May 2024
23May

There’s a bold fix to America’s broken retirement system

By Teresa Ghilarducci     In March, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink made headlines with a shareholder letter warning about our broken retirement system, noting that "nearly half of Americans aged 55 to 65 reported not having a single dollar saved in personal retirement accounts. Nothing in a pension. Zero in an IRA or 401(k).” The American worker knows the retirement system is broken and they don’t like it. In a recent national survey, 79% of those who responded said that America is facing a...

May 23, 2024
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23May

UK. Reforms to ‘unlock’ pension savings must not undermine financial stability, IMF warns

By Sophie Smith   Reforms to unlock pension savings for higher-return investments should not undermine financial stability or pensioner outcomes, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said, also emphasising the need for broader pension adequacy improvements. In its concluding statement on the UK, the IMF argued that while there is a clear economic rationale for consolidating small pension funds, and potential benefits from encouraging the sector to invest more in higher-growth assets, realising these outcomes will take time and persistent efforts. For instance,...

May 23, 2024
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20May

South Africa. New law enables pension fund members to access their savings

Pension fund members are set to access a third of their pensions within the next four months. The National Assembly unanimously approved the Pension Fund Amendment Bill after it was sent back for concurrence by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) with technical amendments. The bill, introduced by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in January, provides for a “two-pots” system that divides pension contributions into two separate pots: a savings pot and a retirement pot, with effect from September. It proposes that retirement...

May 20, 2024
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17May

Goldman Strikes $43 Billion Investing Deal for UPS Pension Funds

By Marion Halftermeyer, Sridhar Natarajan   Goldman Sachs Group Inc. clinched a $43 billion mandate to invest pension fund assets of parcel-delivery company UPS, in one of the largest deals of its kind. The investment mandate announced Thursday pushes Goldman, which manages some $325 billion of such pension assets, closer to its goal of surpassing rivals in the next three to five years. Those rivals include Marsh McLennan’s Mercer, BlackRock Inc. and Russell Investments. The multitrillion-dollar global business of taking on investing responsibility...

May 17, 2024
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17May

US. Wisconsin pension fund now includes bitcoin

BY RICH KREMER   Wisconsin’s pension fund has added bitcoin to its balance sheets, buying more than $160 million worth of shares in two newly approved funds earlier this year. U.S. Securities and Exchange filings from the State of Wisconsin Investment Board show that between Jan. 1 and March 31, it bought just more than $99 million worth of shares in a bitcoin exchange-traded fund, or ETF, from investment juggernaut Blackrock. The Investment Board, known as SWIB, also bought about $64 million worth of another...

May 17, 2024
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16May

Up to 246 million older people may be exposed to heat risk by 2050 due to global warming

By Bob Yirka   A team of Earth and environmental scientists at the CMCC Foundation–Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, working with a pair of colleagues from Boston University, has found evidence suggesting that as many as 246 million people around the globe may be at risk of heat exposure by 2050 due to global warming and an aging population. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes how they used climate models to assess global hotspots and compared them with population projections for...

May 16, 2024
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16May

Centenarians Are on the Rise: How Living Longer Will Affect Society’s Economics

By JayDee Vykoukal   According to a Pew Research Center analysis of United States Census Bureau data, the number of Americans aged 100 and older is expected to more than quadruple over the next three decades. The population is projected to reach 422,000 in 2054, up from an estimated 101,000 in 2024. These centenarians aren’t the only aging demographic on the rise. The 2020 U.S. Census count found one in six Americans is over 65, compared to less than 1 in 20 in 1920. Older...

May 16, 2024
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15May

Pension Reform in Lebanon: Good Intentions, Uncertain Outcomes

By Haneen Sayed, David Robalino, Ibrahim Muhanna   The passing of Pension Law 319 by Lebanon’s Parliament in December 2023 was a milestone. For decades, the vast majority of the Lebanese people have lived with little or no income security in their old age, a situation that has worsened since the economic-financial crisis that began in 2019. Approximately 80 percent of the Lebanese population has no formal pension coverage, which forces elderly people to rely on family or other types of informal support. Rapid...

May 15, 2024
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15May

Retirement Planning: Does It Make Sense to Plan to Age 95?

BY  TED GODBOUT   A new report out this week provides an interesting take on whether it makes sense for retirees and near-retirees to base their retirement planning under the industry-wide assumption that they will live to age 95. Instead of simply using age as a factor in determining how much to save and spend for purposes of retirement planning, the report by HealthView Services examines the financial impact for clients of planning to age 95 versus beginning the discussion using actuarial...

May 15, 2024
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13May

The stunning financial benefits of working just one year longer

By Jordan Rosenfeld   By the time you reach your mid-fifties you might already be looking ahead to that wonderful day when you can retire, even if it’s a decade away. It’s natural to feel a sense of urgency when you’ve been working a long time and, by the time you hit 60, you might barely be able to contain yourself from jumping ship at 62 — the earliest age you can take Social Security. However, according to Chris Urban — a CFP and...

May 13, 2024
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