Spending Their Inheritance?

 Apparently, Baby Boomers have some ‘splainin to do.

Yes, after decades of being blamed for everything from the demise of defined benefit pensions to the price of housing, Boomers are now being castigated for something else: spending the money that their children were (apparently) counting on inheriting.

Indeed, there’s been a lot of talk about the so-called “Great Wealth Transfer” — and lately a fair amount of consternation that Boomers might actually spend some of that wealth before they die.

Which got me wondering: How much did the Boomers actually inherit from their parents?

Turns out, for most, not all that much.

Back in 2011, researchers at Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research[i] took a specific look at that question. They estimated that about two-thirds of Boomer households would ultimately receive an inheritance.

And that median expected inheritance was ... (just) $64,000.

Now, $64,000 is certainly nothing to sneeze at. But neither is it the kind of generational windfall suggested by much of the current discussion about the wealth Boomers are now supposedly “obligated” to leave behind.

And remember that was the median among those expected to receive an inheritance.

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Roughly one-third weren’t expected to receive any … at all.

An Inheritance ‘Average’?

Federal Reserve data[ii] provides some additional perspective.

Looking at inheritances received between 1995 and 2016 — a period during which many Boomers would have been receiving inheritances from their parents, btw — more than half, 55%, were worth less than $50,000. Another 30% were between $50,000 and $250,000.

Only about 6% exceeded $500,000, and just 2% topped $1 million. But those million-dollar inheritances accounted for roughly 40% of all the dollars inherited.

In other words, a relatively tiny number of enormous inheritances can make the overall inheritance “pie” look a whole lot bigger than the slice received by a typical family. And remember, even then they weren’t all that big.

So, what’s got everyone so stirred up?

As it turns out, Cerulli Associates — a credible source, but one whose projections often seem to run on steroids — recently estimated[iii] that an astonishing $124 trillion will transfer through 2048. Of that, $105 trillion is projected to go to heirs, while $18 trillion will go to charity.

Which means they estimate that nearly $100 trillion is expected to come from Boomers and generations older than them in what has been dubbed (drumroll, please) the “Great Wealth Transfer.”

But hold on a second. More than $62 trillion — half of that entire projected transfer — is expected to come from high- and ultra-high-net-worth households that comprise … just 2% of all households.

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At this point you should be saying to yourself, “could this be (yet) another one of those situations where an enormous aggregate number tells us considerably less about the experience of a typical American than the click-baiting headlines suggest?

Great Expectations?

But wait — there’s more!

Not all that wealth is heading directly to Millennials and Gen X.

Cerulli further estimates that some $54 trillion will first transfer “horizontally” between spouses, with more than 95% of those assets going to women. Nearly $40 trillion is projected to move to widowed women in the Boomer and older generations before eventually moving on to heirs or charities.[iv]

Which means the Great Wealth Transfer isn’t really a single transfer at all. And it certainly doesn’t mean that there’s a $124 trillion check waiting to be divided among America’s children.

Yet that enormous number seems to have helped create some enormous expectations.

We’ve seen stories about “SKI” — Spending the Kids’ Inheritance — and Boomers “indulging” in travel, second homes and experiences rather than preserving their assets for their children. There’s even a growing presumption that parents should transfer wealth sooner, when their children can make better use of it.

Honestly, my wife and I have done some of that with our kids. But there’s something odd about treating an inheritance as though it were an obligation — particularly when the generation supposedly “shirking” that obligation largely built its own wealth without receiving anything remotely comparable.

To be sure, Boomers benefited from some extraordinarily favorable economic circumstances: decades of rising home values, a remarkable bull market in equities, relatively inexpensive higher education (RELATIVELY, mind you) and, for some (though not most, mind you), traditional pensions. Timing matters, and they (we?) had some pretty good timing.[v]

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But they (we?) also saved, invested, paid mortgages, raised families — and accumulated much of the wealth we’re now discussing over decades. We did it despite wars, gas lines, stagflation. And let me point out, spending a fair amount of that on the kids now chomping at the proverbial bit of a potential inheritance.

Our parents generally didn’t leave us fortunes. Nor did we expect them to.

‘Will’ Power

None of this is an argument against leaving an inheritance.

Nor is it an argument against helping children or grandchildren while you’re still around to see the impact. Indeed, there are compelling reasons to do so if your circumstances and retirement security permit it.

But retirement planning has always had an awkward uncertainty at its core: You don’t know how long you’ll live, what markets will do, what inflation will be, or what health and long-term care might cost. And nobody wants to be a financial or physical burden on their kids if they don’t have to.

Telling retirees simultaneously that they must make their money last for an unknowable lifetime — and that they should feel guilty if there isn’t enough left over afterward — seems like an interesting, if conflicted, set of expectations.

So perhaps before criticizing Boomers for spending their children’s inheritance, we should remember how much inheritance most of them started with.

For a lot of them — most of them — the answer was pretty simple.

Not much.

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An inheritance is a wonderful thing to receive.

It just shouldn’t be a retirement plan. And it shouldn’t undermine one, either.

• Nevin E. Adams, JD

 

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[i] See How Important Are Inheritances for Baby Boomers? – Center for Retirement Research.

[ii] See Federal Reserve Board - How Does Intergenerational Wealth Transmission Affect Wealth Concentration? Accessible Data.

[iii] See https://www.cerulli.com/press-releases/cerulli-anticipates-124-trillion-in-wealth-will-transfer-through-2048

[iv] Wealth management practices, take note!

[v] Of course, they/we also lived through some pretty tumultuous market cycles.

'Micro' Managing

 I recently stumbled into a bit of controversy on LinkedIn. 

Honestly, I’m not even sure how this wound up in my “feed” — but there was a post from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the topic of “micro-retirements.”

Now, if you’re like me, you may be wondering — what the heck is a MICRO-retirement?  Turns out that, unlike actual retirement, it’s a series of multiple, intentional “mini-breaks” from work throughout life — rather than waiting until the traditional “big” retirement at the end of a career. 

Some of you are going to say — oh, we used to call that a sabbatical. Others might well see this as some kind of extended PTO or vacation break. But those, of course, are generally employer supported/sanctioned, whereas these micro-retirements presumably would not be. 

Oh, and none other than sidehustles.com[i] (who admittedly might be biased on the subject) claims that 1 in 10 Americans plan to take one this year.

That said, it’s actually not a new term, though I don’t remember hearing it previously. Said to be the latest Gen Z trend, the current label gained traction in the mid-2000s, especially after The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss (2007), which popularized the idea of “mini-retirements” as deliberate breaks instead of a single retirement at the “end.”

This was positioned as folks working for an 8-10-year stretch — saving up enough money for — whatever — and then taking several months or a couple of years to do — whatever (travel to Asia, volunteer, write a book, etc.) funded by savings accumulated during the working stretch. And then you come back to the workforce — maybe a completely different field, maybe something related to the time you took off, or perhaps your “old” field, but rejuvenated, inspired, etc. 

The controversy, as you might expect, was between those who did a bit of eye-rolling at the notion of just walking away from work for random, extended periods of time and those who viewed those eye-rollers as some kind of 19^th century neanderthal throwbacks for their more “traditional” views about work. Oh, and interestingly enough, age didn’t really seem to be a factor in those responses (if only because LinkedIn seems to still be dominated by “older” voices — or maybe that’s just my feed).

People change jobs all the time — and employers often terminate employment of hundreds (and even thousands) of people with precious little opportunity to prepare. At some level then, people deciding to take an extended break from work shouldn’t be all that disruptive.  On the other hand, “covering” for folks who are on sabbatical, parental leave, or even vacation does put a strain[ii] on the rest of the team (though I know of instances where their extended departure was welcome!). In other words, managing micro-retirements would/is surely (be) … complicated.

We spend a lot of time and energy worrying about people not saving enough even after a 40-year career, and so the notion that you’d pull up, stop and spend (and spend money supporting) an extended period (months to a year) on life experiences[iii] — well, I can’t quite get my head around it. That said, the side-hustles survey says just over half (52%) of those who have taken one plan to return to their current employer. 

In fairness, I’ve never had a sabbatical — heck, I never even took time off between my job changes (I know, sick, right?) — and I am widely (though good-naturedly) razzed about my personal (and still “evolving”) version of “retirement.” 

So, I may not be the most open-minded on the subject. 

But what do YOU think?

• Nevin E. Adams, JD        

 

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[i] Who also claims that 1 in 8 Millennials (13%) and nearly 1 in 10 Gen Zers (9%) are planning a micro-retirement in 2025, and that 1 in 5 Americans (20%) have previously taken a micro-retirement, including 22% of Millennials and 17% of Gen Zers.

[ii] 38% of the respondents to the side-hustles survey admit it causes staff shortages and strain on companies, though 54% say it prevents burnout and improves well-being — ostensibly for the retirees, rather than those covering for their outage.

[iii] I was mostly working on my own “life experiences” like raising kids, paying a mortgage, going to law school (at night, while working) — and doing jobs that were VERY full-time on their own.

Are Millennials’ Retirements ‘Doomed?’

Millennials have had a rough week of it, at least in the financial press.

First there was a report that they had established asset allocations that mirrored that of their grandparents (the respondents apparently never heard of a target-date fund). Then a separate survey that indicated they (70% of them, anyway) were ashamed to ask their parents for financial advice (we’ll set aside for a minute whether that would have been a good source), and then the pièce de résistance was a report that painted a pretty bleak retirement picture for a generation that “entered the workforce around the Great Recession, which began in late 2007, and experienced a difficult economy early in their careers. Now, they are confronting pandemic-related setbacks while trying to manage work-life balance.” 

Indeed, the only bright note for this group—identified as those born between 1981 and 1996 - was a report that said the retirement savings gap between genders in that demographic was a mere 23% (which, at $29,218 versus $23,715, doesn’t mean it’s adequate, but then we’re only talking about averages). 

Now, as a mid-range Boomer—who happens to be the parent of three Millennials—I can attest to the complexities of this generation of individuals, now said to be the majority of today’s workforce (I can also attest to the reality that they all hate the label “Millennials”). 

Of course, they’re not the “kids” such labeling tends to call to mind—the eldest are in the 40’s, after all.  But that’s the age when life’s biggest financial struggles come home to roost; college debt, home ownership, marriage, kids (and the prospects of THEIR college expenses), and—increasingly—the burdens of caring for their Boomer parents. In that sense, their experiences are comparable to the challenges their parents faced, though perhaps a tad later in life.

There are, of course, the economic and technological realities of their generation. At similar ages, odds are their parents were barely aware of the Internet, and “innovations” like smartphones, email and social media were not even glimmers of possibility beyond science fiction. Those influences are both empowering and debilitating, inflating expectations and fueling a certain peer pressure on a scale their parents couldn’t appreciate. 

That said, and despite the recent spate of negative press (giving Boomers a break[i]), I’m pretty sure that:

Millennials are saving for retirement—likely earlier, and at higher rates than you did when you were their age.

Sure, some of that is plan design—automatic enrollment was a rarity when their parents were coming into the workplace, and employers are increasingly coupling that design with contribution acceleration.  Moreover, immediate eligibility is increasingly popular (Vanguard’s 2023 How America Saves says 80% of plans now offer that, while the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s 65^th Annual Survey of 401(k) and Profit-Sharing Plans puts it at just over half). And yes, that can matter a lot if job turnover is high—but it’s an urban myth[ii] that Millennials turnover more often than Boomers did at their age.

IF they have access to a plan at work, anyway.

Millennials are likely better invested for their retirement than you are—“then” and now.

Okay, as with saving for retirement, surely some of this is plan design—notably the default investment in target-date funds (TDFs) or some other qualified default investment alternative (QDIA)—and their more recent hire date. While data shows that TDF use varies with participant age and tenure, reports pretty consistently indicate that younger participants are more likely to hold TDFs than older participants (not so much due to their age, but due to their greater likelihood of being a new participant defaulted into the TDF. That doesn’t mean they are more involved/engaged/astute about those investments—but they’re likely more diversified, with portfolios regularly rebalanced (despite the conclusions of that survey above). 

BTW, that’s something that plan fiduciaries might want to keep in mind the next time the concept of reenrollment comes up.

Millennials are thinking about retirement. Probably more than you were at their age.

Millennials have never known a time without a 401(k), nor have they lived during a period when a personal responsibility for saving hasn’t been part and parcel of the education around their benefits package. They’ve been worried about Social Security’s sustainability from the time of their first paycheck (what they probably don’t appreciate is that their parents also worried, and arguably—in the early 1980s—with better reason).

While they certainly have options their parents didn’t, they also have their own set of challenges—some unique, but many unique only in that they are young(er). They have tools and innovative plan design, apps and the aptitude to use them, and in many cases access to professional guidance.

They may not know how much they need to save for retirement (nor do their parents, apparently), they may not yet feel that they can afford to save for retirement, they may not even know how to save for retirement—but you can bet they know they need to.

And, in more cases than one might expect from recent reports, with access to workplace retirement plans, the help of good plan design, and professional retirement planning advice, likely already doing so.         

- Nevin E. Adams, JD 

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[i] And, once again, nobody seems to care about Gen X… who also hates that label!

[ii] The data show that median job tenure in the private sector in the United States has hovered around five years for the past several decades, according to the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). 

 

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‘The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them’

I recently stumbled across a provocative article in the New York Times with that intriguing headline.

Honestly, I laughed out loud (drawing my wife’s quizzical attention on an otherwise quiet Saturday morning) when I read it. I’m a (proud) Boomer, of course, and while Gen X basically slipped quietly into the workplace (much to their frustration), Millennials (to my experience) landed with a bang, upending traditional norms of business and meeting etiquette, demanding a voice that seemed well beyond their experience (and, yes, sometimes knowledge)—and, frustratingly (certainly for those of us who played by a different set of rules at their age), getting it. 

So the notion that they were now feeling the same kind of pressures from the next generation of workers (a.k.a. Gen Z) was somewhat humorous to me in a “so, how do you like it?” kind of way.  

Yes, having lived through the not-so-subtle eye-rolling of younger co-workers (and the more recent dismissive “OK, Boomer” commentary), I couldn’t help but find some small modicum of comfort in the notion that that generation was, essentially, being hoisted on its own generational “petard.” 

The problem—particularly for those of us who still want to be seen as “cool”[i]—is that those boundaries are fluid and moving. It’s hard to keep up when you’re not naturally immersed in the culture of the day—it takes effort and persistence, particularly in an era where you lack the opportunity of that interaction in a physical workplace. And, honestly, one’s own experience (and sometimes what we’d label “common sense”) sometimes dictates that those new “norms” are likely only a passing fad (and one that you’d look foolish embracing, regardless).

‘Kids These Days’

Comfortingly enough, the article goes on tell us that researchers call this the “kids these days” effect—and note it has been happening for millennia. Moreover, the author notes that this phenomenon means that “each new generation, christened by marketers and codified by workplace consultants selling tips on how to manage the mysterious youth, can strike the people who came just before them as uniquely self-focused.”[ii]

When I was new to this business, I would joke that nobody comes out of college with plans about retirement, much less thinking about working with retirement plans. And yet, if you’re reading this, odds are you find yourself in at least the latter category. 

That said—and while much is made of the need to communicate “differently” about retirement with younger workers (see “Is It Time to Retire Retirement?”)—it’s never been easy to garner the attention of the not-nearly-ready-for-retirement generation(s) to focus on the financial necessities of that day in the (distant?) future when they’ll need to live on… something. 

‘Different’ Perspectives

There’s little doubt that “retirement” will be different for the next generation—and that the preparations our industry has long espoused could stand some updating. After all, there’ll be no golden watch, almost certainly no pension (if they’ve toiled in the private sector), and as for Social Security? Well, who knows? On the other hand, odds are their labors won’t be stymied by physical limitations, limited by locale—or perhaps even a commute longer than the path from their bed to their couch. Indeed, their work may be such that it never has to—or perhaps gets to—end. And—not insignificantly—they’ll also likely have a longer lifespan over which to consider those alternatives.[iii]

Let’s face it: New generations have long been disruptive to the “status quo,” to the “normal” state of affairs, to the protocols to which we’ve all become accustomed and/or established. Inevitably, when it’s our turn in that cycle, the pace of change is annoyingly slow, the receptivity to new ideas mind-numbingly obtuse—and when our perspective is the status quo… well, we see things differently.   

And all that likely means that if there’s anything to “fear” about those newer to the workforce, it’s that they might make the same mistakes we did.

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

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[i] I’m sure that wanting to be seen as “cool” is probably no longer… 

[ii] And indeed, if there was ever a generation that was (once upon a time) dismissed by its elders as “uniquely self-focused,” it was mine.

[iii] They’ll also have some new tools to help—things like automatic enrollment, automatic escalation, target-date funds and managed accounts. 

Attention Getters

I was recently taken to task for last week’s column about retirement savings regrets.

More precisely, my column about the regrets expressed in a recent American Century survey drew the attention of Faith Teope in a LinkedIn post titled, “Dear Finance Experts: We Would Listen, But We Don't Care.” In fairness, it wasn’t so much my column (“boring but true”), or even the American Century survey’s findings that came in for criticism, but more the head-scratching that the survey set off among financial professionals (including, I suppose this one) as to why people aren’t paying more attention to things like… saving for retirement. Her premise—that we’re using language that doesn’t resonate with those we hope to motivate—is, frankly, unassailable. 

In fact, it’s a topic I broached (at least at a high level) earlier this year in a post titled, “Is it Time to Retire Retirement?” As I noted then, for all but the most financially astute, trading off a here-and-now need (or want) for some obscure future notion like “retirement” is a hard sell. And, let’s face it, the further you are from that future event, the harder it is to “sell.” 

But arguably the problem runs deeper than the label(s) we affix to the concept of the ultimate goal. Let’s face it, financial freedom is a laudable, evergreen objective—but for most of us it’s not a short-term goal—and without a “how” to go with the “what,” it might not matter. 

In her post, Faith states that our current messaging is “…not working because that’s not how humans are wired. We are wired to survive and that drives the urges for happiness, the desire to live, to buy, to bucket-list, to binge-watch, to prime-delivery. We are not wired to plan for an unknown future with an unknown time frame and no magic 8-ball to what will even happen tomorrow much less 25+ years from now.”

To her credit, she put forth some suggestions, conversation starters of a sort—something that ostensibly might motivate people to “care”—things like:

• The Life You Want—Top 5 questions to help you take control of your life
• 3 Ways to Legally Pay Less in Taxes
• The One Debt That Pays YOU interest—401k loans and a few perfect reasons to tap into them

Now, as someone who spends a good part of his day crafting (what he thinks are) compelling headlines and (obsessively) tracking clicks, that approach has some allure. (I mean, who wouldn’t want to know how to legally pay less in taxes?) That said, it’s not clear to me how much of this kind of thing is already out there, though I imagine in a world increasingly reliant on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to communicate complex (and sometimes farcical) messages, it’s a burgeoning field—or should be. 

Indeed, the more I considered the subject, the more it occurred to me that the essence of some pretty compelling messages are already imbedded (obscured?) in most of today’s benefit communications. Wouldn’t you be intrigued by the following topics?

• How to get the free money you’re missing out on
• Turn $5 a month into $50,000
• You can get a pay increase without asking for it

There are some potential shortfalls, of course—there’s often a fine line between making complex things simpler and making them overly simplistic. But when all is said and done, to me, it’s not so much about simplifying our messages (though there’s that), but about getting people’s attention. But as I look at the bullets above, they strike me as short, near-term in focus, snappy, and ultimately action-oriented. Clickbait? Sure—but if you can get people’s attention, even for a minute, that’s an opportunity, a door-opener… a start… 

Of course, “starts” notwithstanding,[i] what matters isn’t just getting people’s attention, but motivating action—anything from a quick readiness assessment to taking steps to automatically increase their rate of contribution, or to make sure they are contributing at a rate sufficient to receive the full company match.

In sum, it’s one thing to get people’s attention—but then we have to keep it. 

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

[i] And thanks to automatic enrollment and qualified default investment alternatives (like target-date funds), millions of American workers have gotten a good start at saving and investing for retirement even if they don’t always appreciate it.

How Gen Z's Retirement Will Be Different

Those “kids” who were just dropped off at college for the first time? By their sophomore year, their generation will constitute one-quarter of the U.S. population. How will their retirement be different?

That’s according to the authors of the so-called Mindset List – now housed at Marist College, having relocated from Beloitt College – has been published each August since 1998. Originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references, the list provides a “look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college.” Not to mention those who will go on to be workers and – eventually – retirees.

This fall’s college class of 2023 is the first class born in the 21st Century (2001) – and thus lack a personal memory of the September 11 attacks. According to the authors of the Mindset List:

• This group has never used a floppy disk (heck, they’ve probably never even seen one, except at that “save” icon).
• Their phone has always been able to take pictures.
• They’ve always had Wikipedia as a resource.
• Oklahoma City has always had a national memorial at its center.
• As air travelers they’ve have always had to take off their shoes to get through security (well, unless they have TSA pre-check).
• PayPal has always been an online option for purchasers.
• There’s always been a headlines scrawl on TV.
• They have always been able to fly Jet Blue.
• Troy Aikman’s play calling has always been limited to the press booth.
• They’ve never been able to watch Pittsburgh’s Steelers or Pirates play at Three Rivers Stadium.
• Monica and Chandler from “Friends” have always been married (May 17, 2001).

Despite those differences, the class of 2023 will one day soon be faced with the same challenges of preparing for retirement as the rest of us. They’ll have to work through how much to save, how to invest those savings, what role Social Security will play, and – eventually – how and how fast to draw down those savings.

And yet, when it comes to retirement, the Class of 2023 also stands to have a different perspective. For them:

• There have always been 401(k)s.
• There has always been a Roth option available to them (401(k), 403(b) or IRA).
• They’ve never had to sign up for their 401(k) plan (since, particularly among larger employers, their 401(k) automatically enrolls new hires).
• They may never have to make an investment choice in their 401(k) plan. (Their 401(k) has long had a QDIA default option to go with that auto-enroll feature.)
• They’ve always had access to target-date funds, managed accounts, or similar vehicle that automatically allocates (and, more significantly, re-allocates) their retirement investments.
• They’ve always had fee information available to them about their 401(k). (It remains to be seen if they’ll understand it any better than their parents.)
• There have always been plenty of free online calculators that allow them to figure out how much they need to save for a financially secure retirement (though they may not be any more inclined to do so than their parents).
• They’ve always been able to view and transfer their balances online and on a daily basis (and so, of course, they mostly won’t).
• They’ve always worried that Social Security wouldn’t be available to pay benefits. (In that, they’re much like their parents at their age.)
• Many have never had to wait to be eligible to start saving in their 401(k). (Their parents typically had to wait a full year.)

But perhaps most importantly, they’ll have the advantage of time, a full career to save and build, to save at higher rates, and to invest more efficiently and effectively.

And, with luck, access to a trusted advisor to answer their questions along the way...

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

What’s (Really) Hindering Millennials’ Retirement Savings?

I’ve learned two things about Millennials over the years: first, that there are few things they find more bothersome than having Boomers tell them what they should be doing – and if there is anything more bothersome than the first, it’s being called “Millennials.”

Setting that aside, I was recently asked to participate in a forum focused on the challenges to retirement savings faced by Millennials. That event, “The Millennial Perspective: An Intergenerational Discussion on Retirement Savings,” was sponsored by Women for a Secure Retirement (WISER), centered on the organization’s iOme Challenge to develop a comprehensive proposal to address the challenges Millennials face in saving for retirement.

Of course, the definition of a Millennial has proven to be surprisingly elusive over time. But those in the forum were willing to accept the definition recently put forth by the Pew Research Center, that it would apply to those born between 1981 and 1996 – which, of course, means that the oldest in that demographic are hardly “kids” (aged 37 in 2018).

Retirement Roadblocks

My panel was tasked with discussing issues regarding financial education, savings and “retirement roadblocks” for this group. And indeed, there are a number of obstacles to savings generally, and retirement saving specifically, for this demographic. Specifically cited were:

Lack of “traditional” employment. This has manifested itself both in higher unemployment rates, and more in so-called 1099 employment in the “gig” economy. This can, of course, create an issue both in the income from which to save, and a…

Lack of access to retirement plan at work. This, of course is a significant hindrance. After all, we know that workers are significantly more likely to save if they have the opportunity to do so via a workplace retirement plan like a 401(k) – 12 times more likely, in fact. But even when they have access to a plan at work, they can still be hindered by a…

Lack of eligibility for a retirement plan at work. While a growing number of plans allow immediate eligibility for employee contributions (58.5%, according to the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s 60th Annual DC Survey), others don’t – and some plans still maintain a year’s wait. And that can be a problem when it comes to…

Job turnover. Millennials are widely regarded as job hoppers, and relative to their elders they may be – not so when their elders were younger. Going back to the end of the second World War, job tenure has been remarkably consistent – so yes, Millennials do change jobs, and while that doesn’t make them unusual, it can make it harder for them to save, particularly when there are…

Other priorities. Let’s face it, we talk about retirement saving as having an “accumulation” phase, but the early stages of most working careers is focused on a broader accumulation strategy – household goods, a car, a house, furniture, etc. And, for many those priorities also include paying down the debt that helped pave the way. Those obligations have, along with shorter job tenures, long been part of the earlier stages of our careers – and still are…certainly when it comes to thinking about…

Retirement. That’s right – retirement. Or more precisely the word itself, which conjures up images of a distant time and an “elder” you that – nifty little aging apps notwithstanding – isn’t something that most Millennials (or, arguably Boomers) have top of mind. In fact, our industry has long bemoaned the complexity of retirement as a savings goal – not only because it’s likely to be as variable as the individuals considering it, but also because it is so hard for an individual to picture, to imagine as a tangible goal. So, yes – we can, with a little effort – put a dollar figure on “retirement” – but juxtaposed next to that much-needed vehicle to get to work, that home with which to house a growing family, that college debt repayment… well, “retirement” is likely to be viewed more as abstract concept than tangible goal.

Perhaps a better way to think of this particular savings goal is to see it as the point at which you have financial resources sufficient to provide the freedom to pursue the avocation of your dreams, to work the hours you want (or don’t), from the location(s) you desire – or even the freedom to quit “working” altogether.

Janis Joplin once told their Boomer parents that “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” But it seems to me that for Millennials, and perhaps for all of us, freedom – financial freedom – is “just” another word for everything to gain.

- Nevin E. Adams, JD
 
See also:

• Things That the ‘Common Wisdom’ About Millennials Gets Wrong
• 6 Things You Should Know About Those Millennial Participants
• So, How Much Should a 35-Year-Old Have Saved?

So, How Much Should a 35-Year-Old Have Saved?

You may have missed it, but there was a bit of a “twitter storm” regarding retirement last week.

More specifically, a relatively innocuous post about how much a 30-year-old should have saved toward retirement got a lot of 35-year-olds stirred up. The CBSMarketwatch article quoted Fidelity as saying that you should have a year’s worth of salary saved by the time you’re 30 – but the real point of controversy appears to have been driven by the premise that by the time you’re 35, you were supposed to have twice your salary saved.¹

The point, of course, is that it’s easier if you start early. But honestly, devoting 15% of your pay to retirement savings at any age is a daunting prospect, much less at a point when college debt and the prospects of a mortgage, kids and setting aside money for the kids’ college savings loom large. If this is “easy,” imagine what hard looks like!

I’ve been a consistent saver over my working career – never missed an opportunity to save in a workplace retirement plan, never worked for an employer that didn’t offer one, and always contributed at least enough to warrant the full employer match. And yet, I went a long time in my working career before I was able – having, among other expenses, law school debt, a mortgage, and three kids to help get through college – to set aside 15% for retirement (sadly, by the time I could afford to save at that level in my 401(k), the IRS “intervened”).

I don’t know how my 35-year-old self would have reacted to the article, or the twitter post, though I suspect I, like many of those who responded to the “tweet,” would have been a tad incredulous.

Ultimately, of course, the answer to how much you “should” set aside for retirement – regardless of your age – is largely dependent on what kind of retirement you plan to have, and when you plan to start having it. And, regardless of age, taking the time to do even a rough estimate on what you might need to quit working (or start retiring) is going to be time well spent.

Because while it’s possible to “catch up” later – it can be hazardous to count on it.

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

Footnote

Controversial as this premise clearly was to those in the targeted demographic, it’s really just math. To get there, Fidelity assumed that a individual starts saving a total of 15% of income every year starting at age 25, invests more than 50% of it in stocks on average over his or her lifetime, and retires at age 67, with an eye toward maintaining their preretirement lifestyle – but you might be surprised at what even these arguably aggressive goals produced in terms of a replacement ratio at age 67. ↩