Faculty in the News

Since they first appeared 40 years ago, 401(k) plans have come a long way, but many policy experts say there is still a lot more to be done to secure a reasonable retirement for all Americans. On the positive side, 401(k) plans and other defined contribution retirement plans today have dramatically lower fees, allowing workers to keep more of their savings. In 2000, for example, 401(k) participants incurred an average expense ratio of 0.77% for investing in equity mutual funds, or 77 cents for every $100 they put in. Today, they’re paying 0.33%, less than half of that, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Auto enrollment and other automatic savings features have also worked wonders in boosting plan participation. In 2004, for example, when automatic enrollment was not widely used, the average plan participation rate was 74%, far below today’s average participation of 85%, according to Vanguard’s latest edition of its “How America Saves” report. The emergence of target-date funds and their use as the default investment option have also helped millions of retirement savers who might not have been able to decide where to hold their assets. “It seems sensible to make sure that people are not putting themselves into some fixed-income type of investment,” said Alicia Munnell, 25-year director and founder of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, adding that default investment options and other automatic features have been important in improving the effectiveness of DC plans. Yet for all the advances in design, defined contribution plans may have reached a limit in terms of what they can accomplish, according to industry experts. “Everything that can be done to make these plans work better has been done,” Munnell said, bemoaning the fact that despite the industry’s hard work and innovation, defined contribution plans are still not widely available to workers. “If you take a snapshot of the private-sector workforce at any moment of time, you’ll see only half the working population is covered,” she said.

The lack of coverage disproportionately impacts low- and middle-income Americans who typically work for employers that do not offer workplace retirement plans, Munnell and other experts said. The defined contribution system has worked well for the top third of wage earners who “built up big piles” because they’re in the system all the time, unlike those who haven’t been in the system in a steady way or have never had access to it, Munnell said. Munnell explained that the industry initially produced Excel spreadsheets showing people that if they saved continuously at a set rate of return, they’d “have this much money,” but the calculation from the “synthetic” rather than the actual work history fell short because people move in and out of jobs that don’t always offer workplace plans. “It’s only worked well for a subset of the population, and now I think the challenge is to figure out something that will work well for the rest of the population,” she said.

Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economics and policy analysis at the New School for Social Research, was more critical, denouncing the system as an outright failure. If she were to give the system a report card on its outcomes for an entire generation of workers over the past 40 years, she would give it an “F,” she said. Ghilarducci noted that only 54% of people between the ages of 55 and 64 have any kind of retirement savings, with the median amount saved a modest $134,000. “I am shuddering when I look at these numbers,” she said. “I don’t know how people are going to do it.”

Experts agree that the coverage issue shouldn’t fall squarely on employers, noting that they shouldn’t have to shoulder the burden of offering plans if they don’t have the money or resources to offer them, as is often the case with small employers. “This isn’t to throw employers under the bus,” said John Scott, project director of retirement savings at The Pew Charitable Trusts. “Sometimes they don’t have the administrative capacity or bandwidth to take on the sponsorship of a retirement plan.” Experts are skeptical that provisions in the SECURE 2.0 Act to spur employers to offer workplace plans, including more generous tax credits, will make much of a difference. “A tax credit for small employers might seem generous, but if the employer has to pay an upfront fee for starting a plan but cannot get the tax credit for several months due to the time it takes to file the tax return and then processing the return, the credit might be less appealing,” Scott said, adding that he’s in the “wait-and-see” camp.

One bright spot in fixing the coverage gap are state-run retirement savings programs, which have been popping up across the country as “auto IRAs.” These programs typically require employers to make the programs available to their workers if they don’t offer a workplace retirement savings program themselves. They also typically automatically enroll workers in a payroll-deduction individual retirement account unless they opt out. Munnell, a “big fan of auto IRAs,” is heartened by the fact that the programs are “moving in the right direction,” though she concedes that they’re “gaining employers and participants more slowly than most people would have anticipated.” To date, 19 states have established—or enacted legislation to establish—state-run retirement plans, 15 of which are structured as auto-IRA programs. As of Aug. 31, the three largest programs — those in Oregon, Illinois and California — along with more recent programs in Connecticut, Maryland and Colorado, had $991.2 million in assets, covered more than 752,000 savers and worked with more than 177,000 employers, according to the Georgetown University Center for Retirement Initiatives. While industry observers applaud the state programs, they’re rooting for a federal auto-IRA program that Congress has been considering since 2006 but hasn’t yet been able to pass. A federal program would achieve the broad national coverage that has long eluded the industry and drive greater administrative and cost efficiencies than the current state-run programs provide, sources said. “We’re letting a thousand flowers bloom, but all the flowers are tulips and all the tulips are red,” Munnell said of state auto-IRA programs. “All these plans look exactly the same, and it would seem like there’d be economies of scale and a lot of benefits by having a national program rather than state by state.”

Nevertheless, for some industry experts, the current defined contribution system — despite its shortcomings — still beats the old defined benefit or traditional pension system that once dominated the workplace. Olivia S. Mitchell, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, notes that under the old system workers had to have a full career at a single employer to receive reasonable benefits, a model that simply doesn’t suit most workers in the labor market today. “In my view, the DC system is better for more people than the old DB system, since traditional DB plans only paid benefits to workers who never changed jobs and never quit,” she said. In addition, Mitchell points out that pension plans were — and still often are — underfunded, meaning that retiree benefits can be slashed in the event of a company bankruptcy. Yet, Mitchell still sees room for improvement in the world of defined contribution plans. “If I had one wish, it would be to integrate a deferred annuity into DC plans so that some of the benefits are paid as lifetime income,” she said, adding that SECURE 2.0 enhanced employers’ ability to do this.

Boston College’s Munnell would also like to see annuities added to DC plans to help workers draw down their savings. Workers “clearly are not in the mood of going to an insurance company and buying annuities,” she said. “There has to be some mechanism that they can get annuitized income in some semiautomatic way.” Munnell is also a proponent of having employers adopt a Social Security “bridge” strategy within their 401(k) plans that would allow their retired workers to delay claiming Social Security benefits and thereby increase their monthly payment when they do eventually claim. Under the bridge proposal, employers would distribute payments to retirees from their 401(k) equal to the Social Security benefits those retirees would get if they claimed. This stream of payments would continue as long as the funds set aside for it lasted, or until age 70. The proposal envisions allocating 20% to 40% of a worker’s 401(k) assets to the bridge. “Social Security is the cheapest annuity around and also the best in the sense that it’s fully indexed for inflation,” Munnell said.

The New School’s Ghilarducci would take the proposal one step further. She supports allowing people to roll over their retirement savings into the Social Security system so they can receive an equivalent benefit until they can claim for a higher benefit. Workers with the median savings of $134,000 may not know how to make the money last the additional years needed to bridge them over to a higher Social Security benefit, Ghilarducci said Let the Social Security system help people “manage the little bit of money that they have because $134,000 isn’t chopped liver,” she said.

Ghilarducci points out that most people don’t have access to financial advisers who can tell them how best to manage the funds. “If Social Security is so efficient, why can’t I just put more money into it and get a higher benefit?” she asked.

The United Auto Workers want something that most Americans don’t have: traditional pension plans. It’s one of the union’s core demands that could help end the strikes at Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. But at a time when companies are trying to shed their financial liabilities for workers’ retirement security, some see it as a big ask. UAW talks with those companies have reportedly negotiated wage increases broadly, but none of the big three U.S. automakers has budged on reinstating pension coverage to pre-2007 levels, according to coverage today by Reuters. If UAW succeeded in getting pensions back, it would be a major victory, going entirely against a decades-long trend in U.S. retirement saving.

Not only do most private-sector companies no longer offer defined-benefit plans for new workers, but the majority are tempted to get existing pensions off the books. A recent survey by MetLife found that 89% of employers with pensions are planning to offload those liabilities to insurance companies in the form of group annuities. Over the past year, the rate of companies doing just that has accelerated at record pace as the funded status of their pensions has improved amid higher interest rates, making them eligible for pension-risk transfers.

“Overall, I seriously doubt that any modern firm would want to reinstitute DB plans, due to their high costs, including the high premiums that they would need to pay to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC) for reinsurance. Moreover, DB plans skew their benefit payments toward long-term employees, penalizing anyone who leaves the firm early, needs to take time off for kids or other reasons, and who doesn’t work for the firm for a full career,” Olivia Mitchell, executive director of the Pension Research Council, said in an email. “This isn’t very appealing to many today, given the way the labor market has changed. Including deferred annuities in a 401(k) plan is, to my mind, a much more appealing way to provide secure retirement incomes for a modern workforce.”

In response to the UAW strikes that started last month, the automakers have noted that they provide 401(k) contributions for workers. As part of its negotiations with UAW, Ford has agreed to increase contributions by an unspecified amount, according to a report Monday by Detroit Free Press. GM told the publication that it contributes an equivalent of 6.4% of pay for hourly employees, while Stellantis indicated that it provides an automatic contribution and subsequent matching contributions.

It’s hardly news that defined-contribution plans like 401(k)s are the norm, as the burden of saving and investing for retirement is now almost entirely on the shoulders of workers, rather than the companies that employ them. As of March 2022, 15% of private-sector workers had access to traditional pensions, compared with 86% of state and local government employees, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, 66% of private-sector workers have defined-contribution plans offered by their employers, and about half of them participate. Total money in defined-contribution plans reached $10.2 trillion as of the second quarter, up from about $6.5 trillion in 2015, according to figures from industry group the Investment Company Institute. Over that period, assets in private-sector defined-benefit plans increased from $2.9 trillion to $3.2 trillion.

Whether workers, including those at UAW, would be better off with pensions or 401(k) plans depends on various factors, including income level, savings ability and, as Mitchell noted, whether they stay at one company for most of their careers. But for many — particularly lower- and middle-income workers — pensions offer a sense of security that 401(k)s have only recently started to try to replicate. Not only do people not have to worry about outliving their investments with a pension, but the employer is responsible for ensuring the plan is solvent.

Annuities can address that uncertainty for those without pensions, but in most cases people must also research and purchase complex products and ensure during their working years that they directed enough income to a 401(k). While employers simply don’t want to have to worry about being responsible for workers’ retirement security, there’s some research showing that pension plans give them a better bang for the buck than 401(k)s. The data, from pension advocacy group the National Institute on Retirement Security, show cost savings ranging from 27% to 49% for employers that provide a pension rather than a 401(k), as a result of higher investment returns, more diversified portfolios and longevity risk pooling. “Pensions have economies of scale and risk pooling that just can’t be replicated by individual savings accounts,” NIRS executive director Dan Doonan said in a statement at the time the report was published. “At the same time, 401(k)s have made significant progress in recent years when it comes to reducing costs and making investing easier for individuals,” Doonan said. “But the post-retirement period remains difficult to navigate for those in a 401(k) account. Retirees are transitioning from saving to spending down their retirement income at the right rate, so they don’t outlive their savings.”

The U.S. lags 19 other countries on retirement security — putting it just behind Belgium and ahead of South Korea — despite recent initiatives designed to help expand plan access and encourage workers to save more. The country’s relatively low ranking among other wealthy nations is down two positions from last year, due in part to rising inflation and government debt and lower life expectancy, according to Natixis Investment Managers, which Wednesday issued its annual Global Retirement Index. Across the world, however, “the data presents reasons for renewed optimism about retirement security,” the report noted. “The pandemic is fading in the rearview mirror, inflation is easing in North America and Europe, central bank moves have boosted interest rates, unemployment in key markets is at or near historic lows,” and most countries saw higher scores on retirement. “The U.S. retirement system is built on shaky foundations — retirement accounts are voluntary, which means that most workers and firms don’t contribute, and the commercialized and individualized nature of the accounts means that it is administratively expensive and poorly allocated,” labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci, professor at The New School for Social Research and director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, said in an email. The countries with the best grades for retirement security — Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Ireland — retained the same ranks they saw in Natixis’ report last year. Themes in those countries were high marks for health, quality of life and material well-being. Those three categories, in addition to finances in retirement, are used to assess the overall retirement security for each country, according to Natixis, which built benchmarks for its ongoing index with the help of Core Data Research.

It’s not a coincidence that a feature of the some of the top-ranked countries is that they have mandatory pensions for citizens, Ghilarducci said. That’s the case in Norway and Switzerland, and most employers in Denmark (10th) and the Netherlands (6th) must also provide pensions. Similarly, Australia (7th) is known for its Superannuation Guarantee, which began more than 30 years ago. Employer- and employee-funded pension systems are effective not only because they ensure coverage and funding, but also because they don’t impact public budgets, Ghilarducci said. Despite getting lower ranking than a year ago, the U.S. has improved on retirement security overall, with higher marks for material well-being. Behind that are declining unemployment rates and stabilizing levels of income inequality, according to Natixis. The country’s position globally in the index this year is the same as it was in 2013. The country’s highest ranking was for finances in retirement (13th), followed by material well-being (21st), quality of life (21st) and health (25th).

Nearly half of U.S. investors with at least $100,000 in assets said that inflation “is killing their dreams for retirement,” Natixis stated in an announcement. Additionally, 87% of U.S. retirees said they were worried about inflation. The future solvency of the Social Security system was also a top concern, and more than half of people surveyed said they “expect to make tough choices and tradeoffs” in retirement, such as living frugally, working longer out of necessity and relocating to areas with lower costs of living. However, Social Security offers a lot that systems in other countries don’t, such as providing inflation-indexed lifetime income and strong benefits to spouses of workers (50% benefits) who paid into the system, Olivia Mitchell, professor at The Wharton School and executive director of the Pension Research Council, said in an email. “In the event of the death of the primary earner, the surviving spouse receives 100% of the decedent’s benefits. This is much more generous toward couples than most other developed nations,” Mitchell said. “The U.S. Social Security system also pays benefits that are higher than many perceive, in that a recent study found that the U.S. has the highest score of the elderly reporting they could maintain their standards of living in retirement.” Her top priority for improving retirement security would be restoring Social Security to solvency, she said.

Ghilarducci pointed to the Guaranteed Retirement Account design she has championed for years — worker-funded accounts that are professionally managed and pay out in the form of an annuity upon retirement. A bill outlining such accounts was introduced in December, Ghilarducci noted. Other possible improvements include be a national long-term care insurance system, similar to Japan’s, as private coverage in the U.S. is expensive, Mitchell noted. The cost of medical care for retirees in the U.S. is also significantly higher than that for countries across Europe, where few people spend more than $2,000 a year on health care, compared with about 20% here, she said. Recent policy changes to help improve retirement saving could be slow to make much of a difference, she said. While Secure 2.0 will require new 401(k)s to use automatic enrollment, it does not apply to existing plans.

“The 2027 implementation of the bill’s extended Saver’s Tax Credit will likely help the low-income save more in employer-based plans,” Mitchell said. “The opportunity for plan sponsors to match student loan borrowers with 401(k) contributions seems like a useful developments, although it has not yet been implemented.” Meanwhile, state initiatives, such as auto-IRAs, will certainly expand retirement plan coverage, “but workers can still opt out, and my research suggests many will.” Additionally, in many cases those accounts will have small balances and could end up being treated as rainy day funds, she said.

In any case, saving for retirement tends to be a priority for those who can afford to do so — something out of reach for folks living paycheck to paycheck, said Jack Towarnicky, of counsel at Koehler Fitzgerald. “What is ‘best practices’ elsewhere isn’t likely to be ‘best practices’ in America. So, I believe the best solution is to meet workers where they are and morph the 401(k) into a lifetime financial wellness instrument — a plan that provides tax preferred liquidity without leakage along the way to and throughout retirement,” Towarnicky said in an email. Recent policy changes and state initiatives are barely scratching the surface, he noted. Minor changes to the current system that he favors include clearing up deemed IRA guidance to allow participants to continue to participate in former employers’ 401(k)s, allowing for the use of Roth 401(k)s “without the burden of pre-tax 401(k)” so that Roth accounts could accept contributions from workers and retirees, increasing plan loan limits to as much as $250,000, and allowing plans to prohibit in-service and hardship withdrawals to help keep assets in-plan. “To succeed at retirement preparation, it must be a priority for policy makers, industry professionals, plan sponsors, employers and participants,” Towarnicky said. “Retirement preparation isn’t a top priority for most employers — they are focused elsewhere, same for the majority of American workers.”

Global inflation has once again taken centre stage for households and policymakers, stressing peoples’ finances, undermining their savings patterns, and threatening long-term financial security. This column examines how much financial literacy, including knowledge of inflation, drives people’s financial decision-making. Simple measures which have been used around the world confirm strikingly low levels of financial literacy, with consequences for how people manage their personal finances. It is becoming increasingly important to focus on the new field of financial literacy, not only for research by also for teaching and for policy.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for pension funds looking to use an environmental, social and governance lens in their investment approach, according to a new publication from the pension research council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Olivia Mitchell, a professor and executive director of the pension research council at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School and one of the editors of the volume, says institutional investors are split over the long-term value of an ESG approach between pursuing values such as moral causes and value regarding protecting investment returns.

“Private pensions, and some public plans as well, hew more closely to the latter. Accordingly, there is no one-size-fits-all regarding ESG and pensions in the U.S. It is an evolving field.” She adds very few U.S.-based defined contribution pension plans might include ESG funds. “In the U.S., at least, pension fiduciaries are moving only very cautiously in this arena.”

The dialogue around the use of ESG has also increased as a result of a lack of clarity around the exact metrics with taking this approach. Mitchell notes other challenges such as potentially higher administrative fees for actively managed ESG funds, as well as the fact these funds don’t have long track records and, “to some extent — lack of demand on the part of investors.”

The publication also identified the evolving state of risks that fund managers will have to keep a close eye on, including reputation, human capital management, litigation, regulations, corruption and climate. It noted defined benefit pension plans are particularly exposed to sharp asset value declines from downside risks.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for pension funds looking to use an environmental, social and governance lens in their investment approach, according to a new publication from the pension research council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Olivia Mitchell, a professor and executive director of the pension research council at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School and one of the editors of the volume, says institutional investors are split over the long-term value of an ESG approach between pursuing values such as moral causes and value regarding protecting investment returns.“Private pensions, and some public plans as well, hew more closely to the latter. Accordingly, there is no one-size-fits-all regarding ESG and pensions in the U.S. It is an evolving field.” She adds very few U.S.-based defined contribution pension plans might include ESG funds. “In the U.S., at least, pension fiduciaries are moving only very cautiously in this arena.”

The dialogue around the use of ESG has also increased as a result of a lack of clarity around the exact metrics with taking this approach. Mitchell notes other challenges such as potentially higher administrative fees for actively managed ESG funds, as well as the fact these funds don’t have long track records and, “to some extent — lack of demand on the part of investors.”

The publication also identified the evolving state of risks that fund managers will have to keep a close eye on, including reputation, human capital management, litigation, regulations, corruption and climate. It noted defined benefit pension plans are particularly exposed to sharp asset value declines from downside risks.

As the wealth disparity between Black and Latino families and their white counterparts in the U.S. continues to grow, the retirement savings gap between low- and high-income employees is becoming wider, and the data is staggering. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office revealed that, in 2022, a larger percentage of white households held a retirement account balance than that of any other race, and those accounts held about double the median balance of households of other races. Income, job-related factors and race were cited as being “strongly related to disparities in older workers’ retirement account balances” in the GAO’s separate analysis of data from the University of Michigan’s 2018 Health and Retirement Study. Households with higher income, longer job tenure and a college education tended to have larger balances, and households of non-white families and households with children had about 28% and 20% percent smaller balances, respectively. By tweaking plan design, offering an equitable benefits package and providing financial literacy education, plan sponsors have an opportunity to help close the racial retirement gap and encourage participants to contribute to a retirement account.

Slow Progress
Olivia Mitchell, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the executive director of the Pension Research Council, said via email that many plan sponsors are increasingly moving to auto-enrollment and auto-escalation, both of which can overcome inertia’s role in preventing retirement saving. Additionally, Mitchell said several states have adopted auto-IRA programs, in which employers with no retirement plans are required to enroll employees into state-organized Roth IRA plans. Mitchell added that research shows minorities tend to be more likely to hold debt, which in turn undermines their ability to save for retirement. For example, a report published by the Pension Research Council showed that 30% of older adults in communities of color held delinquent debt, as of August 2022, compared to 18% of those in majority-white communities.

The Pension Research Council also argued that there is an employer and social business case for improving the financial health of workers and addressing racial disparities in wealth, as financially secure workers are more satisfied with their employer, more engaged, more present and more productive. Employee financial wellness programs that include benefits like health savings accounts, emergency savings accounts and student loan reduction or repayment assistance can all help build participants’ assets overall. But the PRC argued that these programs are not sufficient on their own to close the racial retirement gap, as they do not include mandated minimum benefits for salaried workers, and they often exclude independent, part-time and self-employed workers.

Financial Literacy is Key
Vidhi Sanders, the vice president and head of participant outcomes at Capital Group, is well aware of the racial retirement gap and found a severe lack of financial literacy, across all demographics, when it comes to saving for retirement and making smart financial decisions.

In March 2022, Capital Group announced the launch of ICanRetire, an employee engagement program for plan sponsors, in response to the firm’s conclusion that people were not taking advantage or participating optimally in their retirement plans at work due to a lack of financial literacy. ICanRetire was originally piloted as a partnership with RWJBarnabas Health, an academic health care system and one of New Jersey’s largest private employers. Sanders said the program started with about 30,000 participants enrolled in the platform and has since grown to more than 400,000. “The program is essentially a much more inviting way to engage digitally with content, messaging and utility on a website that is completely white-labeled for the plan sponsor,” Sanders said. “We drive people to engage with the site through email, and we’re also testing SMS.” The program is available to certain plan sponsors through Capital Group/American Funds target-date funds, and it includes features like “one-click access” to an employee’s recordkeeper, “jargon-free” content, advice from personal finance thought leaders, a retirement personality quiz and other interactive tools.

Capital Group also plans to announce new enhancements to the program in September and October that are geared specifically toward Hispanic participants—who lag significantly behind others in retirement savings. The program currently uses five different personas that represent different age groups, participation rates and other psychographic factors like financial knowledge and investing confidence. These personas are not visible to participants using the program but inform the way ICanRetire creates tailored content and user experiences. Three new Hispanic personas are planned for the platform as part of the upcoming enhancements.

Sanders says it is important to recognize a population’s diverse cultural background and how that impacts the way its people think about money, in addition to translating all pages to make them available in a native tongue.

Creating Benefits Equity in a Union Plan
Joshua Luskin, the managing director of Secure Retirement Trust, a nonprofit retirement plan for home care workers, says he decided to take advantage of the ICanRetire program because he felt it aligned with his plan’s equity mission. Secure Retirement Trust provides benefits for the Service Employee International Union Benefits Group 775 in Seattle. Luskin says there are approximately 45,000 active caregivers represented by the union, about 85% of whom are women. The population is also disproportionately made up of Black, indigenous and non-white people and includes many with limited English proficiency, he says. Members of the plan speak at least seven different languages.

The SEIU 775 plan only includes employer contributions, as the intent is to create a replacement income stream in retirement, Luskin explains. Participants cannot withdraw funds from the plan but will start receiving installments when they turn 65 years old. SEIU has a partnership with Washington state to give workers access to IRA providers. One of ICanRetire’s objectives for the union plan was to drive more people to create and contribute to an IRA to supplement what they receive from the union’s defined contribution plan. Luskin says Secure Retirement Trust already was already using Capital Group as its investment provider and felt the firm was well-equipped to help educate workers on retirement planning. “Investment knowledge is a major hurdle and a retirement hurdle that BIPOC and [limited-English-proficient-workers] get overexposure to, so that’s [why] we set up that relationship with ICanRetire: to get them comfortable and send [those participants] over to the Washington marketplace [to create an IRA],” Luskin says. Sanders says ICanRetire was able to engage about 55,000 of SEIU’s roughly 80,000 members since launching the program about six weeks ago. ICanRetire also helped SEIU motivate more employees to register an account with Milliman, the plan’s recordkeeper, which many had not done. Luskin says more than 1,000 registrations have occurred and that the plan saw an increase of three to five times in engagement and registration after collaborating with Capital Group.

This is significant progress, as Luskin explains that the bottom two quintiles of SEIU’s population are struggling to save money in general. Many are single mothers with only one income stream. “I feel that the major hurdles are that we need more education [for participants],” Luskin says. “The Saver’s Credit is something that is good for low-income [employees], for example, but not many people take advantage of it. You need education about it or about delaying your Social Security payments.” The Saver’s Credit gives a special tax break to low- and moderate-income taxpayers who save for retirement through 401(k), 403(b), SIMPLE, SEP or governmental 457 plans or traditional and Roth IRAs.

Responsibility to Provide Financial Literacy
Kezia Charles, a senior director at WTW, says employees are increasingly looking to their employers to help with decisionmaking and retirement planning. “As employers think of different ways of decisionmaking, one tactic that has been used is employee resource groups or affinity groups to help with financial literacy and financial awareness,” Charles says. An affinity group or employee resource group is a collection of individuals who share a common identity characteristic, anything from gender or sexual orientation to race, nationality or religion. Charles says plan sponsors often partner with a financial planner or somebody within the human resources department to lead sessions on financial literacy for employee resource groups. She adds that employers often use these groups to educate people on their health benefits, as well. “We are seeing more and more employers looking at the diversity of financial planners to ensure that people are able to relate [to the planners], so they can have a more meaningful conversation,” Charles says.

Another tactic WTW has seen is including families in the financial education offerings, because for many people, their retirement planning is not solely an individual decision, but one to provide resources for the family. “We acknowledge and understand that raising [financial] awareness is one approach, but it’s not the only thing organizations are doing,” Charles points out. “You have to look at design, you have to look at participation and look at metrics to understand who’s participating and who’s not participating. Black and Hispanic people generally have less access to retirement plans, and they also participate less even when they have access. So you have to look at ways to increase participation.”

About 23% of Americans over age 65 live in poverty, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. That’s one of the highest shares among developed nations U.S. Census data suggests a smaller share of the elderly are poor, and that old-age poverty nationwide has been falling Experts say tweaks to Social Security benefits would be the best way to address senior poverty. But it would be costly at a time when the program’s finances are already shaky.

The U.S. retirement system is a sprawling complex, a so-called “three-legged stool” of Social Security payments, workplace savings plans and individual wealth. But is the system falling short in its primary goal of achieving a secure retirement for all Americans? Social Security won’t run out, but your check might not be what you’re expecting. But the answer has huge policy implications, ranging from the generosity of public benefits to the prevalence of employer-sponsored plans such as 401(k)s and pensions. “This is a fraught area,” said Olivia Mitchell, a professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania and executive director of the Pension Research Council. “There’s not a simple answer.”

Is old-age income poverty too high?
Consider this thought exercise: What is a tolerable poverty rate among American seniors? By one metric, the U.S. fares worse than most other developed nations in this category. About 23% of Americans over age 65 live in poverty, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. This ranks the U.S. behind 30 other countries in the 38-member bloc, which collectively has an average poverty rate of 13.1%. According to OECD data, only Mexico ranks worse than the U.S. in terms of old-age “poverty depth,” which means that among those who are poor, their average income is low relative to the poverty line. And just three countries have worse income inequality among seniors.

There are many contributing factors to these poverty dynamics, said Andrew Reilly, pension analyst in the OECD’s Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs. For one, the overall U.S. poverty rate is high relative to other developed nations — a dynamic that carries over into old age, Reilly said. The U.S. retirement system therefore “exacerbates” a poverty problem that already exists, he said. Further, the base U.S. Social Security benefit is lower than the minimum government benefit in most OECD member nations, Reilly said. There’s very little security relative to other countries. The U.S. is also the only developed country to not offer a mandatory work credit — an important factor in determining retirement benefit amount — to mothers during maternity leave, for example. Most other nations also give mandatory credits to parents who leave the workforce for a few years to take care of their young kids. “There’s very little security relative to other countries,” Reilly said of U.S public benefits.

That said, the U.S. benefit formula is, in some ways, more generous than other nations. For example, nonworking spouses can collect partial Social Security benefits based on their spouse’s work history, which isn’t typical in other countries, Mitchell said.

Old-age poverty seems to be improving
Here’s where it gets a little trickier: Some researchers think the OECD statistics overstate the severity of old-age poverty, due to the way in which the OECD measures poverty compared with U.S. statisticians’ methods. For example, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, 10.3% of Americans age 65 and older live in poverty — a much lower rate than OECD data suggests. That old-age income poverty rate has declined by over two-thirds in the past five decades, according to the Congressional Research Service. Historically, poverty among elderly Americans was higher than it was for the young. However, that’s no longer true — seniors have had lower poverty rates than those ages 18-64 since the early 1990s, CRS found. “The story of poverty in the U.S. is not one of older folks getting worse off,” Mitchell said. “They’re improving.” Regardless of the baseline — OECD, Census Bureau or other data — there’s a question as to what poverty rate is, or should be, acceptable in a country like the U.S., experts said. “We are arguably the most developed country in the world,” said David Blanchett, managing director and head of retirement research at PGIM, the investment management arm of Prudential Financial. “The fact anyone lives in poverty, one can argue, isn’t necessarily how we should be doing it,” he added. Despite improvements, certain groups of the elderly population — such as widows, divorced women and never-married men and women — are “still vulnerable” to poverty, wrote Zhe Li and Joseph Dalaker, CRS social policy analysts.

Two major problem areas persist
At the very least, there are facets of the system that should be tweaked, experts said. Researchers seem to agree that a looming Social Security funding shortfall is perhaps the most pressing issue facing U.S. seniors. Longer lifespans and baby boomers hurtling into their retirement years are pressuring the solvency of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund; it’s slated to run out of money in 2033. At that point, payroll taxes would fund an estimated 77% of promised retirement benefits, absent congressional action. “You could argue pending insolvency of Social Security is threatening older people’s financial wellbeing,” Mitchell said. “It is the whole foundation upon which the American retirement system is based.”

About 40 years ago, half of workers were covered by an employer-sponsored plan. The same is true now. Raising Social Security payouts at the low end of the income spectrum would help combat old-age poverty but would also cost more money at a time when the program’s finances are shaky, experts said. “The easiest way to combat poverty in retirement is to have a safety-net benefit at a higher level,” Reilly said. It would be “extremely expensive,” especially in a country as large as the U.S., he added. Blanchett favors that approach. Such a tweak could be accompanied by a reduction in benefits for higher earners, making the system even more progressive than it is now, he said. Currently, for example, Social Security replaces about 75% of income for someone with “very low” earnings (about $15,000), and 27% for someone with “maximum” earnings (about $148,000), according to the Social Security Administration. Reducing benefits for some would put a greater onus on such households to fund retirement with personal savings.

However, the relative lack of access to a savings plan at work — known as the “coverage gap” — is another obstacle to amassing more retirement wealth, experts said. Research shows that Americans are much more likely to save when their employer sponsors a retirement plan. But coverage hasn’t budged much in recent decades, even as employers have shifted from pensions to 401(k)-type plans. “About 40 years ago, half of workers were covered by an employer-sponsored plan,” Mitchell said. “The same is true now.” Of course, workplace plans aren’t a panacea. Contributing money is ultimately voluntary, unlike in other nations, such as the U.K. And it requires financial sacrifice, which may be difficult amid other household needs such as housing, food, child care and health care, experts said.

The Secure Act 2.0 legislation that passed late last year added new retirement savings options but also has a few potential catches for unsuspecting savers. Understanding these possible pitfalls may help you make better decisions, or at least be prepared for what’s to come. In my last column, I covered one set of these changes: new exceptions to the 10% federal penalty for tapping retirement money early. For this column, I’ll cover what you need to know about Secure 2.0′s changes to catch-up contributions and company matches for workplace plans.

A POTENTIALLY PROBLEMATIC CATCH-UP PROVISION
Catch-up provisions have long allowed older workers to put more money into retirement plans. In 2023, for example, people 50 and older can contribute an additional $7,500 to 401(k)s and 403(b)s, on top of the standard $22,500 deferral limit for all employees in those plans. Contributions that go into a plan’s pre-tax option are deductible. But starting next year, people who earn $145,000 or more will no longer get a tax deduction for their catch-up contributions to workplace retirement plans. They’ll be required instead to contribute the money to the plan’s Roth option. (People earning less than $145,000 may have the option, but not the requirement, to put catch-up contributions into the Roth.)

Withdrawals from Roths are tax-free in retirement, which can be a huge boon to many savers, says Colleen Carcone, director of wealth planning strategies at financial services firm TIAA. Contributing to a Roth is often recommended for younger workers who expect to be in the same or higher tax bracket in retirement. But many people’s tax brackets drop once they retire. Roth contributions can make less sense for older workers who may be paying a higher tax rate on their contributions than they’d avoid on their withdrawals.

Many financial planners still recommend putting at least some money into a Roth so retirees can better control their tax bill in retirement, Carcone says. However, losing the tax deduction could discourage people from making catch-up contributions, says economist Olivia S. Mitchell, executive director of the Pension Research Council, which researches retirement security issues.

And there’s another issue: Not all workplace plans have a Roth option. If an employer doesn’t add a Roth option, no one will be able to make catch-up contributions, Collado says.

ANOTHER PROBLEMATIC PROVISION: LAST-MINUTE CATCH-UPS
Beginning in 2025, workers ages 60 through 63 can make even larger catch-up contributions to workplace retirement plans. The maximum will be whichever is more: $10,000 or 150% of the standard catch-up contribution limit. The $10,000 will be adjusted annually for inflation. At age 64, the lower catch-up contribution limit again applies. Higher earners who make these catch-up contributions must use the plan’s Roth option. Lower earners must be given the option to do so. (The $145,000 income limit will be adjusted annually for inflation, so we don’t know yet what the exact cut-off amount will be when this takes effect.)

The higher limits could be helpful for those who can take advantage of them. However, many people’s incomes are on the decline by the time they hit their 60s and they may not have the extra cash to contribute. A 2018 data analysis by ProPublica and the Urban Institute found that more than half of workers who enter their 50s with steady, full-time employment are pushed out of those jobs before they’re ready to retire — and the vast majority never recover financially. And certainly no one should put off saving for retirement thinking they can catch up later, warns certified public accountant and financial planner Marianela Collado, who serves on the American Institute of CPAs’ personal financial planning executive committee. “Nothing could make up for the power of starting to save early on in your career,” Collado says.

COMPANY MATCHES COULD COST YOU
Secure 2.0 continues the so-called “Rothification” of retirement plans by giving employers the option of putting matching funds in workers’ Roth accounts. Currently, matching funds are contributed to pre-tax accounts, so they don’t add to a worker’s taxable income. Matching funds contributed to a Roth account, by contrast, would be considered taxable income for the employee. This won’t be mandatory for anybody. Employers won’t be required to offer this option, and employees won’t be required to take it if it is offered, Collado says. If you do opt for Roth matching funds, though, you should be prepared to pay a higher tax bill. Again, paying taxes now can make sense if you expect to be in a higher tax bracket in retirement — and you’re prepared to cough up the extra money.

THE TAKEAWAYS
Roths have a number of advantages, and many people will welcome the opportunity to save this way, but Roth contributions aren’t right for every saver. The Secure 2.0 changes have added enough complexity that people should consider getting expert advice about whether they’re saving enough and in the right ways, Carcone says. “It’s just important for individuals to make sure that they’re meeting and speaking with their financial advisor,” Carcone says.

This column was provided to The Associated Press by the personal finance website NerdWallet. The content is for educational and informational purposes and does not constitute investment advice. Liz Weston is a columnist at NerdWallet, a certified financial planner and author of “Your Credit Score.” Email: lweston@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lizweston.

Social Security’s looming funding shortfall has been well documented — so much so that a majority of Americans are “very” concerned that their payments will be reduced before they retire, according to a new survey conducted on behalf of Newsweek. The survey of 1,500 eligible voters, conducted on May 31 and released June 29, found that 88% of Americans are counting on Social Security to help see them through retirement. These respondents describe Social Security payments as either “extremely” or “reasonably” important to them.

At the same time, 60% said they are “very” concerned that payments will be reduced in the future, and another 36% said they are “fairly” or “slightly” concerned. Only 4% said they are not worried about lower payments. The reason so many Americans fret over the future of Social Security has to do with the program’s Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which is expected to run out of money as early as 2032 or 2033. When that happens, the program will be solely reliant on payroll taxes for funding — and those taxes only cover about 77% of current benefits.

This isn’t a new problem, but it has gotten a lot more attention in recent years as the funding shortfall moves closer. “As many Americans now understand, the program’s budget has run short since 2010, when program costs first exceeded payroll tax revenue. This gap continues to grow at a rapid rate,” Olivia S. Mitchell, an economics professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and director of the Pension Research Council, told Newsweek. The Social Security program “faces big trouble,” she added.

How To Fix Social Security Funding Shortfall
As Newsweek reported, fixing the program has become a major talking point ahead of the 2024 election. While some lawmakers have proposed either cutting Social Security benefits or raising the full retirement age, President Joe Biden favors bolstering the program through higher payroll taxes. However, he has still not offered specific proposals on how to deal with the trust fund depletion. “The President is focused on the immediate threat to Social Security: Congressional Republican attempts to cut benefits,” White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson told Newsweek. “He welcomes proposals from members of Congress on how to extend Social Security’s solvency without cutting benefits or increasing taxes on anyone making less than $400,000.”

For their part, Republicans haven’t specifically proposed bills to cut benefits, though U.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) recently hinted that the GOP might target Social Security for cuts as part of a broader effort to rein in government spending. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that something must be done to fix Social Security — and sooner rather than later.

“Today’s workers, persons with disabilities, retirees, and our children simply cannot plan ahead without knowing what will happen to Social Security in the future,” Mitchell said. She estimated that the program needs an additional $20.4 trillion to keep it stable for the next 75 years. Beyond that, another $61.8 trillion is needed to keep Social Security solvent for future generations, Mitchell said.

But others caution against pressing the panic button — mainly because payroll taxes are still sufficient to fund more than three-quarters of Social Security benefits well into the future. A March blog by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) pointed out that in 2022 alone, the Social Security system collected more than $1 trillion in revenue and paid out “about the same” in benefits. “Claims of Social Security’s impending ‘bankruptcy’ are highly misleading and demonstrate misunderstanding, or deliberate misrepresentation, of Social Security’s finances,” the CBPP’s Kathleen Romig and Luis Nuñez wrote. “Because Social Security faces no imminent crisis, policymakers have time to carefully craft a financing package that minimizes cuts to the program’s modest but critical benefits.”

The enactment of SECURE 2.0 triggered several changes to retirement income initiatives. In this video, a brief discussion of the key changes and the implications and opportunities those changes represent for both plan sponsors and participants. Melissa Kahn, Head of Retirement Public Policy at State Street Global Advisors, is joined by Olivia Mitchell, Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. (09:00)

Americans paid about $55 billion out of pocket on long-term care expenses in 2018, and these costs will keep rising as the country ages. One estimate says long-term care expenses could make up 3% of the U.S. gross domestic product by 2050. [1] One way some Americans have tried to plan for these costs is long-term care insurance. But the market for long-term care insurance is in “crisis” according to a recent report from the New York State department of Financial Services. The crisis stems from “pricing errors” made when the long-term care insurance markets first launched in the 80s. “Simply stated, LTC insurance plans across the country were initially offered at premium rates that were far lower than they should have been,” the report says. As a result, when people started filing claims, insurance companies took big losses. Many stopped selling policies altogether, while others raised prices.

What is long-term care insurance?
Long-term care insurance pays for the costs of a nursing home and other kinds of elder care, such as in-home nursing care. Health insurance, including Medicare, typically doesn’t cover these types of care.

“Uncertainty regarding longevity is making it increasingly difficult to determine how to price the product,” says Olivia Mitchell, a professor and executive director of the Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Basically, insurance companies have a hard time predicting how much people end up sending on things like home health attendants or assisted living over the course of their lives, making it tough to charge the right amount in premiums. Demand for long-term care insurance is dampened by a lack of information, Mitchell says. “Many people erroneously believe that Medicare will cover nursing home costs,” she says. “And some simply don’t understand the risk of needing relatively long periods of care in a nursing home.”

America faces a dilemma in how to provide long-term care for an aging population, but as of now, long-term care insurance is far from an end-all solution — it’s expensive, poorly understood, and many people underestimate their need for long-term care. “Most of us are not planners,” says Jesse Slome, director of the American Association for Long-term Care Insurance, a trade association for long-term care insurance agents and brokers. “It’s hard enough to get people to plan for retirement let alone plan for the end of their life. We all think ‘it’s not going to happen to me.’”

What are states doing to solve the long-term care insurance crisis?
The federal government has done little to address the crisis, Slome says. One reason is that long-term care costs generally fall on Medicaid, which is partially funded by the states, and not Medicare, which is funded by the federal government. Unlike the federal government, states aren’t allowed to run a deficit, so they can only manage their finances by raising taxes or cutting benefits. The 2010 Affordable Care Act initially included a public long-term care insurance program for employees, but it was withdrawn after critics questioned whether it was financially workable. [2] There’s been little appetite for a renewed effort in Congress, leaving states to tackle what should be a national issue on their own, Slome says. Washington is the state that’s gone the farthest, establishing the Washington Cares Fund, which goes into effect July 1. [3] It allows beneficiaries to access up to $36,500 in lifetime long-term care benefits, paid for by an 0.58% payroll tax on people who work in Washington state. Even this only covers a fraction of the potential costs. A year of nursing home care in Washington can cost nearly $93,000. [4] And many people won’t benefit at all if they move out of the state when they need long-term care. “For many people it will not be significantly meaningful,” Slome says.

Legislators in California are considering creating an even larger long-term care insurance program that could be worth up to $144,00 in benefits. Most states operate guaranty associations that protect a limited amount of benefits if a long-term care insurance company fails.

Should you consider long-term care insurance?
Despite the struggles of the long-term care insurance industry and the fledgling status of state efforts, people are still looking for ways to save for future long-term care — most folks don’t want to end up being a burden to their families as they age. Members of the sandwich generation are especially worried about this burden. Long-term care insurance isn’t for everyone, Slome says. The people who should consider it are between 55 and 65, with some degree of savings and retirement assets — anyone who doesn’t have some wealth will likely have to rely on Medicaid. Unlike homeowners insurance or car insurance, you should only shop for long term care insurance once in your life, Slome says. It almost never pays to switch policies because you’d have to go through medical underwriting again, and prices will only rise as you age. It’s best to work with an agent or broker who specializes in long-term care and who represents multiple companies — some people only sell products from one company.

One option is to buy a hybrid long-term care insurance policy, which combines life insurance and long-term care insurance into one policy. But Slome warned that these policies are often more expensive than buying long-term care insurance on its own. In addition, the older you get, the lower your need for life insurance, and the more likely you are to need long-term care, so it doesn’t make much sense to pair them. Because of the industry’s struggles, premiums are higher than they were in the past. But for the right person, Slome says, long-term care insurance is worth considering. And everyone should have some kind of plan for their future long-term care expenses. “Everybody hopes to live a long life,” he says, “but we really don’t think about the consequences to ourselves or to our family.”

Accumulating adequate income in retirement is especially difficult for Black and Hispanic families in the U.S., as the racial wealth gap and inequity in the housing market persists, according to research aggregated by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. At Wharton’s 2023 Pension Research Council Symposium in March, Harvard University professors Karen Dynan and Doug Elmendorf argued that the sharp decline in the share of families who have defined benefit pensions is a major factor contributing to the racial wealth gap in retirement—since defined benefit plans have traditionally provided considerable income in retirement and did not come directly out of an employee’s paycheck.

The symposium, titled “Diversity, Inclusion, and Inequality: Implications for Retirement Income Security and Policy” was held in Philadelphia on March 30 and 31. Based on research presented at the symposium, the Wharton School published a journal article, “Closing the Racial Wealth Gap in Retirement Readiness.” For families with white heads of household in their 50s, the Harvard professors found that median real wealth fell to roughly $172,00 in 2019 from $260,000 in 2000. In contrast, median real wealth for families with Black heads of household dropped even more significantly—to about $24,000 from $72,000 over the same time period. “One might hope that families without DB pensions would save more themselves, but that is not the case,” the professors noted at the symposium. “The challenge of receiving adequate income in retirement is especially acute for many families with Black heads, as Black-headed families … are notably less likely to have defined benefit pensions.”

Racial Inequity in the Housing Market
Historic inequities have prevented Blacks, in particular, from building housing wealth. According to Larry Santucci—senior advisor and research fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia—a 2016 survey found that 73% of white families owned their homes, with an average net housing wealth of about $216,000. By comparison, just 45% of Black families owned a home, with an average net housing wealth of only $94,400—less than half of the average white family. Housing wealth comprises two-fifths of the net wealth of retirement-age Americans, according to Amir Kermani, a professor of finance and real estate at the University of California, Berkeley. “About half of the Black-white gap can be explained by higher rates of distressed sales among Black homeowners,” Kermani and economics professor Francis Wong concluded in their presentation, “How Racial Differences in Housing Returns Shape Retirement Security.” “Closing the gap in housing returns would cut the Black-white gap in primary housing wealth at retirement in half.”

Social Security Insolvency Poses Threat to Racial Wealth Gap
“Retirement adequacy,” according to the Wharton School, is often defined as the ability to replace in retirement income equivalent to between 75% and 80% of pre-retirement income. For many households, retirement is mostly financed from pension accumulations, Social Security benefits and non-retirement assets, the Wharton School found. This poses a problem, as an increasing number of employees will not have access to a pension, and Social Security is on track to reach insolvency by 2034, where payable benefits are projected to fall to 80% of expected levels.

While the median Black household earns 24% less per adult than the median white household, the latter has six times more marketable wealth—such as stocks, housing equity and bank accounts—than the former. But after taking Social Security wealth into account, the Black and white wealth gap is far smaller, reported Wharton finance professor Sylvain Catherine and Yale Law School professor Natasha Sarin in their paper, “Social Security and the Racial Wealth Gap.” Catherine and Sarin found that Social Security wealth currently comprises 61% and 59% of Black and Hispanic households’ total assets, respectively, up from just 21% and 9% three decades ago. “This is because the progressive Social Security benefit formula pays relatively higher benefits to lower-earning, versus higher-paid, workers,” the Wharton paper stated.

Catherine and Sarin warned that unless policymakers reform Social Security to address its looming insolvency, lower-income retirees and particularly Black and Hispanic households, will confront larger racial wealth gaps.

Debt Disproportionately Burdens Racial Minorities
Carrying debt into retirement is another factor that is undermining older Americans’ ability to accumulate wealth. An Urban Institute presentation, “Racial Differences in Debt Delinquencies and Implications for Retirement Preparedness,” tracked about 4.8 million adults aged at least 50 who had credit bureau records and found that the median debt amount for older households with debt was about three times higher in 2016 ($55,300) than in 1989 ($18,900). The researchers also found that, compared to an older adult in a majority-white community, an older adult in a community of color is more likely to have any type of delinquent debt, carry a higher balance of total delinquent debt and have a higher balance of medical debt in collections. In a majority-white community, an older adult is more likely to have a higher balance of student loan debt and credit card debt, according to the research.

Policy Reforms That Could Help Close Gap
Beyond financial wellness programs and the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022, which both aim to help employees’ retirement readiness and manage their personal finances, speakers at Wharton’s symposium identified several ways in which the racial retirement wealth gap can be narrowed. Naomi Zewde, a professor in the department of health policy and management in the Fielding School of Public Health at UCLA, noted that several states and municipalities have launched Baby Bonds programs, often with more generous financing for lower-income families. Baby Bonds set aside funds for babies born into poverty and help parents pay for their children’s education. These are federally funded, and parents and kids cannot access the money until early adulthood.

Retirement-friendly tax reform policies could also benefit minorities. According to “Tax Policy to Reduce Racial Retirement Wealth Inequality,” the typical white household has more non-Social Security retirement wealth ($176,000) than the typical Hispanic household ($35,000) and seven times more than the typical Black household ($24,300). The authors of this study argued that racial inequities can be addressed by reorienting retirement savings incentives toward moderate-income families, taxing retirement income streams more equitably at the state level and ensuring taxation of real estate wealth in retirement.

Expanded access to emergency savings accounts and easier portability of retirement balances from employer to employer are also solutions mentioned to close the racial retirement wealth gap. David C. John, senior strategic policy advisor at the AARP Public Policy Institute, and J. Mark Iwry and William G. Gale, both senior fellows at The Brookings Institution, found in their research that people of color and lower-income workers lack access to emergency savings devices, with 53% of Black workers and 64% of Hispanic workers in this situation, as compared with 42% of white workers. “Having an emergency savings account and auto-enrollment in pensions are especially important for enhancing retirement preparedness,” the Wharton paper stated.

Most Americans have a significant chunk of their life savings in the form of home equity, so inequities in homeownership could have far-reaching consequences for household wealth and retirement preparedness. But home equity is not the only factor contributing to retirement inequality in the U.S. The 2023 Pension Research Council Symposium delved deep into those factors and the potential policy reforms that could fix them. The symposium, titled “Diversity, Inclusion, and Inequality: Implications for Retirement Income Security and Policy,” was held in Philadelphia on March 30 and 31.

Some in the retirement industry look back fondly on the days when company pensions guaranteed paychecks, but experts are not convinced the nostalgia is deserved. “There’s almost like this sort of mythical Camelot,” says Brendan Curran, head of defined contribution for the Americas at State Street Global Advisors. “It’s painted as a rosy and perfect place, initially in the story, but then by the end, you understand that it’s a little bit more multifaceted than that.” Experts say the defined benefit world was not as ideal as it is made out to be, as wide swaths of the population were left without coverage. However, most agree there is still a lot the retirement industry can do to improve the 401(k) model, such as including a DB/retirement paycheck as an option. Curran’s sentiment of not over-glorifying the past pension system is shared by Olivia Mitchell, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “I cast a skeptical eye on those who argue that DB plans represented the best that the ‘good old days’ had to offer,” Mitchell says.

The defined benefit pension model popular 40 years ago was well-suited to the labor market at the time, Mitchell says. DB plans were offered by large, usually unionized firms at which workers tended to remain their entire careers. Additionally, DB plans typically paid benefits as a lifetime income stream, which helped cover workers protect against longevity risk. “The DB model was not well-suited to many subgroups,” Mitchell says. “[That includes] women who moved in and out of the workforce due to child-rearing, those who changed jobs, non-union workers and employees at small firms lacking the infrastructure to set up and run such complex retirement offerings. Moreover, we now know that many firms did not fully fund their DB plans, leading to drastically reduced payouts when companies went bankrupt.”

One of the primary issues that has made the DB model less effective over the years is that coverage was built around full career employees, says Melissa Kahn, a managing director and retirement policy strategist at State Street Global Advisors. “Pensions are great for people who work at one company for 30 years or more,” says Kahn. “The reality, as we all know, is that for the majority of people, they will hold somewhere between 10 and 12 jobs in their careers. Pensions, in that situation, aren’t necessarily the best alternatives.” Even with a more transitory job market, DB plans have evolved over time, and many plan sponsors and advisories still see great value in the way they ensure income in retirement for employee bases and organizations for whom it makes sense. In a recent PLANADVISER webinar, DB experts noted that there may even be renewed interest in starting DB plans or unfreezing them to accept new participants thanks to regulations and innovations that can help make them less volatile. Overall, however, the DC world dominates the DB one today.

Pension Plans: They Weren’t For All
When thinking about the “glory” days of pensions, however, State Street Global’s Curran says it is important to remember issues with that type of coverage. He points to 2019 testimony that Representative Andrew Biggs, R-Arizona, provided to Congress. The testimony revealed that DB pensions peaked at 39% of workers in 1975. A 1972 study by the Senate Labor Subcommittee found that between 70% and 92% of traditional DB participants did not qualify for a benefit, which Curran believes was due to pension plans having a lengthy vesting requirement. Additionally, he says the DB model did not cover for those on the lower end of the wage scale. “A 1980s Social Security Administration survey found that only about 9% of new retirees that were in the bottom half of the income distribution received any pension benefit, and it was closer to half when you looked at the top quartile of the income distribution,” he says.

As pension was tied to pay, women and people of color were particularly at a disadvantage, says Kahn. “As we know, women, particularly minority women, make much less than white men do,” she says. “That continues today, and that obviously reflects in the kind of pensions that they’re going to get as well.” Under the DC model, among all workers aged 26 to 64 in 2018, 67% participated in a retirement plan either directly or through a spouse, according to the Investment Company Institute. That number ranged, however, from 59% of those aged 26 to 34 to about 70% of those aged 45 to 64. Coverage also varied depending on income. For those with adjusted gross income less than $20,000 per person, only 25% participated in a plan. For those with AGI of $100,000 per person or more, 88% participated.

401(k), Social Security the Solution?
Given the problems with the pension era, might we be better off with 401(k)s and Social Security, if they are used correctly? “The person who’s called the father of 401(k), a gentleman by the name of Ted Benna, always said that the 401(k) was never designed to be the sole source of income,” says Ray Bellucci, executive vice president and head of recordkeeping solutions at TIAA. “Just like Social Security, since its founding in the 1930s, was never designed to be the sole source of income.” However, Bellucci believes if an individual can couple Social Security with a 401(k) or a 403(b), building into their 401(k) savings plan guaranteed income, they can bring the two vehicles together as a very effective income replacement in retirement. “On shared accountability, TIAA believes that the magic number, so to speak, that you should be saving in a 401(k) or a 403(b) between the employer and employees is about 15% of your income,” he says. “That’s what we believe is the right number for you to target.”

Furthermore, defined contribution plans, including 401(k) and 403(b) plans, are much more portable, allowing workers to roll over their contributions and, usually, employer matches from one job to the next, according to Mitchell. “DC plans also offer a choice of investment strategies to covered workers, which was not the case in the old DB world,” she says. “Of course, if people are not financially literate, they may not select the lowest-cost and best plan investments, and at retirement, people can still take all their retirement assets and spend them.”

Therefore, Annamaria Lusardi, a professor of economics and accountancy at the George Washington University School of Business, believes it is imperative for workers to be financially literate, as the responsibility for managing and allocating retirement totals now falls largely on the individual worker. “From the time the worker gets to the firm, they have to decide whether and how much to contribute, how to allocate that pension and also, importantly, what to do when he or she changes jobs. Also, [workers have to decide] how to decumulate the wealth when [they are] going to get the wealth at retirement, so it’s not just the accumulation phase, but the decumulation phase,” says Lusardi. “I would say it is imperative that we not just change the pension and put individuals in charge, but that we provide the type of knowledge and support that is necessary for making those decisions.”

Overall, Mitchell believes the DC model is better suited to many workers today than was the old retirement plan approach. “What is still in question is whether and how our policymakers will restore Social Security solvency before benefits need to be cut in about a decade,” she says.

Inspiration for Lifetime Income
It is common at retirement industry gatherings to hear talk of the “good old days” when pensions used to champion in-plan annuities as a guaranteed paycheck. To Kahn and other experts, what must be kept in mind is that, rather than trying to emulate a system that no longer works for the modern world, plans must evolve to help everyone find retirement security. “The DC market is going to evolve, and what’s driving the innovation is this push toward retirement income solutions,” she says.

Bellucci says TIAA pays guaranteed lifetime income every month to 33,000 retirees aged 90 or older and will continue until they die. “That sense of security I talked about earlier of not outliving your savings,” he says. “It’s a theory for somebody in their 40s and 50s. It’s a reality for somebody in their 90s, and as a society, we’re living longer.” Curran cites a survey fielded by State Street, in which 76% of survey participants valued an employer retirement solution that provided predictable income. “As we think about innovation and retirement income and this idea of pension nostalgia to us, it comes back to: What are participants expressing in terms of their needs?” he says. “Through their actions and their words and what we’re hearing loud and clear is the need for solutions that address the retirement income challenge.”

Experts point out the flaws in the often lauded ‘pension past,’ while discussing what the 401(k) present needs to be more impactful for more people.

Some in the retirement industry look back fondly on the days when company pensions guaranteed paychecks, but experts are not convinced the nostalgia is deserved. “There’s almost like this sort of mythical Camelot,” says Brendan Curran, head of defined contribution for the Americas at State Street Global Advisors. “It’s painted as a rosy and perfect place, initially in the story, but then by the end, you understand that it’s a little bit more multifaceted than that.” Experts say the defined benefit world was not as ideal as it is made out to be, as wide swaths of the population were left without coverage. However, most agree there is still a lot the retirement industry can do to improve the 401(k) model, such as including a DB/retirement paycheck as an option. Curran’s sentiment of not over-glorifying the past pension system is shared by Olivia Mitchell, a professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “I cast a skeptical eye on those who argue that DB plans represented the best that the ‘good old days’ had to offer,” Mitchell says.

The defined benefit pension model popular 40 years ago was well-suited to the labor market at the time, Mitchell says. DB plans were offered by large, usually unionized firms at which workers tended to remain their entire careers. Additionally, DB plans typically paid benefits as a lifetime income stream, which helped cover workers protect against longevity risk. “The DB model was not well-suited to many subgroups,” Mitchell says. “[That includes] women who moved in and out of the workforce due to child-rearing, those who changed jobs, non-union workers and employees at small firms lacking the infrastructure to set up and run such complex retirement offerings. Moreover, we now know that many firms did not fully fund their DB plans, leading to drastically reduced payouts when companies went bankrupt.”

One of the primary issues that has made the DB model less effective over the years is that coverage was built around full career employees, says Melissa Kahn, a managing director and retirement policy strategist at State Street Global Advisors. “Pensions are great for people who work at one company for 30 years or more,” says Kahn. “The reality, as we all know, is that for the majority of people, they will hold somewhere between 10 and 12 jobs in their careers. Pensions, in that situation, aren’t necessarily the best alternatives.” Even with a more transitory job market, DB plans have evolved over time, and many plan sponsors and advisories still see great value in the way they ensure income in retirement for employee bases and organizations for whom it makes sense. In a recent PLANADVISER webinar, DB experts noted that there may even be renewed interest in starting DB plans or unfreezing them to accept new participants thanks to regulations and innovations that can help make them less volatile. Overall, however, the DC world dominates the DB one today.

Pension Plans: They Weren’t For All
When thinking about the “glory” days of pensions, however, State Street Global’s Curran says it is important to remember issues with that type of coverage. He points to 2019 testimony that Representative Andrew Biggs, R-Arizona, provided to Congress. The testimony revealed that DB pensions peaked at 39% of workers in 1975. A 1972 study by the Senate Labor Subcommittee found that between 70% and 92% of traditional DB participants did not qualify for a benefit, which Curran believes was due to pension plans having a lengthy vesting requirement. Additionally, he says the DB model did not cover for those on the lower end of the wage scale. “A 1980s Social Security Administration survey found that only about 9% of new retirees that were in the bottom half of the income distribution received any pension benefit, and it was closer to half when you looked at the top quartile of the income distribution,” he says.

As pension was tied to pay, women and people of color were particularly at a disadvantage, says Kahn. “As we know, women, particularly minority women, make much less than white men do,” she says. “That continues today, and that obviously reflects in the kind of pensions that they’re going to get as well.” Under the DC model, among all workers aged 26 to 64 in 2018, 67% participated in a retirement plan either directly or through a spouse, according to the Investment Company Institute. That number ranged, however, from 59% of those aged 26 to 34 to about 70% of those aged 45 to 64. Coverage also varied depending on income. For those with adjusted gross income less than $20,000 per person, only 25% participated in a plan. For those with AGI of $100,000 per person or more, 88% participated.

401(k), Social Security the Solution?
Given the problems with the pension era, might we be better off with 401(k)s and Social Security, if they are used correctly? “The person who’s called the father of 401(k), a gentleman by the name of Ted Benna, always said that the 401(k) was never designed to be the sole source of income,” says Ray Bellucci, executive vice president and head of recordkeeping solutions at TIAA. “Just like Social Security, since its founding in the 1930s, was never designed to be the sole source of income.” However, Bellucci believes if an individual can couple Social Security with a 401(k) or a 403(b), building into their 401(k) savings plan guaranteed income, they can bring the two vehicles together as a very effective income replacement in retirement. “On shared accountability, TIAA believes that the magic number, so to speak, that you should be saving in a 401(k) or a 403(b) between the employer and employees is about 15% of your income,” he says. “That’s what we believe is the right number for you to target.”

Furthermore, defined contribution plans, including 401(k) and 403(b) plans, are much more portable, allowing workers to roll over their contributions and, usually, employer matches from one job to the next, according to Mitchell. “DC plans also offer a choice of investment strategies to covered workers, which was not the case in the old DB world,” she says. “Of course, if people are not financially literate, they may not select the lowest-cost and best plan investments, and at retirement, people can still take all their retirement assets and spend them.”

Therefore, Annamaria Lusardi, a professor of economics and accountancy at the George Washington University School of Business, believes it is imperative for workers to be financially literate, as the responsibility for managing and allocating retirement totals now falls largely on the individual worker. “From the time the worker gets to the firm, they have to decide whether and how much to contribute, how to allocate that pension and also, importantly, what to do when he or she changes jobs. Also, [workers have to decide] how to decumulate the wealth when [they are] going to get the wealth at retirement, so it’s not just the accumulation phase, but the decumulation phase,” says Lusardi. “I would say it is imperative that we not just change the pension and put individuals in charge, but that we provide the type of knowledge and support that is necessary for making those decisions.”

Overall, Mitchell believes the DC model is better suited to many workers today than was the old retirement plan approach. “What is still in question is whether and how our policymakers will restore Social Security solvency before benefits need to be cut in about a decade,” she says.

Inspiration for Lifetime Income
It is common at retirement industry gatherings to hear talk of the “good old days” when pensions used to champion in-plan annuities as a guaranteed paycheck. To Kahn and other experts, what must be kept in mind is that, rather than trying to emulate a system that no longer works for the modern world, plans must evolve to help everyone find retirement security. “The DC market is going to evolve, and what’s driving the innovation is this push toward retirement income solutions,” she says.

Bellucci says TIAA pays guaranteed lifetime income every month to 33,000 retirees aged 90 or older and will continue until they die. “That sense of security I talked about earlier of not outliving your savings,” he says. “It’s a theory for somebody in their 40s and 50s. It’s a reality for somebody in their 90s, and as a society, we’re living longer.” Curran cites a survey fielded by State Street, in which 76% of survey participants valued an employer retirement solution that provided predictable income. “As we think about innovation and retirement income and this idea of pension nostalgia to us, it comes back to: What are participants expressing in terms of their needs?” he says. “Through their actions and their words and what we’re hearing loud and clear is the need for solutions that address the retirement income challenge.”

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a deal on the debt ceiling over the weekend in a step toward averting what many experts say could have been a financial disaster for the U.S. But weeks of political back and forth left many American seniors on edge, concerned Social Security checks could’ve been delayed. For Claudia and John Vrabel of Westminster, Maryland, their golden years have come in a palette of colors. At 76, John Vrabel has found passion in gardening at his Maryland home. “I’ve always had a garden, and had to work in one as a kid,” John Vrabel said. But these days these two retirees are concerned with one color in particular — green.

The Vrabels are on a fixed income. They get $2,100 a month from Social Security, which helps pay bills, buy groceries and pay the mortgage. But for the Vrabels — and millions of other Americans — it’s been a nerve-wracking few weeks. Political back-and-forth over the debt ceiling left them wondering if their Social Security check might be delayed. “That would kill us,” Claudia Vrabel said. “I don’t know how we’d manage. Where are we gonna get money from? The only thing I can do is borrow money off the house.”

By Monday, it appeared Social Security checks wouldn’t be delayed, as it would be highly unlikely the U.S. will now default on its debt obligations. “It’s irresponsible to be playing political games with a population that has worked hard, played by the rules,” said Ramsey Alwin, CEO of the National Council on Aging. An estimated 69.1 million people receive Social Security in this country, and 97% of them are seniors. “Americans are already starting to see some of the pressure this whole debate is imposing on the economy,” said Olivia Mitchell, a professor at the Wharton School.

Seniors nationwide are on the front lines of the fight to raise the debt ceiling, because if the federal government can’t make a June 2 payment slated for Social Security recipients, the oldest beneficiaries — those over 88 — and people with disabilities will be the first to suffer.

Roughly $98 billion worth of benefits, including Medicare, Medicaid, and military and civil retirement payments, are scheduled to go out in the first two days of June, according to an analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Representatives from the White House and House Republicans continued talks on Wednesday aimed at raising the debt ceiling, before the government risks defaulting on debts owed, which could happen as soon as June 1.

The timing of an early June default threatens to hurt the country’s oldest and poorest Social Security recipients, said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Financial literacy education does not have a great reputation. It’s a huge industry, spawning all sorts of books, web channels, TV shows and even social media accounts — but past studies have concluded that, for the most part, financial literacy education is kind of a waste of time. For example, a much cited paper published in the journal Management Science found that almost everyone who took a financial literacy class forgot what they learned within 20 months, and that financial literacy has a “negligible” impact on future behavior. A trio of academics at Harvard Business School, Wellesley College and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, produced a working paper that showed that mandated Finlit classes given to high schoolers made no difference to the students’ ability to handle their finances. And the list goes on. The name that comes up again and again in these papers and reports on financial literacy is Annamaria Lusardi. She is a professor of economics and accountancy at the George Washington University School of Business. She’s also the founder and academic director of the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center at GWU. She and Olivia Mitchell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, published a paper in 2013 that amounted to a study of studies about financial literacy, and it was quite critical of the way financial literacy programs are taught. This study of studies has been widely quoted ever since.

New Hope For Financial Dullards
Ten years later, Lusardi and Mitchell are out with a new paper, similarly titled, but much more upbeat. “The Importance of Financial Literacy: Opening A New Field,” picks up where their 2013 study of studies left off, and it draws on the two women’s experience teaching personal finance. The first thing they establish is that the level of financial literacy, globally, is just as woeful as it was when they released their seminal paper ten years ago. To establish this, they conducted a survey that asked participants three questions, which focus on interest rates, inflation and risk diversification. “These are simple questions,” Lusardi says, “Yet they test for basic and fundamental knowledge at the basis of most economic decisions. In addition, answering these questions does not require difficult calculations, as we do not test for knowledge of mathematics but rather for an understanding of how interest rates and inflation work. The questions also test knowledge of the language of finance.” How did respondents do? Let’s just say there is room for improvement. (You can test your own knowledge by checking out the paper).

“Only 43% of the respondents (in the US) are able to answer all of the questions correctly,” Lusardi says, adding that the level of financial illiteracy is particularly acute amongst women. “Only 29% of women answer all three questions correctly, versus 48% of men,” she says, adding that this gender difference is strikingly stable across the 140 countries that they ran the test in. “We also see … that women are much more likely than men to respond that they do not know/refuse to answer at least one financial literacy question,” she says. Such gender differences are likely to be the result of lack of self-confidence, in addition to lack of knowledge.”

Young people are also more likely to be disadvantaged in this area, Lusardi and Mitchell found, as are people of color. “The young display very low financial literacy, with only one-third being able to answer all three questions correctly. Half of Whites could correctly answer all three questions, versus only 26% of Blacks and 22% of Hispanics.” This is a problem, Lusardi says, not just because it means that many people are ill equipped to handle an increasingly complicated and complex financial landscape that can impact their earnings and long-term wealth. There are obvious social implications to the fact that white males appear to have a significant edge on the rest of the population in this area. And if that isn’t enough, Lusardi says, it’s also a problem for the economy.

“On average, Americans spend seven hours per week dealing with personal finance issues, three of which are at work. People with low financial literacy spend double that amount,” she says. The impact on productivity of people spending most of an entire working day on their personal finances whilst at work is considerable, she goes on. Add in the consequences of mismanagement of assets, investments, mortgages and other debt, and there is a significant potential effect on the economy. Lusardi says this idea, that the damage wrought by a lack of financial literacy might extend beyond the individual — to companies and even to the economy has not escaped the notice of governments. “Influential policymakers and central bankers, including former Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, have … spoken to the critical importance of financial literacy,” the paper says. “Additionally, the European Commission has recently acknowledged the importance of financial literacy as a key step for a capital markets union. Some governments have … implemented financial literacy training in high schools. Several years ago, the Council for Economic Education (CEE 2013) established National Standards for Financial Literacy, detailing what should be covered in personal finance courses in school.”

Fixing The Flaws
A decade ago, Lusardi and Mitchell were somewhat critical of the financial literacy courses offered by companies and schools. The programs were generally not effective, they said, not because the concept of personal finance education was flawed per se, but because the various programs were generally not well resourced, and often poorly conceived. “Most of these (courses) in the US were unfunded,” Lusardi says. “There was no curriculum. There were no materials, and teachers were hardly trained. So the gym teacher was teaching financial literacy, or anybody they could find. This is, of course, not going to work. It wouldn’t work for any topic. If you have a course in French and the teacher doesn’t speak good French, (students) are probably not going to learn good French either.” Moreover, the classes, whether taught in schools or in corporate offices, tended to provide one-shot, one-size-fits-all instructions, with little or no follow-up. Lusardi says that was a recipe for failure. But those organizations that have recognized the need for financial literacy programs, and that have persisted in developing them, have made progress, she says.

“Many programs have moved beyond very short interventions, such as a single retirement seminar or sending employees to a benefits fair, to more robust programs,” Lusardi says. “Financial literacy has now become an official field of study in the economics profession. Many initiatives at national levels have been launched, and more than 80 countries have set up national committees entrusted with the design and implementation of national strategies for financial literacy.” Lusardi says it’s particularly important to teach and consolidate principles of good personal finance as early as possible, which means starting at home — where children are likely to model good financial habits — and in school. To that end, the Programme for International Student Assessment in 2012 added financial literacy to the set of topics that 15-year-old students need to know to be able to participate in modern society and be successful in the labor market. Lusardi says that in the decade since she and Mitchell released their 2013 report, their experience teaching financial literacy has proved that these programs, properly taught, can work. “Our research shows that much can be done to help people make savvier financial decisions,” she says, noting that a successful course will help people grasp key fundamental financial concepts, particularly financial risk and risk management. It will help them understand the workings of specific financial instruments and contracts, such as student loans, mortgages, credit cards, investments, and annuities. It will also make them aware of their rights and obligations in the financial marketplace.

Most importantly of all, of course, it will attract and retain the students’ interest, which isn’t always easy in the dry world of finance. “I teach very differently now because of my research,” Lusardi says. “I say, what do you think this course is about? And as you can imagine, most of the students think it’s about investing in the stock market. That’s what personal finance is associated with. And I tell them, ‘No, this is a happiness project. We talk about all of the decisions that are fundamental and important in your life. And I want to teach you to make them well, because if you do, you are going to be happy.’”

The second annual University of Pennsylvania Population Aging Research Center (PARC) Aging Retreat focused on the dramatic demographic changes that represent one of the American health care system’s most daunting challenges as its population continues to skew ever older.

Co-Directed by LDI Senior Fellows Norma Coe and Hans-Peter Kohler, PARC was established in 1994 with a grant from the National Institute on Aging. The organization brings together multidisciplinary health services researchers from seven of Penn’s Schools to study the demography and economics of aging, with a particular focus on aging in marginalized minority and ethnic populations.

Coe, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of medicine with research interests in health economics and public finance. Kohler, PhD, is a Professor of Demography in the Department of Sociology with research interests in fertility and health in developing and developed countries.

The day-long Aging Retreat on May 1 at Penn’s Perry World House featured 14 speakers who presented on the latest research looking ahead at what the sweeping demographic changes mean for the economy of health care, health equity, and the wellbeing of both the ballooning elderly population and its caregivers.

What You Need to Know
A new paper set to be published in the Financial Planning Review underscores how debt problems interact with retirement readiness.
The data shows significant retirement readiness gaps and differences in debt constraints between various demographic groups.
People who correctly answered fundamental financial literacy questions appear to have less debt and to be better prepared for retirement.

Driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, many households have experienced financial shocks over the past several years due to unemployment, working-hour cuts, furloughs and drops in compensation. Such shocks, combined with insufficient emergency savings, have constrained their balance sheets — and jeopardized their retirement preparedness. This is according to a new analysis set to be published in the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards’ Financial Planning Review. The forthcoming paper, written by contributing researchers Andrea Hasler, Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell, details which U.S. population subgroups report feeling most debt-constrained, how this perception was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it relates to financial literacy and retirement readiness. The researchers say their analysis shows that, prior to and during the pandemic, one in three American adults felt constrained by their debt. The percentage was higher among what the authors refer to as “vulnerable” subgroups, including Black and Hispanic individuals, those lacking a bachelor’s degree, those with lower incomes and those with low levels of financial literacy. According to the trio, being debt-constrained also has negative long-term financial consequences, particularly when it comes to planning and saving for retirement. Ultimately, the authors explain, financial literacy has a strong connection to both debt and retirement money management, “confirming that financial knowledge is essential if people are to be able to manage their debt and build financial well-being.”

Setting Up the Analysis
As the researchers explain, the key underlying data for the new analysis stems from the TIAA Institute-Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center Personal Finance Index, which is a survey tool designed to measure Americans’ knowledge and understanding of the factors leading to sound financial decision-making and effective management of personal finances. The index itself is based on a repeating, nationally representative survey that was first fielded in 2017. For their present study, the researchers analyzed and compared the 2020 and 2021 data waves, both of which were collected in January of their respective years. Accordingly, this design permits the researchers to compare data collected right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and then again 10 months into the crisis. Notably, Black and Hispanic Americans were oversampled in 2021, permitting Hasler, Lusardi and Mitchell to analyze these historically underrepresented groups in finer detail, though both surveys included statistical weights to generate nationally representative results. From this starting point, the researchers examine how people reported that debt has constrained their progress toward personal finance goals, and they also study responses to questions asking about late debt payments — a clear indicator of debt being burdensome for people’s personal finances. According to the researchers, this late-payment question is additionally useful as a robustness check on the debt-constraint measure, though they admit they cannot perfectly compare results over time, as the wording of the questions in 2020 and 2021 changed somewhat.

Running the Numbers
The analysis shows that, in 2021, almost one-third of respondents indicated that they felt debt-constrained, and 22% reported being late on their debt payments. By comparison, in early 2020, prior to the pandemic’s full-fledged arrival in the U.S., the same percentage of the U.S. population stated it felt debt-constrained, but only 13% of respondents reported being late on their debt payments. Hasler, Lusardi and Mitchell suggest these results show that debt and debt management is not a short-term issue facing many Americans. “Rather, it has been a concern for some time,” they write. “The changed wording of the late debt payment question explains why so many answered the 2021 question positively, as it included not only those who were late on loan payments (similar to 2020), but also people in arrears on their bills.”

Next, the researchers turn to an investigation of the long-term consequences of debt by examining two indicators of retirement readiness, including retirement planning and saving for retirement. According to the authors, it is important to understand retirement readiness for three reasons. First, retirement planning is a strong predictor of wealth. Second, given the fact that the income replacement rates provided by Social Security are far less than 100% for most retirees, workers today must set aside private savings to ensure their financial security after they stop working. Accordingly, a lack of retirement wealth may be a leading indicator of financial fragility in retirement. Third, people who plan for retirement also tend to be savvier about their life cycle financial resources. Across both survey years, results show that around 58% of U.S. non-retirees saved for retirement on a regular basis. However, only about 37% reported having ever tried to figure out how much they needed to save for retirement.

Nuances in the Results
The researchers then turn to a more detailed analysis of the self-reported debt-constraint measure, including its correlation with financial literacy and retirement readiness. They find that, in 2021, around 30% of Americans reported feeling constrained by their debt, while some 20% took a neutral position and the remaining 50% did not feel that debt and debt payments prevented them from adequately addressing other financial priorities. Comparably, 22% reported being late on their debt and bill payments in 2021. The researchers say these figures are alarming enough on their own, but the averages hide large differences across demographic subgroups. Specifically, among Black Americans and Hispanics, 38% and 46% felt debt-constrained, respectively, in stark contrast to the white population, where 26% reported being financially constrained by their debt. The researchers say these figures underscore meaningful differences by race and ethnicity, indicating that Black Americans and Hispanics likely face more challenges with short- and long-term financial well-being. The researchers say their findings match those of other recent research investigating broad measures of financial well-being that include debt management across different racial and ethnic groups. As in those analyses, Hasler, Lusardi and Mitchell find education appears to be another factor important to debt management.

Significantly fewer respondents with at least a bachelor’s degree (23%) reported feeling constrained by their debt, compared to their peers with some college but no degree (33%) or only a high school degree (32%). This gap exists even when controlling for a range of socio-demographic variables including income, according to the researchers. Beyond general education levels, Hasler, Lusardi and Mitchell also analyze respondents’ financial literacy and financial education levels. Overall, people who could correctly answer three fundamental financial literacy questions assessing knowledge of interest, inflation and risk diversification were significantly less likely to indicate that they felt debt-constrained. Specifically, one in five (21%) of the financially literate reported being debt-constrained, versus more than one in three (35%) among those who could not correctly answer a handful of targeted financial literacy questions.

Overall, according to Hasler, Lusardi and Mitchell, fewer survey respondents who had participated in a financial education class or program offered in high school or college, in the workplace, or by an organization or institution in their community felt debt-constrained compared to respondents who did not participate in a financial education class or program.

Takeaways for Retirement Advisors
The researchers suggest a key part of their work is the effort to determine whether being debt-constrained matters not just for short-term but also for long-term financial outcomes. To get at the question, they examine the link between the debt-constraint measure and retirement readiness. The data provides initial evidence of a strong correlation, the researchers say. According to Hasler, Lusardi and Mitchell, in January 2021, only 31% of non-retired debt-constrained respondents reported having ever tried to figure out how much they need to save for their retirement. Of non-retired respondents who were not debt-constrained, 47% indicated that they had been planning for retirement. “This large difference underscores the strong correlation between struggling with debt and lack of retirement readiness,” the researchers posit. “An even more pronounced result arises in the pre-pandemic data (for 2020), with 26% of debt-constrained respondents indicating that they planned for retirement, versus 49% of respondents who were not debt-constrained.” Similarly, in 2021, 41% of non-retired debt-constrained respondents said they regularly saved for retirement, whereas 74% of non-retired respondents who said they were not debt-constrained saved for retirement. Findings are similar for the previous year and for the late-on-debt payments measure, the researchers note, providing strong evidence that being debt-constrained affects retirement readiness.

Unusual. Historic. Concerning. These are terms economists use when they look at American saving habits today. Stacker examined what the decline in setting aside those funds means for the future financial health of the average American. Consumers saved about 3.4% of their monthly income in December, a slight uptick from November’s 2.9%, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That figure has hovered around the lowest since 2005, when the United States was careening toward the Great Recession. At the same time, data suggests Americans have continued spending at rates above pre-pandemic norms. And they’re putting even more expenses on credit cards – a trend that began to pick up in the summer of 2021. The rate is “unusually low,” said Anthony Murphy, a senior economic policy adviser for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

The Personal Saving Rate, a figure economists watch to keep a pulse on the health of consumers from month to month, measures how much income Americans are storing away in a bank account. It is not a measure of the actual amount of money sitting in savings accounts or the equity they may hold in real estate or the stock market. The saving rate provides a sense of how American consumers are behaving at the moment – what decisions Americans are making today as they think about the future and how they’ll cover expenses down the road. As low as the rate is now, it might not be rock bottom, says Olivia S. Mitchell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, where she researches retirement and saving behavior. She says the saving rate could turn negative in 2023, meaning households are spending more than they make in income.

A big unknown
In early 2020, the pandemic’s impact on spending and the thousands of dollars in stimulus checks approved by Congress made it possible for Americans to squirrel away a record $1 out of every $3 they received. “I’ve never seen a number like that,” Mitchell said. As Americans saved far less in recent months, analysts and experts have varying views on how long it will be before all that stashed cash runs out. “The big unknown really is … will there be a recession?” Mitchell said. A recession, she says, would mean Americans may have a harder time finding consistent employment and building their savings back up. Without padding in savings accounts, consumers run the risk of an emergency expense causing them to fall behind, or even default, on debt payments for a vehicle, home or rent. There is evidence, for example, that an increased number of Americans defaulted on their vehicle loans last year, according to Cox Automotive, though the rate remains below historical standards.

The last time Americans saved as little month-to-month as they do today was in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. From 2010-2020, the U.S. saving rate hovered around 7% of income. The saving rate turned negative in 2005, causing debate among economists as to whether a “reckoning for consumers” was “finally” in store. They received their answer in 2007 as lenders began to collapse due to the poorly structured loans that helped fuel consumer spending on homes. The silver lining for this current moment, according to economists like Mitchell, is that many Americans who want to work have jobs, as evidenced by the continually low unemployment rate. Americans who have set financial goals say they’re optimistic about making financial progress in the year ahead, according to a January 2023 survey from Morning Consult. In December, just 5.7 million Americans were unemployed despite wanting a job, a total of about 3.5% of the working population, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That rate is also a low figure for the U.S., which required nearly a decade of job creation and recovery to reach following the Great Recession.

Paycheck to paycheck
The National Bureau of Economic Research has yet to officially declare a recession. Still, Bankrate senior analyst Mark Hamrick in a statement called the prospect of a recession “concerning.” Economists are generally watching to see when, and if, layoffs may spread beyond the tech sector, which has seen 200,000 job cuts since the start of 2022. That’s because mass layoffs could impact whether the current financial profile of the American consumer is sustainable. More than half of Americans say that if they had to pay for a one-time $1,000 emergency expense, they would not do it with savings, according to Bankrate’s annual Emergency Savings Report conducted in December 2022. Instead, 25% of respondents told Bankrate they would sooner cover that expense with a credit card, and others said they would use personal loans or other means. That’s the sentiment even as credit debt is at a recorded high and interest rates on credit cards are climbing. Bankrate has performed its survey since 2014 and said the 1-in-4 response rate on its question about covering an emergency expense with credit was a record high.

Chile, with one of the largest and best funded defined contribution programs in Latin America, held over USD $200 bn in assets at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis, or more than 80% of GDP. Reacting to populist pressures during the pandemic, however, the government gave non-retired participants three separate opportunities to tap into their retirement accounts, leaving some 4.2 million participants with zero retirement savings and draining around $50 bn from the system. This paper explores several hypotheses regarding why people withdrew their pension money early, and it also presents evidence regarding the likely impact of this short-term policy on long-term retirement wellbeing. We conclude with lessons for global policymakers seeking to protect pension assets critical for retirement security.

If the United States defaults on its financial obligations, millions of Americans might not be able to pay their bills as well.

With Social Security and other government benefits at risk amid a political stalemate over the government’s debt ceiling, experts and older Americans told ABC News that the consequences of the impasse in Washington could be dire, including for older Americans who need the money to pay for basic needs such as food, housing or health care costs.

A quarter of Americans over age 65 rely on Social Security to provide at least 90% of their family income, according to the Social Security Administration.

-¿Cómo cree que se debiese avanzar en una reforma a las pensiones en Chile? ¿Qué elementos debería contener la reforma?
When I served on the last Presidential Pension Reform Commission, our group recommended many proposals, the most important of which included strengthening the funded pension pillar by raising the retirement age, boosting contributions, cutting commissions and fees, and boosting benefits for the very low-income elderly. The adoption of the PGU has helped the lot of the elderly poor, but the other three recommendations have still not been adopted.

-El Gobierno propone un mecanismo de “cuentas nocionales” en la cotización adicional del 6%. ¿Qué le parece que Chile transite a un mecanismo como este?
I am opposed to a notional accounts proposal, as it would be nothing more than moving to a pay-as-you-go system – one which Chile will not be able to afford without massive cuts in other spending or large tax increases, due to rapid population aging.

-¿Cómo cree que se podría llegar a un acuerdo en esta materia considerando que el Gobierno y la oposición en el Congreso tienen visiones muy distintas en materia de pensiones?
Reforming retirement systems is always difficult, but doing so in Chile is particularly important now, in the wake of the pandemic, where politicians permitted people to withdraw far too much, too early, from their retirement accounts. The economic reality is that this policy had quite regressive effects, cutting future pensions the most for workers earning lower wages and having lower contribution density. Our research suggest that projected benefits for pre-retirees could drop by over 70%, which would necessitate 9-11 additional years of work to make up the difference.

-¿Qué opina sobre el rol del Estado en la administración de fondos? Debiese existir un administrador estatal con un rol con ventaja (por ejemplo default) o cree que las condiciones deben ser parejas tanto para administradores privados como para uno estatal?
From an economic viewpoint, I see no need for a new government agency to get involved in administration of the Chilean pension system. There is already a well-functioning mechanism to collect contributions, manage assets, and pay benefits. Additionally, there is a Pension Superintendency in charge of overseeing plan investments and fees. What could be useful is the adoption of a policy requiring all pension system members to be periodically defaulted to the lowest cost plan, where all AFPs would have to provide tender offers on fees and expenses. This could enhance retirement security for all employees, and not just new entrants.