“Half” Baked?

I’ve never been much good in the kitchen.  I’ve neither the patience/discipline to follow most recipes, nor the innate sense for the right balance of ingredients that those with culinary talent seem to have.  That said, I learned the hard way years ago that if you mix the right items in the wrong order, or the wrong amounts of the right items, leave something to bake too long – or not long enough – the results can be disastrous.

A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts posed the question, “Are Americans Prepared for Their Golden Years?”  Perhaps not surprisingly, the report indicated that many are not.  What was surprising, however,  was the assertion that Gen-Xers (those born between 1966 and 1975), in the Pew analysis, looked to be in even worse shape than either early or late Boomers.

Previous EBRI research has found that approximately 44 percent of simulated lifepaths for Baby Boomer and Gen-Xer households are projected to run short of money in retirement, assuming they retire at age 65 and retain any net housing equity in retirement until other financial resources are depleted.  However, that includes a wide range of personal circumstances, from individuals projected to run short by as little as a dollar to those projected to fall short by tens of thousands of dollars.  Looking specifically at Gen X, many of which have decades of saving accumulations still ahead of them, nearly one-half (49.1 percent) of the simulated lifepaths of that demographic are projected to have retirement resources that are at least 20 percent more than is simulated to be needed, while approximately one-third (31.4 percent) are projected to have between 80 percent and120 percent of the financial resources necessary to cover retirement expenses and uninsured health care costs (see Retirement Income Adequacy for Boomers and Gen Xers: Evidence from the 2012 EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model).

However, in reviewing the Pew report and its associated methodology, several key differences in approach emerge.  On the one hand, the Pew report assumes that workers will receive credit for a full career in the accrual of Social Security benefits, and it also imputes a full-career accrual of defined benefit pension benefits – though many individuals don’t wait till full retirement age to collect on the former (accepting lower benefits), and many don’t accumulate enough service to be entitled to the latter (see “The Good Old Days”, “Employee Tenure Trends, 1983–2012“).  This assumption likely exaggerates the retirement readiness of older workers, who are more likely to have some defined benefit accrual.

On the other hand, the Pew report appears to assume no further contributions, either by employer or employee, to the defined contribution balances as of 2010.  That’s right, no further contributions beyond the self-reported participant balances of 2010, and no earnings projection on those assumed non-existent contributions, either.  This assumption likely serves to understate the future retirement readiness of younger workers, who have years, and in many cases decades, of savings ahead of them.

Based on the combination of those assumptions and the well-documented trend away from defined benefit plans and toward a greater reliance on defined contribution designs, it’s little wonder that the Pew report concludes that Gen Xers will be worse off than Boomers.

In sum, whether you’re baking a cake or evaluating research conclusions, if it seems a bit “off,” it’s generally a good idea to carefully review the recipe – and double check the ingredients.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

The Pew Charitable Trusts report, “Retirement Security Across Generations” is available online here.

“Like” Minded?

Several weeks back, my wife and I sat down with a financial planner to review and update our financial plans. Doing so brought with it a bit of personal trepidation since, being “in the business” I not only had a working knowledge of what needed to be done, I also had a pretty good sense of what hadn’t been done, and what hadn’t been done the way it should have been done in some time. As I surrendered copies of the statements from my three separate 401(k) accounts, rollover IRA, traditional IRA, and SEP-IRA, I found myself wondering (again) why I hadn’t gotten around to consolidating some of those accounts.

More and more Americans are finding themselves with multiple savings accounts, not only because of the relatively consistent pattern of job change in the American economy (see “Tenure, Tracked”), but because those job changes frequently result in rollovers to individual retirement accounts. On the other hand, in recent years, it has gotten easier to simply leave your 401(k) with a prior employer’s plan, and, with the convenience of online access and/or call center support, and the allure of inertia, many have surely opted to forestall, if not postpone the decision.

Those decisions have, of course, made it harder to assess the true accumulations in these plans. Indeed, today’s “average” 401(k) calculation suffers not only from being an average of widely varied tenure and age components, it increasingly represents the average of those balances with only a current employer plan.

But if you’re an individual worried about keeping up with all those accounts―or a regulator or policymaker concerned about the growing complexity of that task for those individuals―you might well wonder how those accounts are being managed? Are the investment allocations in those IRAs different from that of the 401(k)s?

New EBRI research (see “Retirement Plan Participation and Asset Allocation, 2010”) reveals that, in addition to demographic factors related to family heads, asset allocation within a family head’s retirement plan does seem to be affected by his or her ownership of other types of retirement plans.

According to the research, which was based on estimates from the Federal Reserve’s 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances,¹ those who own an IRA are more likely to be invested all in stocks if they also own a 401(k)-type of plan, and those who own a defined benefit (DB) plan and a 401(k)-type plan are also less likely to allocate the investments of that defined contribution plan to all interest-earning assets. Moreover, those family heads who are invested more heavily in stocks in their 401(k)-type plan and also own an IRA have a high probability of also being heavily invested in stocks in their IRA.

The bottom line? Participants in these plans generally invest them in similar manners, although some participants did have significantly different allocations across the two plan types. What we don’t know is if those similarities―and differences―are the result of conscious choice based on an awareness of these various plans, a consequence of investments in target-date or balanced funds, or mere coincidence.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹ It is worth noting that, while these results provide important information on behavior within retirement savings plans, it is self-reported data from a survey of a small sample of respondents, and does not include the type of detail on asset allocation within 401(k) plans that is provided by the EBRI/ICI Participant-Directed Retirement Plan Data Collection Project or on IRAs that is provided by the EBRI IRA Database. However, these results do provide some evidence of how participants who own both types of retirement plans allocate their assets among both types of plans, and this can be evaluated with future results from the combined IRA and 401(k) database that EBRI is currently completing.

More or Less?

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal’s Anne Tergesen wrote a story titled “Mixed bag for auto-enrollment.” Citing data presented at last week’s EBRI policy forum,¹ the article claimed “employees who are automatically enrolled in their workplace savings plans save less than those who sign up on their own initiative.”

She then proceeded to cite Aon Hewitt data presented at the policy forum that illustrated how workers at various salary levels at plans that offered automatic enrollment saved at a lower rate, on average, than workers at the same salary levels at plans that didn’t offer automatic enrollment. The article then went on to note that “The data confirms an analysis EBRI performed for The Wall Street Journal in 2011.”

Well, not exactly.

In a response to an article titled “401(k) Law Suppresses Saving for Retirement” that Tergesen wrote in 2011, EBRI Research Director Jack VanDerhei challenged the premise behind the headline of that article, explaining that it “…suggests that it is actually reducing savings for some people. What it failed to mention is that it’s increasing savings for many more—especially the lowest-income 401(k) participants.”

Not only that, he took issue with the conclusion, explaining that “The Wall Street Journal article reported only the most pessimistic set of assumptions and did not cite any of the other 15 combinations of assumptions reported in the study.”

The other statistic attributed to EBRI in the original WSJ article dealt with the percentage of automatic enrollment-eligible workers who would be expected to have larger tenure-specific worker contribution rates had they been voluntary enrollment-eligible instead. The simulation results EBRI provided showed that approximately 60 percent of the AE-eligible workers would immediately be better off in an AE plan than in a VE plan, and that over time (as automatic escalation provisions took effect for some of the workers) that number would increase to 85 percent (see chart below).

Are there those who once might have filled out an enrollment form and opted for a higher rate of deferral (say to the full level of match) that now take the “easy” way and allow themselves to be automatically enrolled at the lower rate adopted for most automatic enrollment plans? Absolutely. However, as the EBRI data show—and, for anyone paying attention, have shown for years now—the folks most likely to be disadvantaged by that lack of action are higher-income workers.

In fairness, while that 2011 article was titled “401(k) Law Suppresses Saving for Retirement,” the more recent coverage not only characterized automatic enrollment as a “mixed bag,” but acknowledged the “very positive effect on participation rates” as a result of automatic enrollment.

Indeed, the simple math of automatic enrollment is that you get more people participating, albeit at lower rates (until design features like automatic contribution acceleration kick in). Said another way, participation rates go up, and AVERAGE deferral rates dip—at least initially.

That might, in fact, mean that some individuals do, in fact, save less by default² than if they had taken the time to actually complete that enrollment form, or if they fail to take advantage of the option to increase that initial default.

But that ignores the reality (borne out by the data) that many workers will be saving more—because that initial savings choice was automatic.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹ Materials from EBRI’s 72nd Policy Forum, including a link to a recording of the event (courtesy of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans) are online here.

² EBRI has recently considered how much difference setting a higher default contribution rate can make in improving retirement readiness. See “Increasing Default Deferral Rates in Automatic Enrollment 401(k) Plans: The Impact on Retirement Savings Success in Plans With Automatic Escalation,” online here.

(Un) Realistic Expectations

This past weekend I joined the throngs of humanity that went to the theaters to see Iron Man 3. I grew up reading Marvel Comics, and, for the very most part, seeing those characters brought to life on the big screen has been a real treat.

I had been curious about the new Iron Man movie for some time, but wasn’t sure if it could live up to expectations based on the prior films. It’s hard to escape the endless promotions for these summer blockbusters, but I made a conscious effort to do so, and even avoided reading the reviews of the film until after I had had a chance to see it for myself. That decision involved some financial “risk” as anyone who has taken a family to the theater recently can attest.

There have, however, been disappointments along the way―sometimes the acting was bad, sometimes the storyline was (unintentionally) laughable, and sometimes the movie fell short of what I had anticipated simply because my expectations were set so high.

Over the years, the Retirement Confidence Survey¹ has helped uncover a number of interesting and intriguing perspectives about retirement, real and imagined―and no small number of what would appear to be unrealistic expectations about retirement: expectations around how long individuals think they will be able to work, for example, or that they will be able to work for pay after retirement. Additionally, there have been indications that more individuals expect to receive a pension than would be suggested by the data regarding how many American workers are actually covered by such programs.

The RCS has found that men and women have similar expectations for the age at which they plan to retire, and that, despite the fact that women tend to live longer and face higher health care expenses in retirement due to their greater longevity, women were statistically as likely as men to think they will need to accumulate less than $250,000 for retirement. More recently, an EBRI analysis indicated that married couple respondents to the RCS were citing retirement savings targets that were better suited for single individuals.²

Much of the focus around the release of the Retirement Confidence Survey was, as one might expect, on retirement confidence―an individual’s sense of their confidence in having enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement. And, despite some of the optimistic assumptions cited above, that confidence was mired at historic lows for the RCS, which has tracked those sentiments for nearly a quarter-century.

Avoiding the incessant summer blockbuster pre-release promotions and commercials takes some effort. In hindsight, going to see the movie with no real expectations beyond that set by prior films was a good decision, certainly from the standpoint of my enjoyment of the newest version.

Admittedly, planning for that financially comfortable retirement can appear a daunting task, one readily shunted aside in favor of more current, and what seem to be more pressing tasks. Despite the ready availability of free planning tools, such as the Ballpark E$timate,³ the RCS indicates that many have never made even a single attempt―have not even guessed―at how much they might need for retirement. Yet EBRI analysis indicates that those who have taken the time to do so set better targets than those who haven’t.

Ultimately, not having established a set of expectations can make for a pleasant surprise at the cinema―but it’s likely to result in a surprise of a completely different sort in retirement.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹ The 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey is available online here.

² See “A Little Help: The Impact of On-line Calculators and Financial Advisors on Setting Adequate Retirement-Savings Targets: Evidence from the 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey,” online here.

³ The BallparkE$timate® is available online here. Organizations interested in building/reinforcing a workplace savings campaign can find a variety of free resources there, courtesy of the American Savings Education Council (ASEC). Choose to Save® is sponsored by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute Education and Research Fund (EBRI-ERF) and one of its programs, the American Savings Education Council (ASEC). The website and materials development have been underwritten through generous grants and additional support from EBRI Members and ASEC Partner institutions.

Decision "Points"

There’s a saying that “the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray,” and one need look no further than the experience of a morning commute to see the principle in action.

While we all head to different places from different places, most head out for work at what for each of us is likely a consistent, regular time. That timing may be driven by external or internal factors: a mass transit schedule, by our desire to avoid traffic congestion, the constraints of fellow passengers, or simply by a need to arrive at our place of work at a specific time. But for most of us, on most days, the regularity of that schedule provides a certain dependable start to our days.

It doesn’t take much to disrupt that start, unfortunately—as anyone who has ever awakened to an unexpected snowfall, encountered the impact of a traffic accident on a major thoroughfare, or slept through a snooze alarm can attest. Sometimes we can make up the time loss imposed on our commute, sometimes we simply have to deal with the consequences of being late, and sometimes we make other adjustments in response—a different route, for example, or, if time permits, a different medium of transportation. Sometimes those alternative approaches help matters, and sometimes they don’t.

As policy makers, regulators, providers, plan sponsors and individual participants, we make decisions every day that impact not only others, but others’ choices, as well as our own. Sometimes those decisions are not only imposed by external forces, but influenced by factors over which we have little or no control.

On May 9, the Employee Benefit Research Institute will sponsor its 72nd Policy Forum. Titled “Decisions, Decisions: Choices That Affect Retirement Income Adequacy,” the sessions will be looking at factors that matter—both at the macro and micro levels. Specifically, a series of expert panels will consider what a sustained low-interest rate environment means for retirement savings and retirement income, the effect(s) of the match timing, amount, and sources on meeting plan objectives, and helping plans and participants optimize their distribution choices—rollover, drawdown, and annuity options (the agenda is online here).

Every day we make decisions—or have decisions imposed on us. These decisions, in turn, have consequences: some foreseeable, some not, others for which the true impact can only be viewed in the fullness of time. Ultimately, as with a disrupted commute, the better information we have about the nature, size, and duration of the problem, and the alternatives available, the better our choices are likely to be.

That’s what we hope to provide at EBRI’s policy forum next week: insights on key decisions and alternatives, the perspectives of experts, the sharing of research findings, the exchange of ideas.

Even the “best-laid” plans may indeed go astray. All the more reason to have a timely, working appreciation of the alternative(s).

Nevin E. Adams, JD

Information on registering for EBRI’s 72nd Policy Forum is available here.  The agenda is online here.

For those unable to attend in person, the EBRI policy forum will be webcast live by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP), online here.

“Gamble” Gambit

This past week PBS’ Frontline ran a segment on retirement titled “The Retirement Gamble.”

During that broadcast several individual cases were profiled—a single mother who lost her job (and a lot of money that she had apparently overinvested in company stock); a middle-aged couple whose husband had lost his job (and a big chunk of their 401(k) investment in the 2008 financial crisis); a couple of teachers who had seen their retirement plan investments do quite well (before the 2008 financial crisis); a 32-year-old teacher who had lost money in the markets and found herself in an annuity investment that she apparently didn’t understand, but was continuing to save; and a 67-year-old semi-retiree who had managed to set aside enough to sustain a middle-class lifestyle. The current income and/or working status of each was presented, along with their current retirement savings balance.

Much of the promotional materials around the program focused on fees, and doctoral candidate Robert Hiltonsmith featured prominently in the special. Hiltonsmith, as some may recall, was the author of a Demos report on 401(k) fees released about a year ago—one that claimed that “nearly a third” of the investment returns of a medium-income two-earner family was being taken by fees (Demos report online here), according to its model—which, it should be noted, assumed that each fund had trading costs equal to the explicit expense ratio of the fund.

A fair amount of the program was devoted to the trade-offs between active and passive/index investment strategies, and the lower fees generally associated with the latter. Participant savers might not always choose them, but PLANSPONSOR’s 2012 Defined Contribution Survey found that nearly 8 in 10 (77.4 percent) of the nearly 7,000 plans surveyed already include index fund(s) on their menu, and that nearly 9 in 10 of the largest plans do. Similarly, the Plan Sponsor Council of America’s 55th Annual Survey lists “indexed domestic equity funds” as one of the fund types most commonly offered to participants (82.8 percent of plans).

“Balance” Perspectives

Hiltonsmith, 31, “had no savings to lose” in the 2008 financial crisis, according to the Frontline report, but after entering the workforce he began saving in his workplace 401(k). However, “even in a relatively good market, he began to sense that something was wrong,” the voiceover notes. Hiltonsmith explained: “I have a 401(k), I save in it, it doesn’t seem to go up… I kept checking the statement and I’d be like, why does this thing never go up?”

For some time now, EBRI has tracked the actual experience in 401(k) accounts of consistent participants, by age and tenure. Looking at the experience of workers age 25–34, with one to four years of tenure, and considering the period Jan. 1, 2011, to Jan. 1, 2013, the average account balance of consistent participants (those who continued to participate in their workplace 401(k) plan during that time period) experienced a nearly 84 percent increase (see graphic, online here). Granted, at that stage in their career, most of that gain is likely attributable to new contributions, not market returns—but it is an increase in that savings balance, and one that Hiltonsmith,(1) as a consistent participant-saver should have seen as well.

Pension Penchant

The framing of the retirement “gamble” was that “it used to be much easier,” in 1972 when, the Frontline report states, “…42 percent of employees had a pension…” But one point the Frontline report ignores (as do many general media reports on this topic) is that there’s a huge difference between working at an employer that offers a pension plan (the apparent source of the Frontline statistic), and actually collecting a pension based on that employment. Consider that only a quarter of those age 65 or older actually had pension income in 1975, the year after ERISA was signed into law (see “The Good Old Days,” online here). Perhaps more telling is that that pension income, vital as it surely has been for some, represented less than 15 percent of all the income received by those 65 and older in 1975.

In explaining the shift to 401(k) plans, the Frontline report notes that, “over the last decade, the rules of the game changed…” and went on to note that people started living longer, there were changes in accounting rules, global competition, and market volatility that affected the availability of defined benefit pension plans. While all those factors certainly did (and still do) come into play, another critical factor—one unmentioned in the report, and one that hasn’t undergone significant change in recent years—is that most Americans in the private sector weren’t working long enough with a single employer to accumulate the service levels required to earn a full pension.

For years,(2) EBRI has reported that median job tenure of the total workforce—how long a worker typically stays at a job—has hovered around four years since the early 1950s, and five years since the early 1980s. Under standard pension accrual formulas, those kind of tenure numbers mean that, even among the minority of private-sector workers who “have” a pension, many would likely receive a negligible amount because they didn’t stay on the job long enough to earn a meaningful benefit from that defined benefit pension.(3) Consequently, one could argue that American private-sector workers have been “gambling” with their pension every time they made a job change.

The Gamble?

It is, of course, difficult to evaluate the individual circumstances portrayed in the Frontline program from a distance, and via the limited prism afforded by the interviews. Nonetheless, even those in difficult financial straits were still drawing on their 401(k): the single mother had apparently managed to hang on to her underwater mortgage by tapping into her 401(k) savings, as had the couple who incurred a surrender charge by prematurely withdrawing funds from what appeared to be some kind of annuity investment. While this “leakage” was described as a problem, it does underline the critical role a 401(k) plan can play in the provision of emergency savings and financial security during every “life-stage.” Moreover, while the report focused on the circumstances of several individuals who had saved in a workplace retirement plan, one can’t help but wonder about the circumstances of those who don’t have that option.

The dictionary defines a gamble is a “bet on an uncertain outcome.” While the characterization might seem crude, retirement planning—with its attendant uncertainties regarding retirement date, longevity risk, inflation risk, investment risk, recession risk, health care expenses, and long-term care needs(4)—could be positioned in that context.

However, the data would also seem to support the conclusion that this retirement “gamble” isn’t new—and that it may be one for which, because of the employment-based retirement plan system, tomorrow’s retirees have some additional cards to play.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

You can watch the Frontline program (along with some additional materials, and expanded transcripts of some of the program interviews) online here.

(1) The Frontline investigation also seemed to represent something of a voyage of discovery for correspondent Martin Smith, who apparently has dipped into his 401(k) several times over the years. In a moment of subtle irony, he notes that he runs a small company with a handful of employees, but was too busy to look at the “fine print” of his own company’s retirement plan, going on to express confusion as to how these funds got into his plan in the first place. Of course, as the business owner, he was likely either the plan sponsor, or hired/designated the person(s) who made that decision.

(2) EBRI provided all of the data referenced here—and much more—to the Frontline producers. In fact, Dallas Salisbury was interviewed on tape for nearly two hours, so we know they had the full picture on tape. That may be what makes the Frontline program the most disappointing, knowing that the program could have presented a balanced picture of “The Retirement Gamble” and the diversity of plans, fees, and outcomes, yet its producers chose not to do so. EBRI’s most recent report on job tenure trends was published in the December 2012 EBRI Notes, online here.

(3) As EBRI has repeatedly noted, the idea of holding a full-career job and retiring with the proverbial “gold watch” is a myth for most people. That’s especially true since so few workers even qualify for a traditional pension anymore (see EBRI’s most recent data on pension trends, online here).

(4) EBRI’s Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM) finds that for Early Baby Boomers (individuals born between 1948 and 1954), Late Baby Boomers (born between 1955 and 1964) and Generation Xers (born between 1965 and 1974), roughly 44 percent of the simulated lifepaths were projected to lack adequate retirement income for basic retirement expenses plus uninsured health care costs (see the May 2012 EBRI Notes, “Retirement Income Adequacy for Boomers and Gen Xers: Evidence from the 2012 EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model”).

"Charge" Accounts

I was a late convert to the convenience of NetFlix, and while I appreciated the convenience of delivery, when they expanded the offering to include online movie viewing “at no additional charge,” I didn’t really “get” it. Aside from the fact that, at that time, my DVD player wasn’t wireless compatible, the selection (certainly in those early days) was unremarkable at best. In fact, I remember telling a friend once that the online movies were free, and worth every penny.

The quality and breadth of selection improved over time, until of course, there came that fateful decision to charge a fee for that online movie access separate and apart from the home DVD delivery. All of a sudden, a service that had been a nice-to-have “at no additional charge” had to be viewed through a whole new prism―it was now a benefit with a cost.

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), group health plans that offer dependent coverage are required to extend coverage to workers’ children until they reach age 26, regardless of student status, marital status or financial support by the employees. It has been estimated that 3.1 million young adults have acquired health coverage as a result of the adult-dependent mandate (ADM) provision, and overall, 31 percent of employers enrolled adult-dependent children as a result of the mandate, according to a recent EBRI report (online here).

However, under PPACA, employers are not allowed to directly charge higher premiums for the cost of this “adult-dependent” coverage. An EBRI analysis of the experience of a single large employer during the period Jan. 1, 2010, through Dec. 31, 2011, found that nearly 700 adult children enrolled in the employer plan in 2011 as a result of the adult dependent mandate―and this group used about $2 million in health care services in 2011 (about 0.2 percent of the over $1 billion in total spending on health care services by that employer that year).

The EBRI report also looked at the claims behaviors of the ADM group compared with a group of dependent children ages 19–25 that were covered prior to Jan. 1, 2011, some 13,000 young adults. Both groups had health coverage for the entire 2011 calendar year through the employer examined in this study. Average spending in the ADM cohort was higher: 15 percent higher than the comparison group, in fact. While the period of review was short, and the experiences associated with that of a single large employer, the ADM group used more inpatient services than the comparison group, and, in what is perhaps the most interesting finding of the analysis, were more likely to incur claims related to mental health, substance abuse, and pregnancy.

So, while this adult-dependent coverage is currently offered “at no additional charge” (certainly for those already carrying family coverage), there are almost certainly additional costs―costs that employers and workers will (and indeed already have begun) to share through claims payments, cost sharing, and worker premiums.

Of course, as a result of this expanded coverage, there also are individuals who might otherwise not have the benefit of the coverage, either because they wouldn’t have access, or would find it to be prohibitively expensive―and this coverage might well be less expensive than the alternative consequences. Little wonder that the debate continues as to whether the provisions of PPACA will serve to increase or decrease long-term health care spending trends.

It will be interesting to see how the health care spending trends of this younger demographic change over time, and how employers respond. It also underlines the importance of ongoing research on these spending and usage patterns as implementation of the PPACA proceeds, even as it serves to remind us that there can be a difference between no additional charge, and no additional cost.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

Ripple Effects

One of my favorite short stories is Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder.” The story takes place in the future when, having figured out time travel, mankind has found a way to commercialize it by selling safaris back in time to hunt dinosaurs. Not just random dinosaurs, mind you—cognizant of the potential implications that a change in the past can ripple through and affect future events, the safari organizers take care to target only those that are destined to die in short order of natural causes. Further, participants are cautioned to stay on a special artificial path designed to preclude interaction with the local flora and fauna. Until, of course, one of the hunters panics and stumbles off the path—and the group finds that, upon returning to their own time, subtle (and not so subtle) changes have occurred. Apparently because in leaving the path, the hunter stepped on a butterfly—whose untimely demise, magnified by the passage of time produced changes much larger than one might have expected from its modest beginnings.

The recently released White House budget proposal for 2014 included a plan to raise $9 billion over 10 years by imposing a retirement savings cap for tax-preferred accounts. While initial reports focused on the aggregate dollar limit of $3 million included in the text, it soon became clear that that figure was merely a frame of reference for the real limit: the annual annuity equivalent of that sum, $205,000 per year in 2013 for an individual age 62.¹

Of course, there are a number of variables that influence annuity purchase prices. As an EBRI analysis this week outlines, while $3 million might provide that annual annuity today, if interest/discount rates were to move higher, that limit could be even lower. As the EBRI analysis explains, if you look only as far back as late 2006, based on a time series of annuity purchase prices for males age 65, the actuarial equivalent of the $205,000 threshold could be as low as $2.2 million—and a higher interest rate environment could result in an even lower cap threshold.

At the same time, the passage of time, which normally works to the advantage of younger savers by allowing savings to accumulate, tends to increase the probability that younger workers will reach the inflation-adjusted limits by the time they reach age 65, relative to older workers. The Employee Benefit Research Institute’s Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM) allows us to estimate what the potential future impact could be. Utilizing a specific set of assumptions,² EBRI finds that 1.2 percent of those ages 26–35 in the sample would be affected by the adjusted $3 million cap by the time they reach age 65, while 4.2 percent of that group would be affected by the cap of $2.2 million derived from the discount rates in 2006 cited above.

While the EBRI analysis offers a sense of how variables such as time, market returns, and discount rates can have, there are other potential “ripples” we aren’t yet able to consider, such as the potential response of individual savers—and of employers that make decisions about sponsoring these retirement savings programs—to such a change in tax policy.

Like the hunters in Bradbury’s tale, the initial focus is understandably on the here-and-now, how today’s decisions affect things today. However, decisions whose impact can be magnified by the passage of time are generally better informed when they also take into account the full impact³ they might have in the future.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹ With the publication of the final budget proposal, we also learned that the calculation of the threshold also includes defined benefit accruals. While our current analysis did not contemplate the inclusion of defined benefit accruals, it seems likely that the number of individuals affected will change. The White House budget proposal is online here.

² The specific assumptions involved taking age adjustments into account in asset allocation, real returns of 6 percent on equity investments, and 3 percent on nonequity investments, 1 percent real wage growth, and no job turnover. This particular analysis was focused on participants in the EBRI/ICI 401(k) database with account balances at the end of 2011 and contributions in that year. The assumptions used in modeling a variety of scenarios is outlined online here.

³ As with all budget proposals, most of the instant analysis focuses on the numbers. The objective in this preliminary analysis was simply to answer the immediate question: How many individuals might be affected by imposing such a cap on retirement savings accounts? Of necessity, it does not yet consider the administrative complexities of implementation and monitoring such a cap, nor does it take into account the potential response of individual savers and their employers to such a change in tax policy—all of which could create additional “ripples” of impact. The latter consideration is of particular importance in considering the implications of tax policy changes to the current voluntary retirement savings system.

Direction-Less?

Generalizations are often misleading, but I think it’s fair to say that some people (specifically those of the male gender) are notoriously reluctant to ask for directions—even when it’s painfully clear to everyone else traveling in their company that they are “lost.” If you’re not one of those people, I’ll bet you know someone (and probably more than one someone) who is.¹

The rationalizations offered by those refusing to seek help are as varied and variable as the individual circumstances that bring those hesitations to light: a shortage of time; certainty that, however lost they seem, they actually know where they are (or will be shortly); a lack of trust in the reliability of the instructions they might receive; the inconvenience of stopping…this despite the knowledge (frequently even among those reluctant to ask directions) that the modest investment of time to seek assistance will likely be far less than the time (and aggravation) that they will expend trying to find their own way.

When it comes to retirement planning, reluctance to seek help seems even more widespread. In fact, the 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey found that fewer than half of workers surveyed have ever tried to calculate what they need to save for a comfortable retirement (see “Guess Work?”)—and that’s not a new finding in a survey that now spans nearly a quarter-century.

The use of retirement planning “help,” in the form of on-line calculators and professional retirement advisors, has been linked to higher levels of retirement confidence—and with justification, according to new EBRI research.³ Turns out that the respondents to the 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey² in the lowest-income quartile who had sought the input of a financial advisor cited savings goals that, compared with those who did not, would reduce the risk of running short of money in retirement by anywhere from 9 to nearly 13 percentage points, depending on family status and gender. Those in the lowest-income quartile who used calculators chose savings targets that would, if they achieved those goals, decrease their probability of running short of money in retirement by anywhere from 14 to more than 18 percentage points.

Unfortunately, only about one-fourth of the sample studied (25.6 percent) used either of these two methods.

Why, then, have so few sought direction? Doubtless the reasons for not doing so mirror those above: a lack of time, a lack of confidence in the directions, or in the individual providing that assistance. Perhaps in the case of retirement projection calculators, the tools may be too hard to find, too complicated to use, or simply just one thing too much to do in an already too-busy day. This, it seems fair to say, despite the knowledge that seeking help would surely provide a better outcome.

What about those who didn’t seek help, who “guessed” at those retirement savings targets? Well, there were more in that category in the RCS sampling (44.6 percent)—and, perhaps not surprisingly, they tended to underestimate their savings needs—in effect, citing a goal that would leave them short of their projected financial needs in retirement.

Baseball great Yogi Berra once cautioned that “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.” When it comes to retirement, the problem generally isn’t getting there—it’s getting there before you are ready.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹ These individuals may be harder to spot these days with the widespread availability of GPS devices, but they can still be found.

² See the 2013 RCS, on-line here.

³ “A Little Help: The Impact of On-line Calculators and Financial Advisors on Setting Adequate Retirement-Savings Targets: Evidence from the 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey” on-line here.

Guess Work?

Last week a reporter asked me what finding in the 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey¹most surprised me, before acknowledging that maybe there wasn’t anything to be surprised about in a survey that has now been conducted for nearly a quarter century.Sure enough, finding that retirement confidence is (still) at an all-time low stands out when you consider that is based on sentiments over a 23-year period.² Of course, you’re also able to note that it wasn’t that long ago (2007) when those sentiments were at an all-time high.

As it turns out, the finding that stood out most to me in this year’s RCS was the response to a new question. While we have long asked about individual savings levels, and how much workers thought they would need to have accumulated by retirement in order to achieve a financially secure retirement, this year we also asked what percentage of their total household income they thought they would need to save each year from now until retirement so that they could live comfortably throughout retirement.

Granted, the most common answer—cited by 23 percent—was “don’t know/refused.” But the second-most common response was….20 percent to 29 percent.

That was an eye-opener to me. Not because we see much evidence that most individuals are actually saving at that rate³—but it does at least suggest that individuals are beginning to take seriously the amount of savings that might be required.

On the other hand, one of the RCS findings that never ceases to surprise me is the percentage of workers who say that they have ever tried to calculate how much they need to save for a comfortable retirement. This year 46 percent had done so—and while that’s less than half, it was higher than we’ve seen the past couple of years, and it was better than we’ve seen in most of the years since 1999 that we’ve asked that question (the all-time high was 53 percent in 2000).

Muting the positive message that trend might imply was the reality that those calculations often aren’t a sophisticated undertaking. Indeed, workers often guess at how much they will need to accumulate (45 percent), rather than doing a systematic retirement-needs calculation. Eighteen percent indicated they did their own estimate and another 18 percent asked a financial advisor, while 8 percent used an on-line calculator. Another 8 percent merely read or heard how much was needed.

Which brings to mind the following: Are the savings projections so high because so many workers hadn’t done a savings needs calculation? Or have they avoided doing a savings needs calculation because they thought the results would be too high?

In either event, it’s likely that their retirement confidence—and their savings goals—would be well-served by taking the time to do an actual assessment. Here’s hoping the release of this year’s Retirement Confidence Survey inspires them to do just that.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹ See EBRI’s “2013 Retirement Confidence Survey: Perceived Savings Needs Outpace Reality for Many,” on-line here.

² For some other interesting RCS trendlines, check out this post.

³ In fact, only 8 percent of the 2013 RCS worker respondents cited as a target the 0–8 percent that many industry surveys suggest is the most common savings rate (though that often doesn’t take into account the impact of the employer match).

Confidence Builders

I’ll never forget my first day of driver’s ed class. This was at a time when it was still part of the “regular” school curriculum, and we were placed in groups based on whether or not we had actually driven a car before. Now, at the time, the extent of my driving was no more than backing the family car up and down our short driveway. But driving looked easy enough, and my friends were in the “having driven” group, so I confidently “fudged” the extent of my experience and shortly found myself behind the wheel of the driver’s ed class car, along with my high school basketball coach/instructor and a couple of my friends in back.

To make a long story short, there was quite a bit of difference between backing a car up and down a driveway and navigating a car on the open road. And, but for the extra brake on the instructor’s side of the vehicle, I might have spent my first driver’s ed class waiting to be pulled out of a ditch, my confidence notwithstanding.

The recent release of the 23^rd annual Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) got a LOT of attention.¹ The headlines were mostly about Americans’ lack of confidence in their prospects for a financially secure retirement; indeed, the percentage “not at all confident” hit an all-time high for the RCS, while the percentage “very confident” remained at the all-time low it notched a year ago. A striking number of inquiries about the report focused on what could be done about retirement confidence.

Building "Blocks?"

As it turns out, there are several things that the study linked to higher confidence: having more retirement savings is perhaps the most obvious connection, and so is participation in a workplace retirement savings plan (which was also linked to larger savings balances²). However, the RCS also found that something as fundamental as having taken the time to do a retirement needs assessment made a positive difference in confidence³ – even though those who had done such an assessment tended to set higher savings goals.⁴ However, fewer than half of workers responding to the RCS have completed this assessment, and many of those who have made an attempt to figure out how much they might need – guess.⁵

Still, asked how much they need to save each year from now until they retire so they can live comfortably in retirement, one in five put that figure at between 20 percent and 29 percent, and nearly one-quarter (23 percent) cited a target of 30 percent or more. Those targets are larger than one might expect, and larger than the savings reported by RCS respondents would indicate. They do, however, suggest that some are beginning to grasp the realities of their situation – a realization that could be weighing on their confidence in the future, even as it lays the foundation for change.

Because, what really matters is not how confident you feel, but whether you have a reason to feel confident.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹See The 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey: Perceived Savings Needs Outpace Reality for Many

² According to the 2013 RCS , workers who participate in a retirement savings plan at work (45 percent) are considerably more likely than those who are offered a plan but choose not to participate (22 percent) or are not offered a plan (18 percent) to have saved at least $50,000. These participants are much less likely than others to report having saved less than $10,000 (20 percent vs. 46 percent who choose not to participate and 50 percent who are not offered a plan).

³ A great place to start figuring out what you’ll need is the BallparkE$timate®, available online at www.choosetosave.org. Organizations interested in building/reinforcing a workplace savings campaign can find a variety of free resources there, courtesy of the American Savings Education Council (ASEC). Choose to Save® is sponsored by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute Education and Research Fund (EBRI-ERF) and one of its programs, the American Savings Education Council (ASEC). The website and materials development have been underwritten through generous grants and additional support from EBRI Members and ASEC Partner institutions.

⁴ The RCS found that 31 percent who have done a calculation, compared with 14 percent who have not, say they are very confident that they will be able to accumulate the amount they need, while 12 percent who have not done a calculation, compared with 3 percent who have, report they are not at all confident in their ability to save the needed amount.

⁵Workers often guess at how much they will need to accumulate (45 percent), rather than doing a systematic, retirement needs calculation, according to the RCS, while 18 percent indicated they did their own estimate, another 18 percent asked a financial advisor, 8 percent used an on-line calculator, and another 8 percent read or heard how much was needed.

"Show" Time

Though there’s precious little worth watching on television these days, I’ll confess to having developed a fondness for the Sunday night shows that have sprung up all over cable television—series like Downton Abbey, Mad Men, Hell on Wheels, and yes, The Walking Dead. These not only keep me up on Sunday nights, but looking forward to the end of the weekend.

The “hiatus” gaps between these cable seasons are long enough that it can be hard to remember where the story line left off, though these days the standard seems to be to pick up the characters’ lives at a different point in time. Downton Abbey closes one season at the start of WWI, and opens the next in the middle of that conflict, for example—or Mad Men closes a season with the key characters having decided to split off from a stifling new British parent firm, and the next season opens with their new venture already operating as a full-fledged advertising firm. These storyline “jumps” can be a bit disorienting, but time (and the storyline) marches on.

A year ago, the Retirement Confidence Survey, conducted by EBRI and Greenwald & Associates, found that Americans’ confidence in their ability to afford a comfortable retirement was weighed down by concerns about the economy and job security, “stagnant” at record low levels. Those who participated in workplace retirement savings plans were more confident, as were those who had taken the time to estimate their retirement savings needs. A growing number of current workers were planning to work past the traditional retirement age of 65—and yet, in reality, most current retirees had left the workforce earlier than planned, usually for reasons beyond their control.

Since then, we’ve had a presidential election, seen the Supreme Court uphold a new federal health care law, crept up to the edge of a fiscal cliff (and stumbled back a bit), seen unemployment rates stabilize, and stock markets gain ground. How might those events impact or influence Americans’ preparations or retirement confidence? Have they sought—and followed—professional guidance? How much DO Americans think they need to save? And how much progress have they made?

For almost a quarter-century now—with no hiatus—the RCS has meticulously tracked the evolving trends in Americans’ confidence about retirement. Next week we’ll unveil the results of the 23rd annual Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS), the longest-running annual retirement survey of its kind in the nation. You can count on it providing some fascinating insights on where workers and retirees are, where they’ve been, and where we all need to be—with a growing sense of where we want to be tomorrow.

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

Note: The results of the 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) will be available at 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, March 19, at www.ebri.org Information and findings from prior surveys are available at www.ebri.org/surveys/rcs/2012/

"Control" Group

Last week I was speaking at a conference on the West Coast when a weather pattern emerged that threatened both my connecting flight, and my arrival at home. Alerted to the potential problem, I began seeking alternatives. Eventually, I was able to reroute my connecting flight—though doing so meant a later arrival at my home airport and, based on the trajectory of the storm, that later arrival increased the likelihood of running into problems there.

I continued to check in back home during the day—trying to gauge the storm’s progress, and to (re)evaluate my alternatives. As I boarded that final leg of the trip home, I knew a couple of things: The flight was (still) departing on time, and while it wasn’t snowing at home (yet) the forecast was now for more snow, starting later. The trip home wasn’t exactly restful (despite the hour), but having done what I could to minimize the impact of the storm on my travel, having attended to the things I could control, I boarded the plane, hopeful that the combination of my new route home, the pilot’s skill, and the storm’s track would result in a satisfactory, if somewhat stressful, conclusion.

Earlier this year EBRI was approached by Money Magazine to use the EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM)¹ to evaluate a number of potential retirement preparation scenarios, taking into account varying levels of household income, debt, marital status, retirement plan participation, health, etc. Selected results from that analysis, published in the March issue (see “Dream Big, Act Now: Six Secrets of Retirement” online here), showed the impact that various factors could have on the chances of running short of money in retirement.

Real as those factors are, many of life’s circumstances are completely beyond our control. However, some of the most important factors—including the decision to participate in a workplace retirement plan, or the amount we choose to save—are not. Consider a 45-year-old female worker who is currently making $50,000/year, with a current retirement savings balance of $50,000. Applying the RSPM model,² we find that if she contributes 1 percent of pay to her retirement savings each year, there is a 61 percent chance that she’ll run short of money in retirement. On the other hand, a 10 percent annual contribution rate (which could be her’s along with an employer match) reduces that probability to 38 percent, while a 15 percent annual contribution rate reduces that risk to just 1 in 4 (see chart below).

My flight home from the conference was never risk-free, even before Mother Nature decided to throw a wrench into my carefully designed itinerary. That said, having the potential problem highlighted early enough allowed me to take steps to avoid the worst of what surely would have been a very long and arduous flight home, arriving home two hours later than I had originally planned, but well ahead of my likely arrival had I stayed on my original flights.

Much of today’s retirement planning tends to focus on things over which we, as individual retirement savers, have no control—things like investment returns. Perhaps those looking for true retirement serenity might, like those who invoke the so-called “Serenity Prayer,” be better advised to seek “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹ RSPM grew out of a multi-year project to analyze the future economic well-being of the retired population at the state level. After conducting studies for Oregon, Kansas, and Massachusetts, a national model—the EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM)—was developed in 2003, and by 2010 it has been updated to incorporate several significant changes, including the impacts of defined benefit plan freezes, automatic enrollment provisions for 401(k) plans, and the recent crises in the financial and housing markets. EBRI has recently updated RSPM for changes in financial and real estate market conditions as well as underlying demographic changes and changes in 401(k) participant behavior since January 1, 2010 (based on a database of 23 million 401(k) participants).More information, and a chronology of the RSPM is available online here.

² This application of the RSPM assumed stochastic returns with an average of 8.9 percent for stocks and 6.3 percent for bonds.

Spend "Thrift"

Having now lived in our new home long enough for most of the extraordinary expenses to emerge, and for the costs of living in a different place to become “normal,” my wife and I recently sat down with a financial planner to update our retirement plan(s). Having gathered the requisite documents regarding retirement savings, insurance, wills, and investments, we turned to our current budget and spending patterns.

Retirement remains a relatively distant goal—but we are at a point in our lives where we can see the end of certain expenses (college tuition for the kids, the mortgage on the house), and the need for different, and potentially higher, levels of expenditure on others (insurance, long-term care). And, while we’ve long done budgets, established goals, and set aside funds to meet long-term objectives, retirement planning—as those who have undertaken to do so can attest—takes that focus to a whole new level, as you begin to take into account different sources of income, as well as expenses.

A recent EBRI Issue Brief (see “Income Composition, Income Trends, and Income Shortfalls of Older Households,” online here) examined the trends in income and spending among older American households. Not surprisingly, for all age groups above 65, Social Security remains the primary source of income, and by significant amounts. Consider that in 2009, households ages 65–74 and households with members age 85 or above received 54 percent and 66 percent of their total household incomes, respectively, from Social Security benefits. Moreover, the proportionate importance of Social Security income increases with age.

Additionally, income from pensions and annuities (including distributions from IRAs) is the second-largest source of income for older households. In 2009, households ages 65–74 received 17.1 percent and households above age 85 received 15.3 percent of their incomes from pensions and annuities.

As you might expect, the sources of income, and their proportionate contributions, varied over time—but the report noted that more than half (about 60 percent) of elderly American households do not yet appear to be “decumulating,” in that they spent less than their incomes. On the other hand, there were some—in 2009 more than 14 percent of older households—who spent considerably more than their income: 175 percent, in fact. Of some concern, the EBRI report noted that households that face income shortfalls not only tend to have much lower levels of assets, they spend down their liquid assets at a faster rate than households with no income shortfalls.

We should expect to spend more than we “make” (in the form of new income) in retirement. That’s why reliable “new” income sources in retirement, whether Social Security or pensions, systematic withdrawals from 401(k)s or IRAs, are so important, especially as “old” sources (such as that regular payroll check) fade away—certainly if you don’t want to run out of retirement income before you run out of retirement.

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

Impact "Ed"

Last month, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) held a hearing titled “Pension Savings: Are Workers Saving Enough for Retirement?” The answer to that question is, of course, about as varied as the individual circumstances it contemplates, but certainly at a high level, the best answer is, “it depends.”

It depends on your definition of “enough,” for one thing—and it might well depend on your definition of retirement, certainly as to when retirement begins, not to mention your assumptions about saving and/or working during that period.(1) While those are individual choices (sometimes “choices” imposed on us), they can obviously make a big difference in terms of result.

For public policy purposes, EBRI has defined adequate retirement income as having the financial resources to cover basic expenses plus uninsured medical costs in retirement. Working from that definition as a starting point, along with an assumption that retirement represents the cessation of paid employment and begins at age 65, we have projected that approximately 44 percent of Baby Boomer and Gen-Xer households are simulated to be at risk of running short of money in retirement, assuming they retain any net housing equity until other financial resources are depleted. That’s a lot of households, to be sure, but as an EBRI report noted last year, it includes a wide range of personal circumstances, from individuals projected to run short by as little as a dollar to those projected to fall short by tens of thousands of dollars.(2)

However, the focus of the recent Senate HELP hearing quickly turned from an acknowledgement that many workers aren’t saving enough to what to do about it. In a recent response to questions posed at the hearing,(3) EBRI Research Director Jack VanDerhei compiled a list of alternatives that EBRI research has modeled in recent years, some mentioned at the hearing, along with the impact each is projected to have on that cumulative savings shortfall.

Specifically, the impacts quantified on retirement readiness included in EBRI’s response were:

• The availability of defined benefit (pension) plans.
• Future eligibility for a defined contribution (401(k)-type) plan.
• Increasing the 401(k) default deferral rate to 6 percent.
• Job changes and default deferral rate restarts.
• 401(k) loans and pre-retirement withdrawals.

The impacts of these factors vary, of course. Consider that, overall, the presence of a defined benefit accrual at age 65 reduces the “at-risk” percentage by about 12 percentage points. On the other hand, merely being eligible for participation in a DC plan makes a big difference as well: Gen Xers with no future years of DC plan eligibility would run short of money in retirement 60.7 percent of the time, whereas fewer than 1 in 5 (18.2 percent) of those with 20 or more years of future eligibility are simulated to run short of money in retirement.(4)

Ultimately, if you’re looking to solve a problem, it helps to know what problem you’re trying to solve. And you don’t just want to know that a solution will make a difference, you want to know how much of a difference that solution will make.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

(1) Many other projections overlook, implicitly or explicitly, uninsured medical costs in retirement, and many simply publish a projected average result that will be correct only 50 percent of the time, without acknowledging these limitations. Moreover, while various estimates have been put forth for the aggregate retirement income deficit number, when taking into account current Social Security retirement benefits and the assumption that net housing equity is utilized “as needed,” as well as uninsured health care costs, the EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model (RSPM) indicates the aggregate national retirement income deficit to be $4.3 trillion for all Baby Boomers and Gen.

(2) Nearly one-half (49.1 percent) of Gen Xers are projected to have at least 20 percent more than is simulated to be needed, for example, while about 1 in 5 (19.4 percent) are projected to have less than 80 percent of what is needed. See “All or Nothing? An Expanded Perspective on Retirement Readiness,” online here.

(3) The EBRI response to the Senate HELP hearing questions is available online here.

(4) See “Retirement Income Adequacy for Boomers and Gen Xers: Evidence from the 2012 EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model,” online here.

The First Step

For me, the hardest part of writing has always been that first sentence.

I don’t usually struggle with the topic, the angle to take, the length, the clever title, nor even the research and analysis that might be required to support the point(s) being made. All of those take time, energy, and effort, of course—but nothing like the effort I put into crafting those first few words. What makes that all the more ironic, particularly in view of the energy expended, is that the first sentence I wind up using often isn’t the one with which I began. It’s just the one that keeps me from getting started.

Aside from strained finances, “getting started” is perhaps one of the most commonly cited problems in saving. Most know the importance of saving, and appreciate the risk(s) of not having an emergency fund, or lacking adequate retirement savings. We have goals—both short- and long-term—that can be quantified, the ability to take advantage of payroll deductions, and/or regular account transfers from checking to savings, that can make savings easier. And yet, certainly outside of the structures of workplace-based retirement plans, many don’t save as they know they should.

According to the 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS),¹ workers who contribute to a retirement savings plan at work (45 percent) are considerably more likely than those who are not offered a plan (22 percent) to have saved at least $50,000, and were much less likely to report having saved less than $10,000 (24 percent vs. 63 percent who are not offered a plan).

There are a lot of “reasons” to put off savings. For some it’s the inconvenience of having to fill out a form, stop by the bank, or logging on to a website. Not knowing how much to save stymies some, while others are “stopped” by the size of a savings goal that may seem insurmountable. Still others are thwarted by what are, or appear to be, more pressing financial concerns.

In just a couple of weeks America Saves Week² will draw heightened attention to the benefits of saving—the importance of setting a goal, making a plan, and taking advantage of ways to save automatically—not just for one week, but for the rest of the year as well.

Like that first sentence, when it comes to saving, sometimes all you need is to get started. That starts with a decision to Choose to Save®³—and there’s no better time to start on that path to Save For Your Future® than today.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

Organizations interested in building/reinforcing a workplace savings campaign can find free resources at www.asec.org including videos, savings tips, and the Ballpark E$stimate® retirement savings calculator, courtesy of the American Savings Education Council (ASEC).

¹ Information from the 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) is available online here. Organizations interested in underwriting the RCS can contact Nevin Adams at nadams@ebri.org

² America Saves Week is an annual event where hundreds of national and local organizations promote good savings behavior and individuals are encouraged to assess their own saving status. Coordinated by America Saves and the American Savings Education Council, America Saves Week is an annual opportunity for organizations to promote good savings behavior and a chance for individuals to assess their own saving status. ASEC is a program of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). Over 750 organizations have signed up to participate in the 7th annual America Saves Week, taking place February 25–March 2, 2013, in a nationwide effort to help people save more successfully and take financial action. More information is available at www.americasavesweek.org

³ Choose to Save® is sponsored by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute Education and Research Fund (EBRI-ERF) and one of its programs, the American Savings Education Council (ASEC). The website and materials development have been underwritten through generous grants and additional support from EBRI members and ASEC Partner institutions.

"Missed" Behavior

As the nation continues to grapple with fiscal challenges, the subject of so-called “tax expenditures,” (the amount of tax breaks accorded various programs) has attracted a great deal of attention. Critics of the current tax preferences structure for work place retirement plans have questioned the efficacy of those preferences relative to the savings produced.

In that vein, a recent study¹ examined the experience of the Danish pension system to consider the relative impact of government retirement-savings tax preferences on savings behaviors, as well as the impacts on savings patterns of a mandate that required all Danish citizens to contribute 1 percent of their earnings to a retirement savings account from 1998 until 2003.

In explaining their rationale for drawing on the Danish pension experience, the study’s authors described that nation’s pension system as “broadly similar in structure” to that in the United States and other developed countries, in that it has individual accounts, employer-provided pensions, and a government-supported defined benefit (DB) retirement plan. However, while the components are similar, as a recent EBRI Notes article² points out, the Danish retirement system functions differently in several critical aspects.

The Danish Experience

Not surprisingly, the research on Danish workers noted a “sharp increase” in savings rates in 1998 (when the mandate took hold), and sharp reductions in total savings in 2004 (when the mandate lapsed). They also considered worker savings responses when, in 1999, the Danish government reduced the subsidy for contributing to capital pension accounts for individuals in the top income tax bracket, noting that while contributions fell sharply for individuals in the top bracket, they “remained virtually unchanged for individuals just below that bracket.” In other words, the individuals directly affected by changes in the incentives reacted, while those for whom the tax subsidy was unchanged did not.

They also found that the reduction in incentives also had a larger effect on Danish workers who make frequent changes to their pension contributions. In essence, Danish savers who were actively making decisions about their pension contributions were more likely to respond to the change in incentives than other individuals. This group the study authors classified as “active savers,” who, as it turns out, also have significantly higher wealth/income ratios and were more likely to be older than other Danish workers in the study.

Combining all these results, the authors arrive at two top-line conclusions about the saving behavior of Danish workers. First, that only 15 percent of those individuals are “active” savers, that only those active savers respond to tax incentive changes, and then largely only by reallocating savings between their tax-deferred pension accounts and taxable savings accounts. Second, for these active savers, a $1 of tax expenditure by the government on subsidies for retirement savings raises total savings by only about 1 cent, on average. Not surprisingly, these conclusions have drawn the attention of those who question the efficacy of the current retirement savings tax incentives in the U.S. But is this Danish experience relevant to the United States?

For the most part, the U.S. private sector relies on a voluntary retirement system—both on the part of workers to participate and save, and, significantly, on the part of employers to not only sponsor but also encourage participation with education, payroll deduction, and matching contributions. Furthermore, while U.S. employers sponsor these programs to attract and retain workers, they are encouraged to do so by certain tax preferences, conditional on administering the plan in accordance with various “nondiscrimination” standards. However, if the tax-deferred status of pension savings accounts were altered, previous surveys have shown these ties would almost certainly be weakened, if not entirely broken.³

Ultimately, the study of Danish worker savings behaviors was just that, and—as a study of individual savings behaviors in that environment—it has merit. It did not, however, consider the reaction of employers to these kind of changes. Those who would draw lessons from that experience should consider that the “success” of defined contribution work place retirement plans in the United States currently depends on the behavior of TWO parties: workers who voluntarily elect to defer compensation, and employers that choose to sponsor and, in many cases, contribute to them.

Nevin E. Adams, JD

¹ See Chetty, Raj, John N. Friedman, Soren Leth-Petersen, Torben Heien Nielsen, and Tore Olsen, “Active vs. Passive Decisions and Crowd-Out in Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Denmark,” NBER Working Paper # 18565, November 2012, online here.

² See “Tax Preferences and Mandates: Is the Danish Savings Experience Applicable to the United States?”

³ A survey conducted on behalf of The Principal Financial Group in 2011 determined that if workers’ ability to deduct any amount of the 401(k) contribution from taxable income was eliminated, 65 percent of the plan sponsor respondents would have less desire to continue offering their 401(k) plan. A separate survey of plan sponsors by AllianceBernstein that same year found that small plan sponsors were more likely to respond negatively to a proposed change in the deductibility of contributions by employees than larger employers—the impact of the loss of access to plans, and to the matching contributions often associated with those plans, was documented in previous EBRI research. See “Modifying the Federal Tax Treatment of 401(k) Plan Contributions: Projected Impact on Participant Account Balances,” online here.

Picture Puzzle

One of my favorite memories of visiting my grandparents over the holidays was working on jigsaw puzzles. These were generally large, complicated affairs—whose construction was spread over days, as various family members would stop by to work on a section, to build on a border, or sometimes contribute a single piece they would spot as they drifted by on their way to another activity. Perched in a prominent place throughout would be the puzzle lid with that all-important picture of what we were working toward to help keep all those individual, and sometimes fleeting, efforts in the proper perspective, that made it possible to differentiate the blue of what would appear to be sky from what would turn out to be an important, but obscure section of mountain stream.

In retirement plans, one of the more intransigent concerns for policy makers, providers, and plan sponsors alike is what has been called the “annuity puzzle”—the reluctance of American workers to embrace annuities as a distribution option for their retirement savings. What economists call “rational choice theory”(1) suggests that at the onset of retirement individuals will be drawn to annuities, because they provide a steady stream of income, and address the risk of outliving their income. And yet, given a choice, the vast majority don’t.

Over the years, a number of explanations have been put forth to try and explain this reluctance: the fear of losing control of finances; a desire to leave something to heirs; discomfort with entrusting so much to a single insurer;, concern about fees; the difficulty of understanding a complex financial product; or simple risk aversion—all have been studied, acknowledged, and, in many cases, addressed, both in education and in product design, with little impact on take-up rates.

As defined contribution programs have grown, those frustrated with the tepid rate of annuity adoption have sought to bring employers into the mix by providing them (and the plans they sponsor) with a range of alternatives: so-called “in- plan” retirement income options, qualified default investment alternatives that incorporate retirement income guarantees, and expanded access to annuities as part of a distribution platform. In recent years, regulators have also entered the mix, among other things issuing a Request for Information (RFI) regarding the “desirability and availability of lifetime income alternatives in retirement plans,” conducting a two-day hearing on the topic, and (as recently as last year) issuing both final and proposed regulatory guidance.

Yet today the annuity “puzzle” remains largely unsolved. And, amidst growing concerns about workers outliving their retirement savings, a key question—both as a matter of national retirement policy and understanding the potential role of plan design and education in influencing individual decision-making—is how many retiring workers actually choose to take a stream of lifetime income, vs. opting for a lump sum.

As outlined in a new EBRI Issue Brief,(2) the evidence on annuitization in workplace pension plans has been mixed. But the EBRI report provides an important new perspective to a 2011 paper titled “Annuitization Puzzles” by Shlomo Benartzi, Alessandro Previtero, and Richard H. Thaler.(3) In that paper, they analyzed 112 different DB plans provided by a large plan administrator and, focusing on those who retired between ages 50 and 75 with at least five years of job tenure and a minimum account balance of $5,000, and noted that “…virtually half of the participants (49 percent) selected annuities over the lump sum,” further observing that “When an annuity is a readily available option, many participants who have non-trivial account balances choose it.”

The study’s authors went on state that “The notion that consumers are simply not interested in annuities is clearly false,” explaining that “…the common view that there is little demand for annuities even in defined benefit plans is largely driven by looking at the overall population of participants, including young and terminated employees and others with small account balances who are either required to take a lump-sum distribution or simply decide to take the money.”

Mixed Behaviors?

In essence, Benartzi’s “Annuitization Puzzles” study says that much of the existing research draws inaccurate conclusions by mixing the behaviors of younger workers with smaller balances with those who might, based on their age and financial status, be expected to choose an annuity. However, as noted in the EBRI Issue Brief, that study failed to take into consideration what has long been known to be a key element in retirement plan behaviors: retirement plan design. In effect, the Benartzi study blends the behaviors of participants who have the ability to choose an annuity with those who have either no choice, or one restricted by their plan.

What kind of difference might this make? Well, taking into account the same types of filter on tenure, balance, and age employed by the Benartzi study, as well as a series of plan design restrictions, EBRI found that for traditional defined benefit plans(4) that imposed no restriction on doing so, fewer than a third of those with balances greater than $25,000 opted for an annuity, as did only about 1 in 5 whose balances were between $10,000 and $25,000. Those with balances between $5,000 and $10,000 were even less likely to do so.(5) In sum, even filtering to focus on the behaviors of individuals seen as most likely to choose an annuity distribution, we found that, given an unfettered choice, the vast majority do not.

Ultimately, the EBRI analysis shows that, to a large extent, plan design drives annuitization decisions.(6) We know that plan design changes have been successful in influencing participant behavior in DC plans via auto-enrollment and auto-escalation, and the new EBRI study suggests that plan design can also play a critical role in influencing distribution choices.

It also shows the importance of taking into account the whole picture when you’re trying to solve a puzzle.

Nevin E. Adams, JD


(1) “Annuitization Puzzles,” by Shlomo Benartzi, Alessandro Previtero and Richard H. Thaler is online here.

(2) According to Investopedia, it is “…an economic principle that assumes that individuals always make prudent and logical decisions that provide them with the greatest benefit or satisfaction and that are in their highest self-interest.”

(3) See the January 2013 EBRI Issue Brief, no. 381, “Annuity and Lump-Sum Decisions in Defined Benefit Plans: The Role of Plan Rules,” online here.

(4) Participants in cash balance plans were even less likely to choose annuities than those in “traditional” final-average-pay defined benefit plans.

(5) The Benartzi study filtered only on individuals with a balance greater than $5,000.

(6) The EBRI analysis also found that annuitization rates increase steadily with account balance for older workers (but not for younger workers), and that annuitization rates also increase with tenure. See “Annuity and Lump-Sum Decisions in Defined Benefit Plans: The Role of Plan Rules,” online here.