‘Living’ Proofs

In a calendar already chock full of special days and commemorative months, next week we’ll add another: Women’s Retirement Security Day.

If this one has snuck up on you — well, it’s a first. July 14 this year, the second Tuesday in July thereafter. A national day of action dedicated to raising awareness, sharing resources, and improving retirement outcomes for women.

And that’s the key — not a day of remembrance, a day for action.

For much of this country’s history, women were largely expected to derive retirement security through someone else’s employment — a husband’s pension, survivor benefits, or eventually Social Security spousal benefits. The retirement system itself was largely designed around a traditional, uninterrupted male career model: one worker, one employer, one pension, one primary breadwinner.

But many women’s lives — including my mother’s — never really fit that model.

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Mom, a schoolteacher, had a career of her own, but took a fairly significant (and unpaid) “sabbatical” so that she could stay at home with her four kids until the youngest was ready to head off to school. When she returned to work, she was covered by a state pension plan, albeit one that required from her paycheck a much more significant contribution than most defer into 401(k)s.

On top of that she saved diligently to buy back the service credits she had forgone during the years she worked in our home without a paycheck — and then set aside money in her 403(b) account (over Dad’s objections, I might add — he didn’t think they could afford it).

Indeed, generally speaking, women face many more challenges regarding retirement preparation than men. They live longer (and thus are likely to have longer retirements to fund), tend to have less saved for retirement (because of lower incomes and more workforce interruptions), and in addition to longer retirements, those longer lives mean they are also more likely to face what can be the catastrophic financial burden of long-term care expenses.

And their caregiving responsibilities often extend to aging parents, even after their own children have left the “nest.”

Women are also less likely to work for an employer that offers a retirement plan at work, and more likely to work part time — which historically has often meant being excluded from plan participation altogether. Only about 1 in 3 women use a professional financial advisor to help manage retirement savings and investments.[i]

Oh, and like my mother, they tend to outlive their spouses — often by far more than the variance in average life expectancy tables might suggest.

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Let’s face it, one of the enduring realities for many women is that the very responsibilities that strengthen families can weaken long-term financial security. Women remain more likely to interrupt careers, reduce hours, or work part time because of caregiving responsibilities — decisions that can ripple through retirement outcomes for decades.

The “magic” of compounding only works when there is something to compound.

Retirement preparedness isn’t merely about accumulating assets. It’s about preserving dignity, independence, and choice.

For everyone.

That’s what the inaugural Women’s Retirement Security Day should remind us.

Not simply that women face different retirement challenges — though they clearly do.

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But that a retirement system designed around real life needs to consider the people who actually live it.

Once again, though — this is not a day for flowers, cards, and social media posts. This is a day for action.

Let’s get to it.

• Nevin E. Adams, JD

More information is available at: https://www.usaretirement.org/get-involved/wir/womens-retirement-security-day/

[i] See 25 Facts About Women's Retirement Outlook | 25th Annual Transamerica Retirement Survey 2025.

The Pursuit(s) of ‘Happiness’

 This is the time of year when you hear a lot of talk about the “unalienable” rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And while they weren’t written with retirement plans in mind — to my ears they may describe the aspirations behind retirement better than almost anything else in American public policy. 

“Life” is, of course, central to retirement planning. It defines not only the time we have to prepare financially, physically, and emotionally for retirement — but also the length of time those preparations must sustain us.

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Granted, retirement is a relatively new and for many an as yet unexplored reality. But it’s easy to take for granted that millions of older Americans today live with a degree of financial security that previous generations often lacked. Before pensions, Social Security, and defined contribution plans, growing old frequently meant dependency — on family, charity, or continued labor. 

“Liberty” may be even more directly connected to retirement readiness. Financial insecurity restricts freedom. People who cannot afford to retire often lose the ability to decide how they spend their time, where they live, or when they stop working. A well-functioning retirement system creates options.

And aren’t “options” the essence of liberty? The ability to retire on one’s own terms, rather than because of failing health or employer decisions, is fundamentally about personal autonomy. 

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That idea has evolved over time. Not so long ago, retirement itself was once a rarity. For much of American history, people simply worked as long as they physically could. The growth of employer-sponsored retirement plans in the 20th century helped create something new: the expectation that later life could include not merely rest, but choice. Choice about work. Choice about family. Choice about purpose.

And then there is “the pursuit of happiness.” Note that it’s the PURSUIT of happiness, not a guarantee. A retirement plan cannot guarantee happiness, but it can create the financial foundation that allows people to pursue it. Indeed, one of the more overlooked aspects of retirement readiness is that money is rarely the ultimate objective. Financial assets are really a means to acquire something else: time, freedom, security, and peace of mind.

“These days, I’m often told that ‘retirement’ itself is no longer an especially compelling aspiration for younger workers…that younger workers can’t really visualize that concept — or aren’t willing to wait for it. Fair enough — the pursuit of happiness needn’t wait for “retirement” — it can, and perhaps should be, a lifelong undertaking. 

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Regardless, it remains today — as it was 250 years ago — an opportunity gifted to us by those who went before — not just those gathered in Philadelphia in 1776, but all the men and women who have sacrificed over our nation’s history to make that vision a reality. 

Because while those “rights” may be unalienable — they aren’t preserved without sacrifice, and a commitment to the future — yours, mine and ours.

• Nevin E. Adams, JD

‘Staying’ Power

  For years now, I’ve been saying that the only thing wrong with the 401(k) system is that there aren’t enough of them. And to be fair, the past several years have largely validated that view.

Indeed, Vanguard’s latest How America Saves report paints what is, on the surface anyway, a remarkably encouraging picture. Participation rates among eligible workers are near record highs. Contribution rates rose — 45% of participants increased their savings rate in 2025, contributing to an average savings rate of 12.1%, an all-time high. Professionally managed investments dominate participant portfolios. Most investors ignored market volatility entirely — and, doubtless as a result of all that — account balances reached new highs.

Yes, after decades spent worrying about employees failing to enroll, hunkering down in stable value funds, or panic-trading during downturns, the modern defined contribution system increasingly appears to be functioning as designed — or, as Vanguard labels it — a “quiet retirement revolution.”

But another recent study suggests that the industry may be misunderstanding what “success” actually looks like.

Morningstar’s paper, Access, Auto-Enrollment, and Accumulation: A Simulation of Universal Retirement Plan Coverage, modeled the impact of automatically enrolling workers without retirement plan access into a federally administered savings arrangement. The results are impressive. Tens of millions of additional workers could enter the retirement system. Hundreds of billions — perhaps more than a trillion dollars — in additional retirement savings could accumulate over time.

But buried deeper in the analysis is a more revealing point — the real breakthrough in retirement outcomes may not be access.

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It may be continuity.

The Vanguard report and the Morningstar study actually tell a surprisingly consistent story when viewed together. While Vanguard shows a system increasingly optimized around automation and default behaviors, Morningstar shows that the outcomes of even the best-designed system can be undermined if workers cannot remain continuously connected to savings long enough for compounding to matter.

And that matters. Big time. Particularly in view of the workers most vulnerable to those employment “disconnects;” lower-paid, minorities, women, the young…

Let’s face it. The retirement industry has spent much of the last two decades trying to solve the participation problem. In many respects, it has succeeded. Automatic enrollment, automatic escalation, target-date funds, managed accounts, and payroll deduction have fundamentally changed participant behavior — or perhaps more accurately, reduced the need for participant behavior altogether.

More recently, the focus has shifted toward expanding access to workplace programs — reinforcing how strongly availability, combined with automation, improves savings outcomes — even for workers with modest incomes.

But the Morningstar analysis highlights that workers with long periods of uninterrupted participation saw dramatically larger projected gains than workers with shorter or fragmented savings histories. Automatic enrollment helped. Higher default contribution rates helped somewhat. But it was remaining attached to the system through job changes, financial emergencies, and career transitions — that mattered more than almost anything else. “Workers with 10+ years of sustained participation could see 67% to 125% higher retirement wealth under auto‑enrollment scenarios,” according to the report.

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Leakage remains stubbornly high. The number, if not the amount, of hardship withdrawals continues to rise. Cash-outs during job transitions remain common — most particularly in situations where a participant loan is outstanding. Vanguard’s data itself hints at this tension: record balances existing alongside increasing hardship withdrawals. The system has become exceptionally good at getting money into retirement accounts — but still struggles to keep it there when life intervenes.

In other words, the retirement system may be healthier than it has ever been structurally — while on an individual basis many retirement savers remain financially fragile.

That tension becomes even more apparent when looking at which workers benefit most from expanded access proposals. Morningstar found the largest projected gains among lower-income households, younger workers, single women, Hispanic workers, and Black workers — populations historically less likely to have access to employer-sponsored plans.

For years, the policy focus has centered on access: state auto-IRAs, SECURE Act mandates, automatic enrollment requirements, and proposals to expand coverage. Those initiatives matter. They clearly move the needle — and will continue to do so.

But the future success of the defined contribution system may depend less on whether workers can open an account — and more on whether they can stay invested long enough for the system to work as intended.

• Nevin E. Adams, JD

‘Watch’ Words

The retirement industry spends enormous time modeling outcomes, but most of what really prepares us for retirement isn’t found in a Monte Carlo simulation. It’s learned from watching people around us live their lives. Often our fathers.

My parents led mostly through example — and powerful as that can be, as a kid those messages are often too subtle to be noticed, much less appreciated.

At 6’ 5” he was an imposing figure, all the more from the pulpit from which he did speak. He was a good speaker, but not a natural one. As a minister, he worked hard at it, studied his subject matter, and practiced his presentation relentlessly, each and every week. I always thought it amazing that such a quiet, introverted man would choose that career — but, and though it can’t have been easy, it was something he felt called to do at an early age.

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He had opinions, but didn’t impose them on others. It was difficult (and sometimes frustrating) to wrest opinions from him. Indeed, despite his ministry, at home my dad was a man of few words — spoken words, anyway.

Significantly, he walked his “talk” — his faith, his love and respect for all people, even those with whom he disagreed — and those were attributes in short supply, even then. But this quiet “giant” found his true gift in writing — and in the process extended his influence and ministry well beyond a single congregation.

For all that fine example, I didn’t learn anything about finance from my dad — he avoided big purchases with the fervor of Ebenezer Scrooge, though he’d spend that much (and more) on small things (mostly books, much to my mother’s chagrin). His retirement decision was driven almost exclusively by age — honestly, I think he was going to stop working at 65 even if the finances didn’t support that timing (fortunately, they did).

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His life example(s) notwithstanding, I’m a different person than my dad, though his example is never very far from my thoughts. As a parent, I’ve tried to share with my kids the lessons I’ve learned (and continue to learn), tried to spare them the pain that came with many of those (some I still can’t bear to admit aloud), but I’ve also tried to give them the room they need — and deserve — to learn their own on the life path(s) they chose — though that’s a life lesson of its own, and one with which I still sometimes struggle.

Sometimes we follow in our parents’ footsteps — and sometimes we go a different way. But here’s hoping that the footprints we leave along the way — intentional or otherwise — make other’s lives…better.

Happy Father’s Day!

• Nevin E. Adams, JD

The Retirement ‘Hunger Games?’

  Retirement surveys tend to read like actuarial obituaries — a long litany of percentages chronicling regret, anxiety, and insufficient preparation. Unless, of course, you look at the underlying data.

The latest survey from Schroders[i] offers plenty of the former; inflation remains public enemy No. 1; healthcare costs continue to ambush expectations — and more than half of retirees apparently have no idea how long their money will last.

But wait.

Buried inside that grim arithmetic are some surprisingly encouraging signs — and you don’t have to look very far.

For instance, yes, the survey says that 58% of retirees[ii] don’t know how long their savings will last. Which means … 42% actually do (or at least claim to).

Given the complexity of retirement income planning — sequence risk, inflation assumptions, healthcare shocks, longevity projections, required minimum distributions, tax strategy, market volatility, and the occasional Congressional “enhancement” — it’s arguably remarkable (if just a tad unbelievable) that nearly half of retirees feel they have at least some handle on the runway ahead.

Likewise, while only 4% describe themselves as “living the dream,” another 37% say they’re “comfortable,” and 35% report life is “not great but not bad.”

Put differently, roughly 3 out of 4 retirees are somewhere between stable and genuinely content, despite years of inflation headlines and constant (dare I say incessant, strident) warnings about retirement catastrophe. Not that the press release positioning — or media reporting — conveys that sense.

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Yes, NEARLY 1 in 5 say they are struggling financially. But that means that more than 4 in 5 … aren’t.

And perhaps most notably, 79% say retirement gives them freedom to pursue passions and hobbies, while 68% say leaving work opened the door to trying new things.

That matters.

Because for years, retirement industry messaging by both the provider community AND the industry trade press (and don’t even get me started on mainstream media) has leaned heavily into fear: fear of outliving assets, fear of healthcare costs, fear of market crashes, fear of claiming Social Security “wrong,” fear of not saving enough, fear of spending too much, fear of spending too little. Signs of comfort or confidence are routinely dismissed as “naïve” or uninformed. Indeed, the industry’s dominant emotional tone has often been less “golden years” and more “financial Hunger Games.”

To be clear, the concerns reflected in the survey are real.[iii] Ninety percent worry about inflation eroding assets. Eighty-seven percent worry about healthcare costs. Eighty-one percent fear a major market downturn. Those aren’t irrational anxieties — especially when retirees report spending 16% of monthly income on healthcare alone, and most say they expected Medicare to cover more than it does.[iv]

Still, there’s an important distinction between financial pressure and personal despair.

• A rational retiree can be worried and happy.
• Concerned and fulfilled.
• Budget-conscious and optimistic.

The survey quietly reflects that complexity — but the positioning treats those as polar opposites.

And while nearly two-thirds (64%) of retirees wish they had done more planning, exactly how much planning for those kinds of uncertainties would anyone ever consider to be…enough?

In other words, the picture is neither utopia nor dystopia. And, despite the industry press coverage, retirement today appears to be what it has probably always been: a balancing act between financial uncertainty and personal freedom.

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The difference is that today’s retirees are navigating that balance in public, against a backdrop of inflation spikes, market volatility, and relentless media narratives warning that disaster is just one bad CPI report away.

Yet somehow, most retirees still manage to find meaning in their retirement.

And maybe that’s the real headline here. Or should be.

• Nevin E. Adams, JD

 

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[i] See Schroders Study Reveals How Retirees Are Responding to the Affordability Crisis.

[ii] While this retiree certainly knows how to do math and understands longevity tables, if push came to shove, you’d even find ME in that 58% — though I’m hardly clueless about the probabilities. It also makes me wonder if the 42% really do know.

[iii] Even the finding that only 32% currently work with a financial advisor cuts both ways as well. On one hand, it suggests millions may lack professional guidance at precisely the moment retirement income decisions become most consequential. On the other hand, it means nearly one-third are already working with advisors — in an era when retirees have unprecedented access to digital planning tools, educational resources, and increasingly sophisticated retirement income products.

[iv] A perspective I suspect most non-retirees might share with their current health plan coverage.

Lessons, Learned

 Life has many lessons to teach us, some more painful than others — and some we’d just as soon be spared. Regardless, if you have a graduate — or if you ARE a graduate, here are some insights I’ve picked up along the way…  

When it seems too good to be true, it’s generally neither good, nor true.

Because you’re young(er), people are going to assume you know things you don’t — and assume you don’t know things you do.

Everything you’ve heard about your elders isn’t true. But some of it is.

Everything your elders think about you/your generation isn’t true. But some of it is.

Never say you’ll never… (at least not out loud).

If the only time your boss hears from you is when there’s trouble, don’t be surprised if they don’t look forward to your visits.

The people who say “it’s not about the money” generally already have some.

If you’re always the smartest person in the room, you’re probably in the wrong room.

Before hitting “Reply All,” take a walk.

A good reputation takes years to build and about five minutes to lose.

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Nobody really knows what they’re doing at first. Some are just more confident about it.

Read the room before trying to lead the room.

If you find yourself saying “no offense,” reconsider the next sentence.

ASAP rarely means the same thing to the person requesting it as it does to you.

Emails (generally) don’t have to be answered right this minute. Particularly those that arrive on the weekend (p.s. don’t get mad at your elders who send those — it’s probably habit, not an intentional intrusion into your personal space).

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. Just remember: your employer may not fall neatly into either category.

There actually ARE stupid questions. Usually the ones you ask after ignoring the instructions.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it pays to read the fine print.

A meeting without an agenda is like a boat without a rudder. You may get somewhere, but it won’t be easy, it might not wind up where you need to be — and it will take longer to get there.

Comments that begin “with all due respect” generally aren’t.

When all else fails, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone.

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There is an inverse relationship between the number of people in a meeting and its productive output.  Ditto the number of individuals copied on an email.

Generalizations are (almost) never accurate.

Never let your schooling stand in the way of your education.

Sometimes the grass on the other side looks greener because of the amount of fertilizer applied.

Never miss an opportunity to say, “thank you.”

The longer you wait to start saving for retirement, the longer you’ll need to be saving for retirement.

That 401(k) match isn’t really “free” money — but it won’t cost you a thing.

Retirement may seem a long way off — but then, not so long ago, so did graduation.

Congratulations to all the graduates out there. We’re (all) proud of you!

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

p.s.: Got any advice to add to this list? Share it in the comment section below!