July 2018

13Jul

US. Brown University Retirement Plan Lawsuit Advances

Brown University staff can advance some of their claims in a challenge over how the elite college managed their retirement savings. The workers can move on with their claims related to record-keeping services, including that Brown acted imprudently by using more than one record-keeper, not employing competitive bidding in its selection, and allowing the plans to pay excessive administrative fees, Chief Judge William E. Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island held July 11. The workers...

July 13, 2018
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13Jul

US. Wall Street managers have cost Americans more than $600 billion over the past decade

Over the last decade, fund managers who oversee the pensions of the nation’s teachers, firefighters, police and other government workers have doubled down on an investment strategy that has cost U.S. taxpayers at least $600 billion, possibly more than $1 trillion, investment data and calculations by Yahoo Finance found. Seeking higher gains, pension fund managers have upped their investment in so-called alternative strategies that are costly and weigh down returns, data shows. “We find that some of the worst-performing plans are...

July 13, 2018
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10Jul

US. A record number of folks age 85 and older are working. Here’s what they’re doing.

Seventy may be the new 60, and 80 may be the new 70, but 85 is still pretty old to work in America. Yet in some ways, it is the era of the very old worker in America. Overall, 255,000 Americans 85 years old or older were working over the past 12 months. That's 4.4 percent of Americans that age, up from 2.6 percent in 2006, before the recession. It’s the highest number on record. They're doing all sorts of jobs —...

July 10, 2018
News
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07Jul

The Changing Face of Debt and Financial Fragility at Older Ages

By Annamaria Lusardi, Olivia S. Mitchell & Noemi Oggero We investigate changes in older individuals' financial fragility as they stand on the verge of retirement. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we compare how debt has changed for successive cohorts of people age 56–61. Our analysis shows that recent older Americans close to retirement hold more debt, and hence face greater financial insecurity, than earlier generations. This is primarily due to having bought more expensive homes with...

July 7, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, , , ,
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June 2018

25Jun

The Impact of Pensions and Insurance on Global Yield Curves

By Robin M. Greenwood (Harvard Business School) & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen (National Bureau of Economic Research) We document a strong effect of pension and insurance company (P&I) assets on the long end of the yield curve. Using data from 26 countries, the yield spread between 30-year and 10-year government bond yields is negatively related to the ratio of pension assets (in funded and private pension and life insurance arrangements) to GDP, suggesting that preferred-habitat demand by the P&I sector for long-dated...

June 25, 2018
System Sustainability, ,
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16Jun

Public Pensions: State and Local Government Contributions to Underfunded Plans

By United States General Accounting Office (GAO)  Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the status of public pension plan funding, focusing on the basic pension plans of state and local governments. GAO found that: (1) states and localities with underfunded pension plans run the risk of reducing future pension benefits to taxpayers or raising revenues; (2) unfunded liabilities for all state and local pension plans totalled $200 billion in 1992; (3) contributions to pension funds in 1992 fell short of...

June 16, 2018
Books, Management, System Sustainability, , , ,
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May 2018

18May

America’s back-up retirement plan: Work

America's backup retirement plan is, well, work. More than one in three American workers are using the "gig economy" to find full- or part-time work, and for roughly one-third of that group, the side gig is specifically aimed at increasing their retirement savings, according to a new study by financial advisory firm Betterment. Perhaps not surprisingly, the older the worker, the more likely the side gig is aimed at building that retirement nest egg. Just 42 percent of those under...

May 18, 2018
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16May

US. An increasing number of savers are rejecting retirement accounts in favor of these investments

More people are stashing their money in taxable accounts and less so in employer-sponsored retirement plans. Ownership of taxable brokerage accounts jumped 10 percentage points over the last five years, and checking, saving and CD accounts increased 9 percentage points, according to retail investor data firm Hearts & Wallets. Meanwhile, ownership rates remained the same for employer-sponsored plans like a 401(k), but consumers were contributing less — a total decline of 5 percentage points. Accounts with specialties, like Roth retirement plans...

May 16, 2018
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03May

Most Americans Don’t Invest In Stocks For Retirement, But Still Fear Next Market Downturn

Retirement is just around the corner for many baby boomers, but most are not feeling very confident about their retirement preparedness according to a Bankers Life Center for Secure Retirement research report. According to the report, less than one-third (31%) of middle-income boomers feel prepared for retirement and lower-income boomers feel even less prepared. So what is driving this lack of preparedness and uneasiness? According to Scott Goldberg, President of Bankers Life, the late 2000s financial crisis acted as a...

May 3, 2018
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April 2018

23Apr

Portfolio Choice, Trading, and Returns in a Large 401(K) Plan

By Pierluigi Balduzzi (Boston College), Julie R. Agnew (College of William and Mary) & Annika E. Sundén (Stockholm University) This paper examines portfolio choice, trading behavior, and realized rates of return of more than seven thousand 401(k) retirement accounts during the April 1994-August 1998 time period. The evidence on equity allocations is indicative of prudent behavior: on average our investors hold 40% of their 401(k) portfolios in stocks. In addition, patterns of stock allocations by marital status, age, and earnings...

April 23, 2018
Pension design,
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