| | Benefits & Administration | | Beyond Auto-Enroll: Auto-Escalation and Stretched Match | | Plan sponsors that have adopted automatic
enrollment may, indeed, like the numbers they see. Joe Ready, director of
institutional retirement and trust for Wells Fargo Retirement, is emphatic:
“The only way people will have a good retirement outcome is to save their way
there.” Utilizing automatic deferral escalation and stretched matching formulas
are “the next evolution of how we can help on their savings behavior,” he says.Read more > | | More 403(b) Sponsors Contributing to Employee Accounts | | Non-profit organizations that sponsor 403(b)
retirement plans saw steady increases in participant contributions, leading to
higher average account balances, according to the 2015 403(b) Plan Survey from
the Plan Sponsor Council of America (PSCA). The seventh annual benchmarking
survey of 403(b) plans, sponsored by the Principal Financial Group, also found
a significant increase in the number of plans offering an employer
contribution—up to 96.6% percent in 2014 from 82.7% in 2013. Nearly one-quarter
of 403(b) plan sponsors match employee contributions dollar for dollar up to
the first 5% or 6% of salary. “The large jump in plans offering employer
contributions is one of the most noteworthy findings in this year’s survey,”
says Hattie Greenan, PSCA’s director of research and communications.Read more > | | Baby Boomers, those between the ages of 49 and
67, and Generation X, between the ages of 35 and 48, do not appear to view
carrying debt as a stigma, according to Allianz Life Insurance Company of North
America’s “Generations Apart” survey. The large balances that they are carrying
could put their retirement in jeopardy, Allianz says.Read more > | | Workplace the Right Place for Financial Education | | On March 17, the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) convened a group of 20 financial literacy leaders and experts for
a forum focusing on financial education in the workplace. Forum participants pointed
out that employers already provide information about employee benefits, have
key information about employees’ lives, and are generally trusted to provide
sound financial information and advice. They suggested information provided by
employers should go beyond the current emphasis on retirement and other
benefits to include education about budgeting, money management, building
emergency savings and understanding the financial impact of health care.Read more > |
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