-end 2008 helped shield the participants from the market’s turmoil during the year, new Vanguard research indicated.
Continue reading “Use of Asset Allocation Funds Helps Participants Diversify” »
Published: August 30, 2009
Workers have long counted on their 401(k) plans to sustain them during retirement, only to watch helplessly as they plummet in value. With hints that the worst of the economic meltdown may finally be over, 401(k) participants are looking for direction and guidance on how to get their accounts back to where they once were.
Continue reading “In This Corner: Who is getting rich from my 401(k)? Not me” »
CCH® PENSION — 08/31/09
From Spencer’s Benefits Reports: In How America Saves 2009, Vanguard examines the plan design features and investment experience of more than 2,200 defined contribution plans for which the company provides recordkeeping services. Ninety percent of these plans have a 401(k) or 403(b) employee contribution feature, while the remaining 10% are plans such as profit-sharing plans to which only the employer contributes.
Continue reading “Survey Examines Design Features, Investment Experience Of Defined Contribution Plans In 2008” »
Delegating such a major responsibility requires prudence, planning and procedures
By Blaine F. Aikin
August 16, 2009
By definition, prudence involves the exercise of skill and good judgment in the use of resources. It is a core fiduciary duty. Consistent with the stature of fiduciary obligations as the highest known to law, fiduciaries are expected to ensure that investments entrusted to their care are managed with the skill and judgment of a professional.
Continue reading “The process of picking a co-fiduciary” »
By Jerry Kalish
August 1, 2009
It’s a tough world out there now for retirement plan fiduciaries. Buffeted by the most complex set of forces since ERISA arrived in 1974, plan fiduciaries today must cope with heightened compliance enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor, increasing litigation by plan participants and tightened fiduciary liability insurance markets.Despite all these forces that are swirling around, there are some practical ways that fiduciaries can effectively manage their responsibilities. But before you say, “I’m not a fiduciary,” you should double-check. As an HR/benefits executive, you may be a fiduciary if you:
Continue reading “The practical side of being a fiduciary” »
By MARK JEWELL
The Associated Press
Published: August 16, 2009
BOSTON – Workers again are embracing 401(k) plans after the market meltdown and ongoing recession left many unable or unwilling to set aside some of their paychecks for retirement, according to the nation’s largest workplace savings plan provider.
In the second quarter, more participants in Fidelity Investments’ defined contribution plans raised the amount they set aside rather than decreased the percentage of pay they put into their savings. In a study released Wednesday, the Boston-based company said it’s the first time that’s happened in a year.
Continue reading “Workers Put Money Back into 401(k)s” »
With a growing retiree population, can any public-employee pension fund stay solvent? Scott Adams and Marcia Fritz debate.
1:45 PM PDT, August 10, 2009
LA Times
Today’s topic: Even after a potential reform, can any public-employee pension stay solvent when the number of retirees is growing? Are 401(k)-style plans inevitable for all state employees?
The 401(k) disaster
Point: Scott Adams
Our country is facing the greatest threat yet to ensuring retirement security for every American. The reckless experiment of relying on 401(k) plans has been a failure. Many Americans have seen their dream of retiring with dignity vanish along with their home equity. Worst, many cannot afford to retire at all.
Continue reading “401(k) plans for everyone?” »
By Michelle Singletary
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Washington Post
This recession has taken so much from people.
Jobs have disappeared in numbers we haven’t seen in decades. Homes have been lost. Credit lines have been reduced or withdrawn. And, of course, retirement accounts have been pummeled. On that last point, some people have wondered whether it’s worth still contributing to a 401(k) — not just because their portfolios have lost so much, but because their employer no longer matches their contributions.
Continue reading “Will 401(k)s Wither Without Employer Match?” »
The market’s recent plunge likely frightened more Americans into a willingness to consider putting at least some of their 401(k) assets in a retirement-income product at retirement. Now, Congress may give them a nudge to go ahead with it.
Support for tax advantages for annuities, previously proposed in 2005 by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-North Dakota), seems low this year, given the government’s other current financial demands. However, several other ideas appear to have potential traction, and they speak to the logistical and psychological reasons that many see at the heart of 401(k) participants’ continued aversion to retirement-income products—the overall inertia, concerns about the complexity and cost of choosing an annuity on the open market, the fear of losing money to unstable financial institutions, and the impression that a series of small payments made over time has less value than one big lump-sum payment.
Continue reading “Leading the Horse to Water” »
August 6, 2009 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – Though the economic downturn has forced many plan sponsors to reduce their 401(k) contributions or cut them entirely, a new survey suggests those sponsors are still contributing to their employees’ retirements in other ways.
Diversified Investment Advisors’ Report on Retirement Plans—2009, a survey of corporations with 1,000 or more employees, finds that 46% of plan sponsors are planning to reduce or eliminate employer contributions to their 401(k) plans or have already done so; however, the survey also revealed that cash balance and 401(a) plan offerings are on the rise.
Continue reading “Cutting Employer Contributions Is not the Whole Story” »